So let me get things straight here. Doug Trumbull or one of the other producers walk into the offices of Universal in the early 70s to pitch their movie and say, "hey guys we wanna do a film about a guy alone on a spaceship, which is transporting the last of Earth’s forests, playing cards with two cute robots.  Oh, and he goes a bit mad."

Look, I know there are some of you out there who see Silent Running as a bit of sacred cow.  (At least I assume there are.  Maybe you all think the film is as shit as I do).  And I sort of understand where you’re coming from.  It was made in 1972, five or so years before Star Wars and therefore before SF basically became nothing more than fantasy in space.  It was made on a reasonably small budget but showcased some impressive special effects for the time.  And it was a  film that was actually about something.  Like all good SF, it started with a genuine what if question – what if all the forests on Earth had been uprooted and were being transported on a fleet of space ships – and then dealt with that question.

Yeah, I can see why Silent Running, in the history of SF filmography, might be considered as something important and something worth treasuring.  But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a very dull, very ponderous and ultimately very silly film.

I was warned by those in the know that it was a bit slow.  But when I saw the running time of 85 minutes, I thought how slow could it be?  I mean, I’m a guy whose been brought up on films so long that it takes thirty minutes to get past the credits.  (And how insulting is it to us non Asian that John Woo’s first Chinese film in umpteen years has been cut back by two hours for overseas consumption.  Someone should do something about this).  So, I couldn’t understand how an 85 minute film might bore me.

Silent Running had me drowsing off about 9 minutes in.  Basically the bit after the three other crewmembers who aren’t Bruce Dern have finished their dodgem raceand have a bit of dinner.

Other than a moment of violence about 20 minutes in (when Bruce Dern begins his crazy descent after being told that Earth has decided to jettison the forests into the sun) nothing really happens in the film.  OK, Bruce Dern goes mad – and acts his socks off in doing so – but it’s such  a slow, subtle, I’m talking to myself and to a bunch of squat, cute robots (obviously played by midgets, and Christ it must have been uncomfortable to fit into those costumes) mad that it’s hard to engage with whats going on.  It’s not helped by the fact that Dern has killed his three crew mates for the simple reason thay they want to follow orders and jettison the forests.  Yeah, there’s a hint at the start that the crew aren’t that nice and bully Dern’s character.  But there not around for long enough for me to despise them enough so that when Dern kills them I can see it as a justified act and therefore feel some sort of empathy for him when he goes stark raving bonkers.  AND, to top it all off, one of the crewmates is the bad guy from Alias.  You know… the one who kills Sydney’s husband and runs SD6…

So because I don’t care about Bruce Dern’s characters and because there’s no dramatic tension at all (and no I don’t need big explosions for me to be interested, but like all good fiction I need there to be something dramatic going on, even if it’s him constipating due to all the lettuce he’s been eating), by the time he does the whole self sacrafice thing and leaves the surviving droid to look after the forest, I’m 92% into dreamland.

It also doesn’t help that Dern spends 20 minutes of the film trying to work out why the forest is dying.  I mean, seriously, how the fuck could he be the head gardener if he didn’t know that it was because he was heading *away* from the sun.

Like I say, I know this is meant to be a classic of SF cinema.  But it’s a boring, dull classic.  Livened only by Trumbull and co’s decent special effects and the fact that Trumbull isn’t too bad a director.  Bruce Dern is also quite good, even if the role is a bit rubbish.

If you’re a historian, or if you’re looking to get a better appreciation of SF cinema history, you should probably watch Silent Running.  Otherwise, I personally think there are better ways of spending 85 minutes,