Review of Silent Running (1972) by Tomas T — 18 Dec 2011

Earth has faced an ecological disaster making all natural plant life extinct. Few brave individuals take up the task of preserving earth's indigenous plant life on three huge space ships with built in domes fort the earth's remaining plant life. Silent Running has all the right stuff to make it into an epic sci-fi adventure movie but it is not meant to be.

Aboard the three space ships are Lowell (Bruce Dern) and his fellow crew. While Lowell's colleagues battle boredom on board the space ship, Lowell has grown an obsession like affection for the forests he takes care of. Naturally it comes as a grave disappointment and shock to him when their superiors order the forests destroyed and the space ships to return to earth. Defying the orders and rallying few mechanical droids for his cause, Lowell sets on a quest to save earths remaining plant life.

Sounds epic enough and that it is. The only problem being is the crawling slow pace which fails to keep the viewer interested even for the rather short 1h 29min running time. Much of the screen time is spent on Lowell's dragging monologues where he ponders endlessly the morality of his actions and their consequences. Undoubtedly this raises many philosophical questions and offers the opportunity for the viewer to do some soul searching, but it does not make Silent Running into a very entertaining movie. In the end Silent Running can be considered a cult sci-fi movie with deep meaning buried into it, but that does not make it into a classic. Thus Silent Running is the kind of movie which is difficult to recommend to people as the movie's ultimate goal is not to entertain, but to inspire thought.