Silent Running
| Silent Running | |
|---|---|
theatrical release poster
|
|
| Directed by | Douglas Trumbull |
| Produced by |
|
| Written by | |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Peter Schickele |
| Cinematography | Charles F. Wheeler |
| Edited by | Aaron Stell |
|
Production
company |
|
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
89 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally-themed American post-apocalyptic science fiction film starring Bruce Dern, featuring Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, and Jesse Vint. It was directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on science fiction films, including 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain.
In the future, all plant life on Earth has become extinct. A few specimens have been preserved in enormous, greenhouse-like geodesic domes attached to a fleet of American Airlines space freighters, currently 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 carefully preserves a variety of plants for their eventual return to Earth and the reforestation of the planet. Lowell spends most of his time in the domes, both cultivating the crops and attending to the animal life.
Orders come from Earth to jettison and destroy the domes (with nuclear charges) and return the freighters to commercial service. After four of the six domes are jettisoned and blown up Lowell rebels and opts instead to save the plants and animals on his ship. Lowell kills one of his crew-mates who arrives to plant explosives in his favorite dome, with his right knee seriously injured in the process. He traps the remaining two crewmen in the other dome, just as it is jettisoned and destroyed.
Enlisting the aid of the ship's three service robots, called drones, Lowell stages a fake premature explosion as a ruse and sends the Valley Forge careening towards Saturn in an attempt to hijack the ship and flee with the last forest dome. He then reprograms the drones to perform surgery on his leg and sets the Valley Forge on a risky course through Saturn's rings. Later, as the ship endures the rough passage, Drone 3 (later nicknamed Louie) is lost, but the ship and its remaining dome emerge relatively undamaged on the other side of the rings.
...
Wikipedia