Silent Running hits blu-ray April 7th
- Thread starter Lanboy
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He thought it was the only way to save a tiny portion of the remaining life legacy of earth, they were going to blow every single last pod if he didn't and wouldn't listen.
Logically what was more valuable? a few humans or an entire evolutionary natural legacy of earth that humanity had just wiped out
at home and were about to do again aboard those Ark ships. They were not going to listen to him, they didn't believe in that extremely important mission.
Throwing away 4.5 billion years of natural heritage like it was a horrible burden was not acceptable and a massive betrayal. Not just a crime against humanity but a crime against the universe. He was no murderer, his "family", his entire world, our world, was being attacked and murdered by people that he thought was trying to preserve and protect to restore earth. Pretty extreme situation.
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DARKSIDE72
Sr Member
Great insight! ( I enjoy a good debate!). SO ultimately it was OK to kill off a human crew,(doing what they were contracted to do)... normally when one is tasked with doing a job they do it to the letter of the law... Or face being fired, replaced, etc,etc. In other words your paycheck takes care of your family/your home,bills,insurance,food etc etc...
BUT is ok and excusable to wipe out a crew following orders and doing their jobs in order to protect a few trees and frog,s tended by a robot who will at some point run out of power itself TO WHAT AVAIL? TO WHAT BENEFIT?How does human life become more relevant than a ****ing TREE?
BUT is ok and excusable to wipe out a crew following orders and doing their jobs in order to protect a few trees and frog,s tended by a robot who will at some point run out of power itself TO WHAT AVAIL? TO WHAT BENEFIT?How does human life become more relevant than a ****ing TREE?
And that's why it's a good story that holds up to this day.
My view is, because they are the last trees, the last animals, the last miracles of earth, as portrayed in this film. Extinction of what
we were supposed to be shepherds of for future humanity. I'm no tree hugger. Far from it, but if it were that bad? that we had to build space arks? Wow.
They were in effect committing eco-genocide. They had no right to do so. No order, no employer, no "just doin' my job" excuse can justify that.
Even today, if poachers are going after endangered species on reserves? I would support lethal force against them if necessary, hell I would pull the trigger myself.
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Sourdoh
Sr Member
I always hated the music and I thought the bogus reason to blast the pods into space was a pretty thin plot point to hang the rest of the movie on. The robots were cute in a kind of smarmy way. They were proto-Ewoks - just there to be cute and add pathos (and hopefully become merchandising bonanzas - which neither did!).
Laspector
Master Member
If I remember correctly the robots came about because Trumbell (or somebody) saw the movie Freaks and saw some guys with no legs walking around on their hands and said to themselves "Hey, you put somebody like that in a robot suit, it would be great and nobody would be able to figure it out."
Ah yes, the ends-justifies-the-means argument. Used through out history, by some of it's most notable tyrants and murderers. And countless not so notable. I'm reading a lot of that in this topic.
You realize that he didn't only murder, and it was murder, his three shipmates, right? There was also the rescue ship that was close enough to see that there was no damage to the Valley Forge when they made radio contact. They were closing in for docking when he set off the atomic charges to kill himself. If you're gonna go after murdering your shipmates, you might as well murder a few more on your way out, right? After all their lives don't matter anymore than your shipmates because they don't think right!
And what do you think is going to happen to that forest dome when they find it? The ship that finds it is going to finish the job. The government shut down the project, and they aren't going to let a big hazard to navigation like that drift around the Solar System if they find out about it.
David.
His resistance could have gotten sympathy on earth.
Consider this, destroying the last remaining forests would also mean massive impact upon medicine research.
You would be killing people by killing the forests forever.
"When you next visit your local pharmacy to fill a prescription for yourself, a family member, or a friend, consider this: fully half of written prescriptions could not be filled without the cornucopia of gifts from the stunning biodiversity of the wild natural world. Half of the top ten prescription drugs in the U.S. are of animal, plant, or microorganism origin. Our debt to the biosphere is even more dramatically revealed when we look at cancer medications: a remarkable three-quarters of anti-cancer drugs spring from the web of life.
Nearly 90% of human diseases known to medical science can be treated with prescription drugs derived from nature. The benefits to humanity of nature-derived medicines are incalculable in terms of longevity, relief of suffering, and increase in the quality of life. And think of the hundreds of thousands of jobs provided to those that discover, grow, harvest, process, and market these medicinals. Billions upon billions of dollars have flowed into the world economy due to prescription medications arising from the planet’s largess of biological diversity. Spending in the U.S. in 2010 for prescription drugs only was $259.1 billion and medicinals derived from nature were a huge piece of this. Nature supports both our health and economy."
