In the opening sequence of 'Silent Running' the camera, in close focus, slowly pans over a woodland ground-scape featuring rocks, plants, frogs, and a turtle. Unfortunately this is possibly the highlight of the movie.
I mean no disrespect to fans of this film - and to prove that I am not some 14 year-old who can only name the latest Hollywood SFX blockbuster, let me say there are plenty of SF movies from the early 70's or even late 60's which I find very worthy and quite watchable today. The original 'Planet of the Apes' still works. '2001', needless to say, but more forgotten movies, too. 'Soylent Green' still actually packs a punch today, and even 'The Andromeda Strain', despite being incredibly dry and quite slow, is tension filled. And of course I love 'Dark Star', which in retrospect almost seems like a parody of this movie at certain times - but for the life of me I cannot understand how so many people can be so fond of 'Silent Running', which to me is almost completely awful.
I don't even know where to start listing its problems. The lead character, who I suspect is supposed to come across as some sort messianic environmentalist hero, is clearly unhinged even in the earliest scenes, and coupled with Dern's excruciating over-acting, it's hard to feel any sympathy for him as he rants and raves at his crewmates who race over his garden in a scene that looks like it was heavily influenced by The Banana Splits Show. Later he rants and raves whenever anyone basically mentions the word 'tree' or nature' or 'the', and you end up feeling sorry for his crewmates for having to put up with someone who is clearly a dangerous maniac.
Other than this, the movie proceeds at a terrible crawl - thank God it's less than 90 minutes long. There are silly waddling droids, which I gather actually contain real-life double amputees. The scenes involving them which are supposed to be touching and pathetic are - I'm sorry - borderline funny. Meanwhile Dern's character, apparently the world's foremost expert on botany, displays his expertise in the field by not realising that plants need sunlight to photosynthesize. In the meantime Joan Baez sings a couple of embarrassing nature ballads that might have worked on Sesame Street. Oh yes, and they have this futuristic 8-ball game where a gigantic, unwieldy robotic arm picks the balls up and racks them up in the frame. It takes about 30 seconds to do each ball. Why someone doesn't just knock it out of the way and do it themselves is anyone's guess.
Meanwhile the central character goes slowly madder, while he continues to do a series of completely uninteresting things.
I decided to watch this film partly because of h4 good reviews here. I want to do my part to try to make sure somebody else doesn't suffer the same fate as me.
I mean no disrespect to fans of this film - and to prove that I am not some 14 year-old who can only name the latest Hollywood SFX blockbuster, let me say there are plenty of SF movies from the early 70's or even late 60's which I find very worthy and quite watchable today. The original 'Planet of the Apes' still works. '2001', needless to say, but more forgotten movies, too. 'Soylent Green' still actually packs a punch today, and even 'The Andromeda Strain', despite being incredibly dry and quite slow, is tension filled. And of course I love 'Dark Star', which in retrospect almost seems like a parody of this movie at certain times - but for the life of me I cannot understand how so many people can be so fond of 'Silent Running', which to me is almost completely awful.
I don't even know where to start listing its problems. The lead character, who I suspect is supposed to come across as some sort messianic environmentalist hero, is clearly unhinged even in the earliest scenes, and coupled with Dern's excruciating over-acting, it's hard to feel any sympathy for him as he rants and raves at his crewmates who race over his garden in a scene that looks like it was heavily influenced by The Banana Splits Show. Later he rants and raves whenever anyone basically mentions the word 'tree' or nature' or 'the', and you end up feeling sorry for his crewmates for having to put up with someone who is clearly a dangerous maniac.
Other than this, the movie proceeds at a terrible crawl - thank God it's less than 90 minutes long. There are silly waddling droids, which I gather actually contain real-life double amputees. The scenes involving them which are supposed to be touching and pathetic are - I'm sorry - borderline funny. Meanwhile Dern's character, apparently the world's foremost expert on botany, displays his expertise in the field by not realising that plants need sunlight to photosynthesize. In the meantime Joan Baez sings a couple of embarrassing nature ballads that might have worked on Sesame Street. Oh yes, and they have this futuristic 8-ball game where a gigantic, unwieldy robotic arm picks the balls up and racks them up in the frame. It takes about 30 seconds to do each ball. Why someone doesn't just knock it out of the way and do it themselves is anyone's guess.
Meanwhile the central character goes slowly madder, while he continues to do a series of completely uninteresting things.
I decided to watch this film partly because of h4 good reviews here. I want to do my part to try to make sure somebody else doesn't suffer the same fate as me.