More than fifty years after its unsuccessful theatrical release and later elevation to cult status, Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running is a dated, but still intriguing piece of didactic science fiction. Taking place in the early years of the 21st century, it posits a time in which all plant life on Earth has been destroyed, and the only remaining traces of vegetation are in carefully nurtured forest biospheres aboard enormous ships in the depths of space.

The film’s protagonist is Freeman Lowell, one of four men aboard one of those spaceships, named the Valley Forge. At the time, Dern was already a veteran character actor with a decade of experience and dozens of credits on various television shows and supporting roles in a handful of films, but he had never headlined a film. Unlike his three shipmates (Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, and Jesse Vint), Lowell is a staunch environmentalist, perhaps the last human being who still regards plant life as something worth cherishing. Unfortunately for a conscientious tree-hugger, there are precious few trees left to hug, and when the call comes in from Earth that the project has been deemed a failure and the biospheres should be jettisoned, Lowell rebels. He kills the other men on his ship, but only manages to salvage one of the biospheres. Pretending that his ship has been fatally damaged, he hopes to disappear into the depths of space and find a suitable planet to foliate with Earth’s plant life.

Interestingly enough, all of this takes place within the first half-hour of the film, leaving it with more than an hour of what is effectively Lowell onboard the ship by himself. Well, he is not entirely alone. He has as company a pair of drones—dumpy, squarish, and slightly awkward two-legged robots that make R2-D2 look suave by comparison. Re-christened Huey and Duey, these faceless machines become surrogate human companions for Lowell, and the relationship they build together is surprisingly touching, especially given the fact that the drones cannot talk or express much beyond wobbling back and forth and extending their mechanical arms.

Thus, Silent Running is effectively two movies—a character study of a futuristic hippie and his ability to maintain sanity by building a genuine friendship with two inexpressive robots and a slightly preachy sci-fi fable about the ultimate cost of pollution and nuclear waste. The screenplay, which was penned by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, and Steven Bochco, manages to get its green-thumb message across without beating us over the head too much, although many of the early scenes between Lowell and the other men on the ship consist largely of his preaching to them in vain about the wonders of nature and the food it produces. Washburn and Cimino, for whom this was their first credited screenplay, would go on to co-write Cimino’s Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), while Bochco became one of the most prolific TV producers in the 1980s and ’90s, with shows such as Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue to his credit.

When he directed Silent Running, Douglas Trumbull was best known for his innovative work in special effects, especially for his groundbreaking achievements in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the film that made possible Silent Running and most other “serious” science fiction films at the time. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the special effects here are quite impressive, especially given the age of the film and its limited budget of $1 million. Using detailed models and relying almost entirely on in-camera effects using front-screen projection, Trumbull managed to create a believable sense of giant ships cruising through outer space. The interiors, which were shot inside a decommissioned aircraft carrier, have an effectively confined, industrial feel to them, which makes it all the more moving when Lowell steps into one of the glass-domed biospheres and finds himself surrounded by trees and wildlife.

Dern is consistently impressive throughout, especially given that this was his first leading role. He appears in virtually every scene, and the entire film hinges on our willingness to accept his decision to kill fellow human beings in order to save plant life. On paper, it sounds like a ludicrous, indefensible choice, but Dern makes it understandable (it doesn’t hurt, of course, that his shipmates are egregious jerks).

And, although it stumbles at times and the painfully sincere songs by Joan Baez induce more embarrassed giggles than contemplation, Silent Running remains a thought-provoking film. Measured and slow-moving, but undeniably poignant, especially in its final moments, it reminds us of the vast potential for the science-fiction genre to deal with significant social issues in unique and moving ways.

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