Silent Running

Locations
Call Number: DVD Drama Silent
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 1-week checkout	DVD Drama Silent	1-week checkout	On Shelf

Originally released as motion picture in 1971.
Special features: featurette, The Making of Silent Running; commentary with director, Douglas Trumbull and actor, Bruce Dern; featurette, Silent running by Douglas Trumbull; conversation with Bruce Dern; featurette, Douglas Trumbull: then and now; theatrical trailer; production notes; cast and filmmaker biographies.
Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint.
A botanist has spent three years aboard the space freighter "Valley Forge" preserving the only botanical specimens left from Earth under huge geodesic domes. When he receives orders to destroy the project and return home, he rebels and hijacks the space craft, killing his fellow crewman and injuring himself. He plunges the ship into the gaseous Rings of Saturn, where he embarks on the loneliest adventure of all with only two drone robots to keep him company.
DVD, region 1, widescreen presentation; Dolby Digital mono.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Past & Future Shock submitted by tarascon on May 26, 2023, 4:55pm If I were asked for four memorable science fiction films which defined their decade’s social psychology I’d pick “Quatermass and the Pit” for its paranoia, “Seconds” for its exploration of the technology of desire (sorry about that… lol), “Soylent Green” for its Malthusian horrors (ditto), and this largely forgotten minor gem for its Green sensibility.*
Bruce Dern’s forte was in playing over the edge types and he gets to do that in this feature but this time it’s for a good cause (and of course, being Bruce Dern, he’s surely got some fun herbals in that bio-dome). The cheesy 1970’s aesthetic hasn’t aged well but the film’s message is well ahead of its time.

* It goes without saying that plenty of contenders exist, but these are the ones which impacted me the most at the time.