Review of Silent Running (1972) by Jw M — 01 Jan 2010

I have never understood why so many people hold this film in high regard. Hahaha, oh man this is bad. Not "bad" bad, but baaaaad, haha, oh god bad. Like "what the hell am I watching?" bad.

The main character is this totally loco whiny space hippie who's working on this forested spaceship with these three jackass bullies. The problem is that he never tells them why the forests are worth saving.

Mostly he just says because they're beautiful. If the film was made nowadays the makers would be aware enough of all the science behind environmentalism to actually make a case for it beyond "hug the trees! They're so beautiful!" So it lacks that.

I think that when he kills off the other guys (spoiler, woo!) he should have not blown up the two in the forest he ejected. He should have left them to live in it floating through space so they would've had to live off the land.

Now that's a cool idea.