Silent Running

By Alberto Sclaverano 

A 1970’s sci-fi classic says a lot about the climate crisis even today

Douglas Trumbull's directorial debut, the 1972 science fiction film Silent Running, is now regarded as a small classic, or even a “hidden gem”, from the early 1970s American cinema. What makes it unique is the central role played by the ecological and environment-related themes in the plot.

The sci-fi adventure denounces humans’ reckless behavior against the environment, and it foresees the risk of reaching a point of no return, in which reversing the tide and stopping the climate crisis won’t be possible or affordable. It makes this serious case in a period in which ecological themes weren’t as central as today in the political discourse, but a new environmental conscience was rising fast. The denialist positions were also not as strong as today, to the point that even a staunch conservative like President Nixon acknowledged climate change as a serious threat and created the EPA, the US Environmental Protection Agency.

When it was released, Silent Running received favorable reviews, but it was inevitably (and negatively) compared to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. The two movies show a similar outer space setting, but this is the only real thematic similarity. The reason why the comparison was bound to happen was that Trumbull, a renowned visual effects artist, was among the visual effects supervisors of Kubrick's film, which was seen as a “visual miracle” when it was released. In the following years, Trumbull created visual effects for other famous directors, including Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977) and Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, 1982). 

He put the same great effort into Silent Running, which appeared fascinating in terms of visual power even today, even if not at the same level as 2001: A Space Odyssey.  

Set in a future in which Earth’s plants and animals’ life has completely disappeared due to extreme pollution and heavy resource exploitation, the film introduced us to the concept of preservation of the ecosystem and plants in outer space. 

The main character is space botanist Freeman Lowell (played by Bruce Dern), who belongs to the crew of a space station in which a small, artificial ecosystem of plants and animals is preserved, while the ship is kept active with the help of three highly sophisticated robots. 

The original plan was to return the species to Earth when (and if) the planet’s atmosphere is cleaned and the soil’s resources restored. But soon it is clear that this goal is impossible, due to the level reached by the climate crisis and the interest of people in power to invest in a reforestation program. 

When ordered to terminate the experiment and destroy the samples, Lowell refuses and rebels against the orders and the other crewmen. He then embarked on a dangerous mission, helped only by the robots: bringing the ship beyond the rings of Saturn and making it self-sufficient. 

While never explicitly told in the film, we can imagine Lowell’s last hope being that, one day, the artificial greenhouse could perhaps be recovered by a superior alien intelligence, less inclined than humankind to destroy biodiversity on its planet. The “silent running” of the title refers to the voyage beyond the solar system to which Lowell, in the end, abandons the last space greenhouse, bound to be forever taken care of by one of the robots.

In this social climate, movies like Silent Running tried to warn people about the risks of not acting in time to avoid a potential ecosystem catastrophe. For all these reasons, we can say without any doubt that Silent Running's pedagogic and social messages are even more important today, and we need to listen to Trumbull’s monition carefully.