Watched this after getting onto a scifi kick this past week and reading many recommendations for Silent Running, with a some reviewers stating its as good or even better than 2001.Bad move, this movie is cringy AF right from the opening credits. The FX are the only interesting thing happening here. The praise for this film's delivery of its message must be coming from some very simple minds that do not get embarrassed watching poorly written and overacted scenes conveying simplistic ideas as if they are so deep, man. No scifi aliens here, but plenty of alienation for viewers such as myself.

"Silent Running" a movie directed by special effects photographer Douglas Trumbull, produced in the season of 1970/1971 at some remote airfield hangar in Van Nuys, California and starring heart-out-acting Bruce Dern as an space traveling environmentalist, who suffers a nervous breakdown by killing off his entire crew in order to ignite robots to do their jobs and eventually sending his long-time cared for botanic forest under a dome into deep space before ending the mission with complete annihilation of the spaceship, which had been designed to escape Earth in such a desolated state that visuals from "Mad Max" (1979) to "The Road" (2009) pop into my mind, where it supposed to be believed that not even one leaf grows on a tree anymore.Director Douglas Trumbull puts his entire anger, disappointment and sorrow into a picture about the state of the America's union since 1865 with another war raging in Vietnam a hundred years later, while scrupulous industrialized capitalists earning for their retirement in the 1990s despite all warning signs of a polluted world in constant decay; a picture, which runs along within a brotherhood of dystopian Science-Fiction-Films of the early 1970s as "THX 1138" (1971), "The Omega Man" (1971) or "The Andromeda Strain" (1971) directed by Robert Wise, which is arguably the most accomplished one with an nerve-wrecking split-second key-to-key-hole finale. All pictures utilized the elements of research, science and fictional story-telling to give their emotions of contemporary environmental as well as governmental issues a visual playground.If "Silent Running" can be watched closely enough, preferably in an auditorium with 70mm film print, it is possible to find ingredients of the later much more audience-attracting contents as "Star Wars" (1977) or "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" (1977), which serve to this day as role models of workday escaping motion pictures, where no controversy has been allowed, which may go beyond the choice between a soda drink and a cup of coffee toward the way back from the movie house to home to hit a midnight grocery store to indulge further into a synthetic food-chain and forget about the picture the next morning, yet wishing to watch it again a year later in hope of feeling the same escapology emotions to block out the core of a universal contradiction between nature versus industry.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Read a brief synopsis and Silent Running looks interesting. The film imagines the dreadful prospect of a dystopian world that's bereft of wildlife and personality. It's well intentioned, prescient and chimes with contemporary environmental issues. This should be compelling, but it's just a drag.Silent Running takes place aboard a spaceship which has several domes containing an array of plants and wildlife. These are maintained by Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), a man whose strong views on ecology make him a pariah among the other crewmen. When Lowell's forestry is arranged to be destroyed by the powers that be, he reacts in a way that is, to understate, morally dubious.One of the main reasons why this is all such a drag is because we're given no depth, it isn't explained why Earth is a barren dystopia or why they're going to Saturn. You expect the crew members to imbue the film with substance however the character development is cut fatally short when Lowell blows them up early in the film. This plot development doesn't do many favours for the sole remaining character either, because as much as Lowell's indifferent and stupid colleagues annoyed me, did they really deserve to die? The film seems to justify their hurried dispatching, we're supposed to care for this drab murderer and his forest.One-man shows like 'Cast Away' require a good leading man in an extraordinary situation. The last one I saw was 'All Is Lost' with Robert Redford. It was the most extreme example of the genre I'd seen and was grossly overrated on the 'tomato-meter' at 94%, but the ambitious film just about worked for me.Silent Running gets neither an interesting lead character nor a compelling situation. Outside of an impassioned diatribe against his colleagues' indifference about the environment and the human condition, Lowell is a long faced, shaggy haired non-entity. Once he is the sole remaining homo-sapien, Lowell's only companions are three charisma bereft robots called Huey, Dewey and Louie (this is cute apparently), whose organs of communication are metal flaps that emit a quiet, meaningless sort of whistle.The supposed spectacle of Silent Running is also underwhelming. Director Douglas Trumbull worked on the special effects in '2001: A Space Odyssey', they're very much of their time in parts but nonetheless sensory and epic in scope. In Silent Running, however, the exterior shots of the spacecraft often look decidedly fake and miniature and the explosions are lamentably dated and intangible.I watched this film on Mark Kermode's recommendation, he loves this film, he considers it superior to 2001 and shockingly names it one of the greatest films ever made. He says that it's a human tale, that Dern's relationship with the robots is deeply affecting, I couldn't disagree more. The reason why Kermode likes it so much is because it's nostalgic for him, he saw at just 11- years-old and subsequently grew up loving the film – I've had similar attachment to films like Jaws, which is of course infinitely better.After a while I was willing for the film to end, I became entirely indifferent towards the narrative's dreary developments and the politics beneath them. I love nature and beautiful landscapes, I empathised with Lowell to a certain degree, however his actions make the film's message all rather muddled. Silent Running may appeal to Green extremists, however I think even they'll grow tired once they realise how little there is beyond its eco-friendly sentiment.50%www.hawkensian.com

This was in fact, my first slow movie and it is pretty well done. The important thing to say is, the trailer for this movie is the worst I have ever seen. It uses every action scene in the movie pretty much, and makes it look like an action adventure, with quotes like 'cataclysm in outer space' and 'every moment bringing its own danger' yeah, right. This is a very different kind of movie.In the far future, the only remaining forests are inside of domes many miles up into space, where nobody seems to care about them anymore. Except for Freeman Lowell, who has been maintaining the forests for over 15 years, most recently alongside three others, and is a flamboyant environmentalist. But orders are given to blow up the domes and return home, he decides to go rouge by disobeying orders, killing his team members, and claiming that this last forest as a detonation problem, not letting it die by explosives. Then he retreats into deep space after jettisoning his cargo in an attempt to signal the others that he has been blown up, hence the name 'silent running.' His only companions are his three robots that would be ripped off by war hammer 40k in their dreadnaught design. I am serious! The design is TOO similar! This movie's strength is it's drama. Freeman Lowell is like a normal human being in the future. This is reflected when he names the three drones Huey, Dewey, and Louie. But in the end, the rest of the ships discover him and are about to close in. Lowell realizes they would be able to find out that he murdered his crew mates and disobeyed, so before the other ships board, he blows up his own space cruiser, Valley forge. If you are not a fan of slow movies, this isn't the one for you. It is atmospheric, with little music, but some of it is sung by Joan Baez. It was the 70's, ladies and gentlemen. Embrace it! And embrace this movie, if you are the kind who loves this style.