Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Silent Running



Silent Running- 1972

                 On a preservation spacecraft called Valley Forge, a half greenhouse half space ship located somewhere near Saturn. Silent Running is the most eco-friendly sci fi movie this semester and like any good sci fi movie, Silent Running explores contemporary fears of human behavior. This story is very one sided in that there is no subtlety in delivering the overall message. After spending years in space growing in maintaining the Valley Forge, American Airlines recalls the cargo ships and orders the greenhouses to be nuked; not so subtly implying that big business is destroying the planet for profit. The main character Freeman Lowell is a passionate biologist / botanist whose primary goal of preserving the forestation in order to return it to the earth has been crushed. Unlike Lowell the rest of the crew is excited to get back to Earth and Lowell really loses his cool when the crew doesn't care that the forest and greenhouses are going to be destroyed. Lowell sets up a subterfuge and kills the rest of the crew by locking them in the greenhouses that are going to be nuked and lies to Mission Control about what's happening. Lowell now alone on the Valley Forge has chosen isolation; he is now the crazy off the grid pariah. At this point in the film everything feels a bit over the top, music, Bruce Dern’s acting and the extremes in ideas between peace and destruction. Lowell chooses to kill 3 humans over destroying the greenhouses and this is justified in his own mind but seems insane. Lowell is now the tree hugging psychopaths roaming the universe alone with 2 robots, Hewey and Dewey. Ultimately Lowell symbolically programs one of the robots to maintain the last remaining greenhouse deposit into the abyss and then blows himself up after receiving communications of his retrieval from Mission Control. Silent running has an interesting story that questions human impact on the earth obviously a growing concern the 70's and still resonates today. This particular movie very in your face regarding content, typically sci-fi movies don't feel so preachy but the overall message of human and corporate greed destroying our natural world is poignant. The overall aesthetic of the film is decent, while the ships interior and exterior are well crafted. The forests and gardens seemed a bit neglected which is kind of funny because it was Lowell’s obsession. Silent Running as a whole is entertaining, somewhat campy film that at least has something important to say to a broad audience in order to invite a change to our environment.

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