Consider this, destroying the last remaining forests would also mean massive impact upon medicine research.
You would be killing people by killing the forests forever.
"When you next visit your local pharmacy to fill a prescription for yourself, a family member, or a friend, consider this: fully half of written prescriptions could not be filled without the cornucopia of gifts from the stunning biodiversity of the wild natural world. Half of the top ten prescription drugs in the U.S. are of animal, plant, or microorganism origin. Our debt to the biosphere is even more dramatically revealed when we look at cancer medications: a remarkable three-quarters of anti-cancer drugs spring from the web of life.
Nearly 90% of human diseases known to medical science can be treated with prescription drugs derived from nature. The benefits to humanity of nature-derived medicines are incalculable in terms of longevity, relief of suffering, and increase in the quality of life. And think of the hundreds of thousands of jobs provided to those that discover, grow, harvest, process, and market these medicinals. Billions upon billions of dollars have flowed into the world economy due to prescription medications arising from the planet’s largess of biological diversity. Spending in the U.S. in 2010 for prescription drugs only was $259.1 billion and medicinals derived from nature were a huge piece of this. Nature supports both our health and economy."
Laspector
Master Member
Oh, he murdered them, there is no denying that. However your point does still not invalidate my point. Look, I'm not for killing anybody, but the fact remains that it is only human arrogance that lends itself to the word murder anyway. Why is it not murder when a lion kills a gazelle? I'm sorry, I simply do not put human life above all other life. And if somebody's got to go in order to save the environment (myself included), so be it. Sorry, that's the way I feel.
Lunajammer
Well-Known Member
I have a bias in favor of the music. It was scored by Peter Schickele who was born in Iowa but grew up in our Fargo, ND neighborhood. Back in the 40's (before I was born) my parents would see him walk by the house every day, carrying his violin on his way to music practice. He's a very accomplished grammy winning musician but I think this was his only movie score. Admittedly, his grammies were for comedy but.....
But in the universe of the movie, the environment is not going to be saved. The government ordered the domes nuked, and when they find the last dome, it too shall perish in nuclear fire. If there were any kind of public support for the habitats, then the destruct order would not have been given. But as it was said in the movie, people just didn't care. They had what they considered a decent life, and had lost touch with nature because of technology, which could control Earth's environment. So the only thing Lowell accomplished was the murder of at least seven people.
Really given that the domes seemed to be self-supporting, it would have made more sense to just mount them to a frame in orbit, rather than using commercial freighters. Then they could have charged the people a dollar and a half just to see them.
I once read the original concept for the movie. The character steals a freighter, has the drones paint the ship black, then shuts down all the systems he can. The silent running of the title. He was looking for a alien ship that had been sighted in the Solar System. The movie would have ended with Lowell sending a drone into the alien ship, as the authorities catchup to, and kill Lowell. The drone meeting the alien, and receiving no instructions, offers the alien a flower.
David.
Ponder this angle, the BIG picture......we are all a product of life on earth,
Life is a powerful natural force, it has transformed this globe with it's power. That is factual you can
find this very early on in earth's history when the entire atmosphere for instance was altered because of life for instance.
We too are part of earth's life story, that life instinct to live and expand as all organisms do.
Lowell's act was one of instinctual basic self defense by life itself when attacked.
Greater forces were in play than that of a single human being. An entire world's suvival instinct
was in play, it simply manifested itself in Lowell. His acts in the big picture were beyond human interpretation of
right or wrong. Rather the power of life fighting to simply exist in extreme situations that threaten it.
We see this all through earth's history, even during massive extinction events, certain life manages
to cling and fight to remain, and the cycle begins again. Even plants will battle threats with chemical
responses.
If you look at this big picture, step out of the single human perspectve of human morality
constructs and look at this from a distance, the only perspective that truly matters cosmically long term...
a cosmic perspective and recognize the power of life in play.
LIfe on earth's origins coud have been from tough organisms that actually crossed through space on meteorites
or comets as some theorys suggest. So even preserving the tiniest portion of life is a chance for something greater.
Where did this film end?
LIfe endured despite the most extreme threats to it's existance.
