Silent Running

This article is about the 1972 film. For the 1985 Mike + The Mechanics song, see Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground). For other uses, see Silent Running (disambiguation).

Silent Running
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Douglas Trumbull
Produced by	Michael Gruskoff Marty Hornstein Douglas Trumbull
Written by	Deric Washburn Michael Cimino Steven Bochco
Starring	Bruce Dern Cliff Potts Ron Rifkin Jesse Vint
Music by	Peter Schickele
Cinematography	Charles F. Wheeler
Editing by	Aaron Stell
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	March 10, 1972
Running time	89 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally themed science fiction film starring Bruce Dern and directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain.

Plot summary

Silent Running depicts a future in which all plant life on Earth has been made extinct. Only a few specimens have been preserved in enormous, greenhouse-like geodesic domes attached to a fleet of American Airlines space freighters, just outside the orbit of Saturn. Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), one of four crewmen aboard the Valley Forge, is the resident botanist and ecologist who preserves the forests for their eventual return to Earth and the reforestation of the planet. Lowell spends most of his time in the forests, cultivating the plant and animal life.

When orders come from Earth to jettison and destroy the domes (with nuclear charges) and return the freighters to commercial service, Lowell rebels and opts instead to save the forests and animals on his ship. After four of the six domes on the Valley Forge are jettisoned and destroyed, Lowell kills one of his crewmates in a struggle, and his right leg is seriously injured in the process. Nevertheless, he prevents the destruction of one of the remaining domes by trapping the other two crewmen in the other dome, which he jettisons and destroys. Enlisting the aid of the ship's three service robots, which he later nicknames Huey, Dewey, and Louie (for the cartoon characters), Lowell stages a fake premature explosion as a ruse and sends the Valley Forge careening away from the space freighter fleet towards Saturn in an attempt to hijack the ship and flee with the last forest dome.

Now alone, Lowell reprograms the drones to perform surgery on his leg and sets the Valley Forge on a risky course through Saturn's rings. As the ship endures a rough passage, Drone 3 (Louie) is ripped away from the ship. The ship and its remaining dome emerge relatively undamaged on the other side of the rings.

Lowell and the other drones set out into deep space to maintain the forest. Lowell teaches Huey and Dewey to plant trees and play poker. Drone 2 (Huey) is damaged when Lowell accidentally collides with him while driving a buggy recklessly. During a scene where drone 2 (Huey) is being repaired, drone 1 (Dewey) sentimentally refuses to leave the side of drone 2. As time passes Lowell is horrified when he learns that his forest is dying, but is unable to come up with a solution to the problem. When the Berkshire eventually reestablishes contact with Lowell, he knows that his acts will soon be discovered. It is then that he realizes a lack of light has restricted plant growth, and he races to install lamps to correct this situation. In an effort to save the last forest before the Berkshire catches up to him, Lowell jettisons the dome to safety. He then detonates nuclear charges, destroying himself, drone 2 (Huey) and the Valley Forge. The final scene is of the well-lit forest greenhouse drifting into deep space, with Drone 1 (Dewey) tending to its care.

Cast

• Bruce Dern as Freeman Lowell
• Cliff Potts as John Keenan
• Ron Rifkin as Marty Barker
• Jesse Vint as Andy Wolf
• Cheryl Sparks as Drone 1 - Dewey
• Mark Persons as Drone 2 - Huey

Production

With its cover-plate removed during a shooting break, double-amputee actor Mark Persons is visible inside the tiny Drone 1 (Dewey) costume.

In an interview with Starlog magazine in the late 1970s, Douglas Trumbull revealed that the plot of the movie in the original version of the script was quite a bit different from what was actually filmed. In the original version the space freighters were on permanent duty, carrying biological domes. When they are finally told to blow the domes and return to Earth, it is because the freighters are going to be scrapped.

The Freeman Lowell character in the original version was an older, more curmudgeonly man who simply did not want to return to Earth and be forced into retirement, so he steals the Valley Forge and heads off into deep space. As in the filmed version, he reprograms the robots for some companionship. The subplot involving the plants dying due to a lack of light was involved, but his main interest in the plants was simply as a means of extending his limited food supplies. Eventually he receives a signal from an alien ship and decides to approach it, making humanity's first contact with aliens. The conclusion was a race between Lowell, who was trying to contact the aliens, and the human boarding party trying to retake the ship. Finally, in desperation, Lowell detaches one of the domes with one of the robots aboard seconds before he is killed by the boarding party. The dome drifts off into deep space, where it is found by the aliens. The film would have ended with a confused Dewey "introducing" itself to the equally baffled aliens by presenting them with a "family photo" of Lowell and the drones taken earlier in the story.

