Just a few years ago, the science fiction cult classic “Silent Running” seemed hopelessly dated and melancholy, in a depressed-hippie, drank-the-bong-water kind of way.
Now that even the most diehard resistors have accepted the fact of global warming and even the oil companies are proposing solutions, the idea of Earthlings shipping their last surviving forests off into space on freighter ships seems prescient and intriguing.
If you have teenagers who are starting to read up on global warming and wondering what kind of planet their parents and grandparents have left them, “Silent Running” will make poignant and thought-provoking family viewing. Your littler ones may enjoy the robot-drones created by director Douglas Trumbull, who found double leg-amputee actors who could walk on their hands. Their motion is at once startling and unmistakably human.
In this dystopian future circa 1972, Earth has lost all its plant life, and the last gardens have been placed for safekeeping on freighter-domes. Bruce Dern plays an astronaut-botanist taking care of his beloved plants inside a dome orbiting Saturn. Radio orders tell Dern and his colleagues their mission has been scuttled.
Though his fellow astro-cowboys are dying to get back to Earth, Dern wants to preserve the forests. He must contemplate the morality of human life versus plant life in the most extreme of cases.
Trumbull previously helped Stanley Kubrick create the timeless special effects for “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Trumbull perfected the look of Saturn, rejected by Kubrick in favor of Jupiter, and filmed his interiors on the mothballed aircraft carrier Valley Forge. A terrific set of extras on the DVD available through Netflix or Blockbuster gives great insight into how the production went together.
Each Tuesday, Michael Booth uncovers a movie gem for rewarding family entertainment. Reach him at mbooth@denverpost.com
