Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!topaz!@RUTGERS.ARPA:milne@uci-icse From: @RUTGERS.ARPA:milne@uci-icse Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: Silent Running (**Spoilers**) Message-ID: <1149@topaz.ARPA> Date: Tue, 9-Apr-85 03:02:19 EST Article-I.D.: topaz.1149 Posted: Tue Apr 9 03:02:19 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 10-Apr-85 05:05:20 EST Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 80 From: Alastair Milne > The recent mention of Silent Running prompts me to post some > comments about the film -- I get annoyed about these elements in the > plot every time I see it. First off, Dern (I don't recall the > character's name, so I'll use the actor's) is very concerned with > the fate of the plants and animals in the eco-domes. He goes > berserk when Earth orders them destroyed. So what does he do? He > DESTROYS most of them, just in order to kill off the other crewmen! > This is ridiculous! He does *not* go berserk (and the character's name is Freeman Lowell). He is deeply hurt; but his response is suppressed anger (he is introverted anyway), even withdrawal. He is in one of the last domes, furiously working, as most of the others are destroyed. What is going to do? Argue all of Earth into recanting? He would sooner be alone. But when it comes time to destroy the dome he's in, his temper breaks, and he fights back. He kills one of the other 3 men in a fight with a shovel, and he traps the remaining 2 in one of the other domes before it is blown up. But he is bady disturbed by having done so, and never gets over it. Destroys "MOST" of them??? He personally destroys *ONE*, among all that the others have destroyed. It is true that, in the end, only one dome survives. But that is because he has only one drone he can program to care for it. Perhaps he might have jettisoned all the others, to give them a chance, before he destroyed the ship; but again, perhaps the thought of leaving all the animals untended, unfed in their park environment seems more cruel to him than giving them the quickest, cleanest end possible. > Secondly, then what does he do? He heads out, away from the sun, so > that the plants die off and the stuff in the remaining dome(s?) > freezes. He could have selected an orbit that put him on the > opposite side of the sun from earth, still shielded from them but > allowing the sunlight to keep the dome contents alive. He doesn't. The heading of the ships was no doing of his. That was preset. He was part of a fleet that was already well under way. Nor could he take any massive evasive action, because most of the fleet was still there, and they would pursue him (thinking he needed help, of course). The ships were equipped to provide light and heat for the forests will beyond the range where the sun would do any good. But in his anger over Earth's decision, and guilt over killing his companions (to mention just a couple), he forgot this until his memory was jogged, thinking rather about blights and diseases. And how would you do, essentially alone on a huge ship, out beyond Saturn? And, although it really doesn't matter, it seems to me you haven't thought about the mind-boggling distances involved. To get to the other side of Earth's orbit, just from Earth, never mind near Saturn, is 192 million miles. Care to think about how long it would take him to get there, and what the other ships in the fleet (who would be watching him all the time) would be doing? Besides, he would probably have made the same final choice that he did whether he was opposite Earth or beyond Saturn. > Also, there wasn't any reason for Earth to order them destroyed. > They could have called back the crew, and Dern could have chosen to > stay as a hermit or whatever, and the ships could have orbited > endlessly at no cost to Earth. The reason was that they (the forests) simply weren't wanted: nobody gave a damn about them, except for Lowell, and maybe some few like him. Nor do I think Lowell wanted to be a hermit. He just wanted to keep away from his loud, devil-may-care, who-gives-a-damn companions on the ship. And even if the ships could have orbited endlessly at no cost (and I'll believe that when I see it), the reason for the decision to dump the forests was that they wanted the ships back, to do something "useful" (one assumes this means "profitable"). It's not that they wanted to put the forestry somewhere else: it's that they didn't want it at all. > This sort of basic plot failure spoils what could otherwise be a > really enjoyable movie. I certainly agree that basic plot failures do spoil potentially good movies: you sit there thinking: "there's no reason for this story to have happened". But I hardly think the complaint applies to "Silent Running". Alastair Milne