Silent Running (1972)

[D-Man]

This blog entry really says everything that needs to be said about this under-appreciated gem. 

http://york-multiplex.blogspot.com/2007/04/why-i-love-silent-running-and-you.html

All the hooplah surrounding Wall-E lead to me discovering this film.  It has the same ecological message, but with a more somber delivery.  Bruce Dern, though he goes a little over the top in a few scenes, does a great job portraying a very complicated man, who seems to think of himself as the last sane individual in a humanity gone mad.  The robots, The music, and even the two songs by Joan Baez, do a magnificent job of adding some much needed emotion to the story.  I usually find songs in most 70's era films to be bothersome and pointless, but not in this film. 

[schmendrik]

Yep. I own this film, and saw it first in theaters. Wouldn't have been in 1972 though as my wife and I remember seeing this together. So probably I saw it at a university showing (my school had half a dozen excellent film series around campus). Agree with everything written there, and it's a shame this movie wasn't more popular.

That's back when science fiction, both movies and books, was viewed as a cult thing and kind of looked down on by the general public. It's a shame it took "Star Wars", which is more like the unscientific space opera of the 30s than any actual decent science fiction, to make sci-fi acceptable. But I guess I'm grateful that it did, and that it opened up the big budgets (along with creating Industrial Light and Magic).

I absolutely agree with what that reviewer says about the robots. That's what a robot drone should act like. I can't begin to describe how irritating I find C3PO for so many reasons.

[Allhallowsday]

An under-appreciated film, I think.

[Jack]

I saw it when I was a kid and loved it.  Tried watching it again a while back and couldn't even make it past the 15 minute mark.  The ship design is fabulous and the premise is unique, but they just lay the environmentalism on way, WAY too thick.  Dern is b***hing out his fellow crew members for not eating natural food, after they've just explained to him that there is no natural food on earth for them to eat.  That's as far as I made it.  I think it wasn't popular because people don't want to watch Bruce Dern slowly going nuts (he had a pretty good head start) while doing pretty much nothing, accompanied by Joan Baez music.  Every minute seems to last an hour.  It actually could have been good if they wouldn't have gone whole hog on the environmentalism thing - I mean, the message of the movie is obvious, you don't have to beat us over the freakin' head with it.  But oh no, this isn't going to be a movie with an environmentalist message, it's going to be an absolute environmentalist screed.

[ghouck]

Silent Running was an anual staple of the pre-cable late-friday-night show "Big Chuck and Little John" (Previously "Hoolihan and Big Chuck"). Every friday they'd show a movie, often of the B-variety, with sketch comedy bordering each end of the comercials. Silent Running was a big deal, they'd have a countdown when it was coming up, and even had a contest where viewers sent in home-made models of the robots.
Anyways, I always liked it, it's not fast-paced, but a good flick in my opinion.