Silent Running (1972)
Set
in the year 2008, Silent Running revolves around a giant
space freighter called Valley Forge. The ship gets its name from its contents - the last surviving
forests taken from the now-barren surface of the planet Earth.
 Freeman Lowell is among the crewmen who tend to these forests
and care for them with the help of three robot drones dubbed Huey,
Duey and Luie (intentionally spelled differently from the Disney
ducks).
Ever the dreamer, Freeman looks forward to the day when Valley
Forge will receive the order to return home and replant
Earth's forests.
These hopes are dashed to pieces when the long-awaited orders
finally come through, telling the crewmen to destroy the
forests.
Freeman can't accept this and is forced into a showdown with
the other crewmen, who want to follow the orders and return
home.
He successfully fights them off and moves the ship's orbit off
into deep space as he silences the ship's radios.
He
has now gone into 'silent running' and must keep the ship together
while fighting the rigors of outer space and avoiding another ship
sent out to destroy Valley Forge's cargo.
 An unsung Science Fiction gem, Silent Running was the
directorial debut of Douglas Trumbull, a visual effects designer
who made his name by creating the mind-blowing visual effects for
the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In this film, however, he downplayed visual effects wizardry in
favour of a surprisingly moody and thoughtful story that was
carried by Bruce Dern's performance as the obsessed but honourable
Freeman who preferred plants to people.
The
imaginative script was crafted by a writing team that included
Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter) and Steven Bochco (creator
of Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law).
 The film was also notable for avoiding the typical choice of a
spacey musical score in favour of a folk-styled soundtrack by Joan
Baez.
Silent Running used a desolate possible future to make
commentary on the problems of how humanity behaves, a trend
reflected by other socially-minded early 1970's sci-fi films like Zero
Population Growth and Soylent Green.
The little droids pre-date R2D2 and C3PO from Star Wars,
and the ecological message of the film was way ahead of its time.
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