Silent Running
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Movie Reviews of Silent Running
Movie Review: One of the best Bruce Dern movies ever made.
Summary: 5 Stars
Am a bit surprised at how many negative reviews there are for this movie. No, it isn't Star Wars and it's not a big action thriller. Rather it's a movie with a message--that we need to protect at all costs the things that are really important (the last existing forests in the world in this case). Other than another little known Bruce Dern movie (Smile), I think this is his best performance. Frankly I cringe when I see or hear Bruce Dern, so I think it says a lot for his ability as an actor to pull this off successfully. I really don't like him, but this is still a favorite movie of mine. You can't hate the character he plays in this movie because he is doing something terribly important (saving the last forests), but you don't like him either because he is fanatic and ends up killing to save the forests. I thought the music was great in this movie; very beautiful and haunting. Some didn't like it because of Joan Baez. I never liked her politics, but her voice is one of the most beautiful voices of that era. If I was stranded on a desert island with only one movie to watch, I sincerely hope that it would be this one. It is not that entertaining to younger folks raised on the computer-generated special effects found in the better science fiction movies. It will never measure up to something like the Matrix or any of the Star Wars movies, but it is still a hauntingly beautiful movie with special effects that are good enough to keep you interested. As most other reviewers have said the robots are charming. Don't listen to the bad reviews; decide for yourself. Even if you don't like the movie overall, you'll find something enjoyable here. The somewhat surprise ending is very sad, so if you want an upbeat movie, this is not the one for you, but it couldn't end any other way, really. This one gives me a tear in the eye and lump in the throat at the end every time I see it. A little campy and silly, but overall a real gem of a movie. Probably had more impact and was more impressive at the time it first came out, than now.Movie Review: A Classic Sci-Fi Film; Overlooked
Summary: 5 Stars
Silent Running is one of those classic science-fiction films that has been sadly overlooked almost since it was first released in 1971. I myself hadn't heard about it until just last week. I'm glad I bought it, because although it's a little dated, the basic premise, acting, story, and movie are really quite intriguing. Bruce Dern plays a botanist aboard a space freighter in the earth's future. He takes care of the last living trees. Apparently, all the trees on earth have died because of pollution, and now everybody lives in temperature-controlled domes (always 75 degrees). After eight years of caring for the trees, along with the cute rabbits and animals that live in the orbiting forest, he gets the order to detach the tree bio-dome and destroy it with nuclear bomb, because "the corporation needs to use the spaceship for more commercial shipments".
Dern will do anything to save the trees, including betraying his three shipmates. He escapes from his corporate masters, pretending to have technical problems that force him to go adrift (hence the title of the film "Silent Running", from the submarine ploy to escape detection). Soon, he is all alone, except for the companionship of his three drones (we would now call them droids).
I won't give away the ending, but it's a great little story. A little deliberately paced (slow) to be sure, but has a strong environmental message and great acting by Bruce Dern.
The only real criticism I have with Silent Running is that there are four songs sung by Joan Baez in the movie soundtrack; they are God-awful and I wanted to plug my ears with cotton every time she started warbling about trees, or granola, or giving peace a chance or whatever the heck she was caterwauling about.
This film clearly inspired "Moon", the terrific film from 2009 starring Sam Rockwell and directed by Duncan Jones; which is another deliberately paced but excellent "one-man act" film set on a space station. (Moon is similarly recommended, with 5 of 5 stars.)
Movie Review: Silent Running
Summary: 5 Stars
I will skip the extravagant lingo. I am not an expert movie reviewer, but have spent a lifetime enjoying movies. I can tell you that Bruce Dern does an incredible job of acting in this movie.
At 38 years old I remember my sister seeing it for the first time in the early 70's. She was moved to tears. The story that is told here is a real life example of what we have to face about ourselves. It pulls no punches about the level of cruelty and abuse that we all in some level inflict on this planet.
It is easy to put this movie down if you have no brain cells because this movie will make you think. It is not for the people that think reality tv offers substance. Those individuals will be lost.
To say that Bruce Dern is a sociopath I believe is completely incorrect. He is a compassionate individual seeing everything that this planet has to offer in the way of beauty being destroyed.
That could push anyone that is left on this planet today with a heart over the edge in my opinion. I am not a nature freak, nor one of those green peace guys. But I have seen enough clearing of rain forests and killing of majestic creatures to understand that this movie is reality.
This is a must see for everyone. The robots are wonderful. No they are not state of the art machines like those computer animated fake creations everyone seems to revere these days. But they are capable of instilling a reality in the viewer that will make the viewer feel compassion even for the inanimate robots.
This movie took me along time to come back to only because it is so riveting intellectually and quite sad overall in its message. Be prepared to feel the plight that Bruce Dern feels. Decide for yourself how it makes you feel. I'm thankful I saw it.
Movie Review: I saw it when I was 10 back then.. looking for it ever since
Summary: 5 Stars
I write this review out of the memories of when I saw it back in the early 70s when I was just a kid..
The title in spanish was Naves Misteriosas (strange ships) and with that title I tried searching in Amazon, finally some ilumination struck me and went to Google and found the english title.
This movie had a tremendous effect on me, similar to Disney's movies in the way you are presented to a cruel reality (if you think those 60s disney movies were for kids, think again) in which struggle from madness and oppression is the fate of us all..
Tha last forests of the world are floating in space ships that carry them as terrarium.. this greenpeace guy, well maybe thats a adjective too violen, lets say this flower-generation guy loves his plants and the helpful robots that reseamble mini-tv with legs and arms. Then an absurd order is received: blow the forests (run bambi.. Run!!!) and the other mindless idiots, well, they just follow order.. thats too much for our heroe to bear so in a shakesperian wrath he eliminates his companions and stays alone with one forest... a tragic end can be deduced...
Saw it once never seen it again because I never saw it displayed again.. 30 years later it still fresh on my memory and made me an enviromentalist forever.
Movie Review: Druids of the world, unite!
Summary: 5 Stars
I'll keep this short. Bruce Dern was (only) a cowboy bad guy, a black hat, until this movie. Kudos then for taking on a risky role completely out of Dern's usual line. The movie itself is gorgeous. If there are no CGI effects, well, art doesn't really care if it's realized with brushes or scraped on canvas with palette knives -- or painted by Hokusai or Whistler, for that matter. This film is visually satisfying.
As for the Freeman Lowell character played by Dern, yes, the hippie vibe is real. As are the tree-hugger and druid attitudes. Lowell would gladly sacrifice the human race, in toto and including himself, if it kept the great, long-lived Cretaceous genomes of deciduous trees and flowering plants alive and ready for the future.
Lowell's companions are bullying, high-school thugs.. Their only use for Lowell is as a medic who heals even his enemies. Someone, that is, to take advantage of. Such a Messianic thread glistens a little too brightly in a fabric of illusions as modest as Silent Running, but most ecologists will justifiably use the film to separate the sheep from the goats, ecologically speaking.