Trumbull had been involved with creating effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Director Stanley Kubrick wanted the Stargate sequence of that film to be centered around Saturn, but there were technical difficulties in getting the special effects for it finished in the limited timeframe. The Saturn idea was scrapped, and Kubrick substituted Jupiter instead. Trumbull developed the sequence after production, and it was recreated for Saturn in Silent Running.

The interiors were filmed aboard the decommissioned Korean War aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge (LPH-8), which was docked at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard in Long Beach, California. Shortly after filming was completed, the carrier was scrapped. The forest environments were originally intended to be filmed in the Mitchell Park Domes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but the production budget forced the sequences to be shot in a newly completed aircraft hangar in Van Nuys, California. Trumbull stated in the commentary accompanying the DVD release that the geodesic domes containing the last forests of Earth's future on the Valley Forge were based on the Missouri Botanical Garden Climatron dome.

Three freighters are shown in the film, the Valley Forge, the Berkshire, and the Sequoia. Five other ships that carried domes — the Yellowstone, Acadia, Blue Ridge, Glacier, and Mojave — are also mentioned. Each ship features a designation on the hull which notes the area from which some of the flora and fauna samples were taken. The Valley Forge is listed as "Bahia Honda Subtropical," indicating at least some specimens were taken from this area of the Florida Keys.

The model of the Valley Forge was 26 feet (8 m) long, and took six months to build from a combination of custom castings and the contents of approximately 800 prefabricated model aircraft or tank kits. After filming was completed, American Airlines expressed an interest in sending the model on the tour circuit, but this was not feasible due to the fragile nature of the model (in fact, during filming pieces of the model kept falling off). The ship was subsequently disassembled after several years sitting in Douglas Trumbull's personal storage facility. Several pieces, including the domes, wound up in the hands of collectors. Several domes survive, including one that now rests in the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington, and another which was sold at auction in 2008.

The three drones were played by four double-amputees, an idea inspired by Johnny Eck, a sideshow performer of the early 20th century who had been born without lower limbs.^{[citation needed]} The 20-pound (9-kg) drone suits were custom-tailored for the different actors. The suits are in Douglas Trumbull's personal collection.

The sound effects, including the drones, were created by uncredited composer Joseph Byrd. They were generated on a modified ARP 2600 synthesizer with added Oberheim Expander Modules.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was written by bassoonist and P. D. Q. Bach creator Peter Schickele. It contains two songs written by Schickele and Diane Lampert — "Silent Running" and "Rejoice in the Sun" — which were performed by popular folk singer-songwriter Joan Baez. The two songs were issued as a single on Decca (32890). In addition, an LP was released on Decca (DL 7-9188) and later reissued by Varese Sarabande on black (STV-81072) and green (VC-81072) vinyl. In 1998 a limited-release CD by the "Valley Forge Record Groupe" included an additional track with the spoken introduction "God Bless These Gardens." This CD can still be found for sale today.

An alternative soundtrack to the film was composed by UK band 65daysofstatic for the Glasgow Film Festival and later recorded and released as an album in 2011 following popular demand.

Reception

In his New York Times review, Vincent Canby says this "is no jerry-built science fiction film, but it's a little too simple-minded to be consistently entertaining."

The film has a generally positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with 68% of critics giving good reviews. Praise is mainly focused on the special effects and Bruce Dern's performance, while the weak script and storyline are criticised.

In 2008, Silent Running was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Science Fiction Films list.

Influence in other works

Joel Hodgson has claimed that the film influenced the premise of Mystery Science Theater 3000. John Hodgman's compendium of fictional trivia, The Areas of My Expertise, makes several references to Dern's acting. Doug Naylor, Rob Grant and Ed Bye cite Silent Running as an inspiration for Red Dwarf, the British science fiction-comedy television series of the 1980s and 1990s. WALL-E Director Andrew Stanton said he was influenced by this film, as was Duncan Jones in making his feature debut, Moon.

External links

• Silent Running at the Internet Movie Database
• Silent Running at AllRovi
• Silent Running at Rotten Tomatoes
• Sci-Fi Movie website analysis
• In-depth review of Silent Running at The Space Review