Movie Critique: Silent Running

Silent Running

Silent Running is very judgmental of society in a subtle way.  The plot of the movie is that these four men are maintaining one of four or five ships in deep space that contain the last remaining plantation of Earth. They are simply to maintain it and wait for orders from earth. Yet when the orders from earth come to destroy the containers, Freeman Lowell decides to stop the destruction and kill his crewmates to save the last remain pod of plants.

The theme of the film seems very idealistic of nature being endangered by technology. By the commentary in the film we know that earth is now a perfect place that is 75^o all around the planet and no plants are needed to survive anymore. However, Lowell seems to be the only one to care about the value that nature brings. It is to suggest that we have grown numb to the effects of technology and where it is taking our world.  This idea can possibly play off of previous films perception of technology being a negative thing.  Nature being eliminated from earth is definitely one of the stronger themes this film presents, but it also presents a few others in a subtle manner.

It also brings to issue the idea of technology leading to a socialistic/communistic nation where everything is the same.  Earth as we understand in this film is all the same. Nobody is poor, nobody starves, everyone is the same and even the planet is the same all around.  Another point we can see from the film is that it is very consumer opinionated.  The fact that the ships have the American Airliner logo on them show that our world has become so consumer obsessed that even the ships carrying the last of the planets natural life are more important for money purposes than saving our planets life. This simple message is one that opposes the very nature of our nations consumerist personality.

The characters aboard the ship are very normal except for Lowell. He is very passionate about their work.  He hopes that one day children get to experience what the world once was before the elimination of nature.  In hopes of preserving the last of it he gives his own life and jettisons the plant life into space hoping that perhaps another society or life form will find it.