Between the epic 2001: A Space Odyssey and the blockbuster entertainment of Star Wars, the 1970s was a golden era of intelligent science fiction.
Starring Bruce Dern and telling a story that remains powerfully timely, Silent Running is one of the most thoughtful and emotionally devastating sci-fi classics.
Silent Running takes place aboard a fleet of giant spaceships which hold Earth's last forests, plucked right off the face of the planet after humanity destroyed the environment.
Bruce Dern stars as Lowell, an unwavering botanist determined to preserve the forests so they can be returned to earth and nature revived once again.
But when the crew are issued with devastating orders, Lowell is pitted against his fellow astronauts, with nature itself at stake.
The film is available to rent or buy online through Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Rakuten TV or Sky Store. You can also pick up the 4K UHD Blu-ray.
Silent Running was the first of only two films directed by Douglas Trumbull. But he remains a titan of cinema history thanks to his groundbreaking visual effects work.
Trumbull pioneered many innovative effects techniques in the sci-fi classics 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Blade Runner.
For Silent Running, he used some ideas he'd conceived that were dropped from 2001, and he did it on a fraction of the budget of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece.
Even with such a small budget, the film looks great. The vast spaceships glitter amid deep blackness, before the picture jumps to the vibrant colours of the beautiful flowers and plants.
The contrast between the ship's convincingly sterile grey machinery and the lush green gardens is an effective way to visualise the theme of humanity losing our connection with nature.
But best of all are the cute little worker robots who tend the gardens, nicknamed Huey, Dewey and Louie. Despite being trundling little metal boxes, these adorable droids have a surprising amount of personality, and are a clear influence on non-humanoid characters in films such as Star Wars and WALL-E.
Although it wasn't a hit upon its first release - and drew lukewarm reviews - Silent Running more than holds up today. It can be a cliche to say a classic sci-fi film is more relevant than ever, but it's certainly true here.
The film was released three years before the term "global warming" was coined by scientist Wallace Broecker in 1975, and long before most people had heard of the issues in the late 1980s. Silent Running offered a chilling early warning of the danger to our environment if we continued to pollute the world.
It's also remarkably prescient about how we’ve responded to climate change in the decades since.
The spaceship's crew are depicted as complacent and disconnected from nature, but distracted by fake food and inane entertainment. And although we're meant to sympathise with Lowell's devotion to protecting nature, he comes across as preachy and overzealous.
Dern is one of the all-time great character actors, and he wasn't afraid to make Lowell a sympathetic yet prickly character.
Lowell’s convictions and lifestyle make him an outsider from those around him, foreshadowing the stereotypical tree-hugger who may be right about the environment but struggles to win friends with his stern lectures.
Before the climate protest movement even began, Silent Running warned of the danger of alienating the people who most need to hear the message.
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