Silent Running
Overview
 
Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally themed science fiction film
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...

 starring Bruce Dern
Bruce Dern
Bruce MacLeish Dern is an American film actor. He also appeared as a guest star in numerous television shows. He frequently takes roles as a character actor, often playing unstable and villainous characters...

 and directed by Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Huntley Trumbull is an American film director, special effects supervisor, and inventor. He contributed to, or was responsible for, the special photographic effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of...

, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...

and The Andromeda Strain
The Andromeda Strain (film)
The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 American science-fiction film, based on the novel published in 1969 by Michael Crichton. The film is about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin that causes rapid, fatal blood clotting. Directed by Robert Wise, the film...

.
Silent Running depicts a future in which all plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

 life on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 has been made extinct. Only a few specimens have been preserved in enormous, greenhouse-like geodesic dome
Geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...

s attached to a fleet of American Airlines
American Airlines
American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...

 space freighters, just outside the orbit of Saturn
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...

.
Quotations

It calls back a time when there were flowers all over the Earth. And there were valleys. And there were plains of tall, green grass that you could lie down in... that you could go to sleep in. And, there were blue skies, and there was fresh air, and there were things growing all over the place, not just in some domed enclosures blasted some millions of miles out into space!

On Earth, everywhere you go, the temperature is seventy-five degrees. Everything is the same. All the people, are exactly the same. Now, what kind of life is that?

Look on the wall behind you. Look at that little girl's face. I know you've seen it. But do you know what she is never going to be able to see? She's never going to be able to see the simple wonder of a leaf in her hand. Because there is not going to be any trees. Now, you think about that.

You know, when I was a kid. I put a note into a bottle, and it had my name and address on it. And then I threw the bottle into the ocean. And I never knew, if anyone ever found it.

You can't blow up this forest.

The fact is, Lowell, if people were interested, something would have been done a long time ago.

On this first day of a new century, we humbly beg forgiveness, and dedicate these last forests of our once-beautiful nation, in the hope that they will one day return and grace our fouled Earth. Until that day, may God bless these forests, and the brave men who care for them.

Boys, this is Anderson speaking. We have just received orders to abandon and nuclear destruct all the forests, and return our ships to commercial service. I have received no explaination. And we must begin at 0900 in the morning. May God have mercy on us all.

 
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