Many years ago (I'm showing my age) my older brother took me to see "Silent Running" when it was first released in 1972, I would have been between ten and eleven.
I recently got the DVD out of pure nostalgia, and finally watched it this weekend after figuring 'what the heck'. I distinctly remembered it had all the hippie era eco-movement stuff in it and the odd mix of cool technology; it's sort of the first spaceship that really looks lived in and work-a-day, as opposed to the pristine sterility of 2001. The model work was always excellent.
What struck me this time viewing it was the total lack of a plausible reason for the film to even have taken place. Why spend all the money to boost Earth's remaining eco-systems into orbit, then send them off towards Saturn, and what the heck are these space freighters even doing out there in the first place? Colonies? Long range round-about trips to nowhere?
And while our anti-hero is supposedly a man of nature, he can certainly work his way around the control room, fire the engines, re-program the drones, and do many other highly technical things -- yet he can't recall that plants need sunlight?
Lastly, if he was so well trained and important to the initial project when it began, you would think a psyche profile would have shown him to have latent nutter tendencies?
I found myself just watching it for the models, as it always was a cool looking spaceship.
(And that odd moment in the credits when I realized the soundtrack music was written by the real life alter-ego of P.D.Q. Bach).
I recently got the DVD out of pure nostalgia, and finally watched it this weekend after figuring 'what the heck'. I distinctly remembered it had all the hippie era eco-movement stuff in it and the odd mix of cool technology; it's sort of the first spaceship that really looks lived in and work-a-day, as opposed to the pristine sterility of 2001. The model work was always excellent.
What struck me this time viewing it was the total lack of a plausible reason for the film to even have taken place. Why spend all the money to boost Earth's remaining eco-systems into orbit, then send them off towards Saturn, and what the heck are these space freighters even doing out there in the first place? Colonies? Long range round-about trips to nowhere?
And while our anti-hero is supposedly a man of nature, he can certainly work his way around the control room, fire the engines, re-program the drones, and do many other highly technical things -- yet he can't recall that plants need sunlight?
Lastly, if he was so well trained and important to the initial project when it began, you would think a psyche profile would have shown him to have latent nutter tendencies?
I found myself just watching it for the models, as it always was a cool looking spaceship.
(And that odd moment in the credits when I realized the soundtrack music was written by the real life alter-ego of P.D.Q. Bach).
Rewatching "Silent Running".
