4K UHD Review: Silent Running

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Before Star Wars, science fiction movies weren’t all about laser beam fighting and merchandising. The pitch meeting with a studio executive didn’t include talks about how many sequels did you already have planned for the franchise. The movie was about the movie. Douglas Turnbull understood this concept when he worked on the special effects with Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Trumbull crafted a story that mixed space with the ecological disasters that were happening on Earth that he had fleshed out by future superstar screenwriters. He delivered Silent Running on a shoestring budget that looked and felt like a Hollywood blockbuster. Now the film is being upgraded to 4K UHD so you can get even deeper into the future vision.

American Airlines Space Freighter Valley Forge is part of an armada of ships that have been orbiting around Saturn. They contain geodesic domes that contain trees, plants and animals that can no longer be sustained on the environmentally wrecked Earth. The crew of the Valley Forge consists of botanist Freeman Lowell (The Hateful Eight‘s Bruce Dern) and three other guys who are mostly involved with the ship. Lowell doesn’t care much for the three other human and spends most of his time hanging with three drones nicknamed Huey, Dewey and Louie. They’ve been trained to help him take care of nature. A message from Earth orders all the ships to jettison and destroy their domes and return. While the three crewmen are happy at the thought of returning to planetary life, Lowell is upset that his various environments are going to be destroyed. He can’t go through with watching his forest gets snuffed. He resorts to drastic action with his drones helping him protect his life’s work.

Silent Running remains a powerful and poignant film. Bruce Dern plays Lowell as a man who cares so much about nature. Although if he doesn’t do anything, there will be no more nature in his life. Visually the film is stunning. The three drones were played by actors that were missing legs. Mark Persons, Larry Whisenhunt, Cheryl Sparks and Steven Brown brought a sense of humanity to their clunky characters. They made Huey, Dewey and Louie less robotic so Bruce Dern wasn’t merely speaking his lines to packing crates with legs. They weren’t made to look human, yet you feel their bond with Lowell. Silent Running wasn’t a big hit when it came out in the Spring of 1972. But over the decades, it’s found an audience that appreciates the ecological message Trumbull delivered from space.

The video is 1.85:1 anamorphic. Douglas Trumbull approved the 4K transfer used on the disc. He might have only had a 1/10th of the budget of 2001, but you won’t see any special effects looking less than perfect on the screen. The audio is DTS-HD MA Mono of the original mix. The track sounds great so you can hear the noise on the spaceship and Joan Baez’s songs. The movie is subtitled.

Brand new audio commentary by critics Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw. They compare the film to other science fiction movies of the era. There’s plenty of context to the times.

Original audio commentary by Douglas Trumbull and actor Bruce Dern has the director and the actor go into how they felt at the time and what makes them feel good to see on the screen. Trumbull points out that this was his film school since he’d never directed at this level before.

Isolated music and effects track lets you forget about the words.

No Turning Back (13:48) a new interview with film music historian Jeff Bond on the film’s score. Goes into how Peter Schickele ended up creating the film score. Schickele is best known as Grammy Award winner P.D.Q. Bach. He had worked with Joan Baez on a Christmas album. When she was chosen to do songs for the movie, director Douglas Turnbull brought Schickele. Bond goes into how the score is essential since there’s not many human interactions.

First Run (14:03) is a visual essay by writer and filmmaker Jon Spira that goes into evolution of Silent Running’s screenplay. He talks about the early draft by Deric Washburn and Michael Cimino. The duo would go on to make The Deerhunter. Their movie opens with the murders of the crew members by Lowell. They table read part of the script with comic book panels to illustrate the early version. Later Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues) would revise the script and make it more human.

The Making of Silent Running (49:17) is an archival 1972 on-set documentary. They talk about how they modified an aircraft carrier to be a spaceship to help out the million-dollar budget. We see how Douglas Trumbull worked on this set. There’s quite a bit about the drones including showing how the humans worked inside.

Silent Running by Douglas Trumbull (30:09) has the director talk about working on special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey to being in charge of a production. His original idea had Lowell making contact with aliens. He explains how Easy Rider got him the deal with Universal.

Douglas Trumbull: Then and Now (4:52) has him explain all the projects he had lined up that had fallen apart. He also talks about his company that explored the future of cinema from both production and exhibition. They helped develop Showscan. They show off the Back to the Future Ride at Universal.

A Conversation with Bruce Dern (10:57) is an archival interview. He talks about how his career was going up to this point where he’d never been the lead until Silent Running. He did a lot of Gunsmoke. His career wasn’t going well when he was offered the part. He enjoyed working with Turnbull as a director. He explains what motivates his character.

Theatrical trailer (2:58) goes into the space convoy with a rare cargo.

Extensive behind-the-scenes gallery has over 600 images from press photos and behind the scenes shots.

Arrow Video presents Silent Running. Directed by Douglas Turnbull. Screenplay by Deric Washington, Michael Cimino & Steven Bochco. Starring Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin & Jesse Vint. Rating: Rated G. Running Time: 89 minutes. Release Date: December 13, 2022.

Joe Corey is the writer and director of "Danger! Health Films" currently streaming on Night Flight and Amazon Prime. He's the author of "The Seven Secrets of Great Walmart People Greeters." This is the last how to get a job book you'll ever need. He was Associate Producer of the documentary "Moving Midway." He's worked as local crew on several reality shows including Candid Camera, American's Most Wanted, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ESPN's Gaters. He's been featured on The Today Show and CBS's 48 Hours. Dom DeLuise once said, "Joe, you look like an axe murderer." He was in charge of research and programming at the Moving Image Archive.