Life is a powerful natural force, it has transformed this globe with it's power. That is factual you can
find this very early on in earth's history when the entire atmosphere for instance was altered because of life for instance.
We too are part of earth's life story, that life instinct to live and expand as all organisms do.
Lowell's act was one of instinctual basic self defense by life itself when attacked.
Greater forces were in play than that of a single human being. An entire world's suvival instinct
was in play, it simply manifested itself in Lowell. His acts in the big picture were beyond human interpretation of
right or wrong. Rather the power of life fighting to simply exist in extreme situations that threaten it.
We see this all through earth's history, even during massive extinction events, certain life manages
to cling and fight to remain, and the cycle begins again. Even plants will battle threats with chemical
responses.
If you look at this big picture, step out of the single human perspectve of human morality
constructs and look at this from a distance, the only perspective that truly matters cosmically long term...
a cosmic perspective and recognize the power of life in play.
LIfe on earth's origins coud have been from tough organisms that actually crossed through space on meteorites
or comets as some theorys suggest. So even preserving the tiniest portion of life is a chance for something greater.
Where did this film end?
LIfe endured despite the most extreme threats to it's existance.
Murdering a few people, in exchange for at least buying the biosphere some time? I'd support that.
We're not talking about trading a few people for a few plants, we're talking about a few people for ALL the plants EVER. If you can accept that it might ever be worth trading a human life for any non-human thing, then IMO this seems like a pretty clear case of it.
I am not a big tree-hugger in general. But the idea of killing the entire biosphere out of neglect is a crime against, well, everything.
We're not talking about trading a few people for a few plants, we're talking about a few people for ALL the plants EVER. If you can accept that it might ever be worth trading a human life for any non-human thing, then IMO this seems like a pretty clear case of it.
I am not a big tree-hugger in general. But the idea of killing the entire biosphere out of neglect is a crime against, well, everything.
Murderers and mass murderers have been using that kind of argument to justify their actions since man could reason.
All but one of habitat domes in that movie's universe were destroyed, i see no reason why, when they find the last dome, it won't suffer the same fate.
Oh, it wasn't neglect, it was calculated and willful destruction and eradication.
From the information given in the movie, we can tell a few things about it's universe. There is enough interplanetary travel and colonization to support titanic commercial space freighters. It is likely that there were other fleets of freighters with habitat domes, with each nation having their own fleets with samples of their biospheres. There were not enough domes to have representation of all of the Earths biospheres on the few ships we saw. They can control the weather and temperature on Earth. They can manufacture all the food they need synthetically, like the food on the freighter. The majority of the Earth's population is content and does not care about nature. People probably still have lawns, shrubs and trees, but all the major forest are gone, consumed in atomic fire.
Given the information in the movie, I would say that it is a dystopian universe.
David.
The only murderers were those that were following the highest immoral orders to destroy a life legacy of an entire world,
4.5 billion years in the making that was not theirs to take.
And those that gave those orders... Sick.
Not to mention condemning humanity of a precious resource... forever.
All the cures possible lost, all the remarkable ability of life on earth to clean our environment, lost.
What would earth become in time without a biosphere? Unlivable.
That is a sick crime against humanity condemning people to death in the millions or billlions.
The soldiers in concentrations camps claimed to just be following orders too.
4.5 billion years in the making that was not theirs to take.
And those that gave those orders... Sick.
Not to mention condemning humanity of a precious resource... forever.
All the cures possible lost, all the remarkable ability of life on earth to clean our environment, lost.
What would earth become in time without a biosphere? Unlivable.
That is a sick crime against humanity condemning people to death in the millions or billlions.
The soldiers in concentrations camps claimed to just be following orders too.
Laspector
Master Member
I think we can all agree that Lowell was a little coo-coo, but he was the protagonist of the movie and you rooted for him, plain and simple. It's no different than a prison movie where you root for the cons against the "evil" warden, even though these cons are all hardened criminals, rapists, murderers, etc.
Why do we like Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy? There is no telling how many people this guy killed before getting sent to the Kiln. Everybody likes Red in Shawshank, yet he admits he is a murderer. Other examples way too many to name. I mean its the same with Indiana Jones, why aren't people banning all his movies? The guy had sex with an underage girl.
Why do we like Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy? There is no telling how many people this guy killed before getting sent to the Kiln. Everybody likes Red in Shawshank, yet he admits he is a murderer. Other examples way too many to name. I mean its the same with Indiana Jones, why aren't people banning all his movies? The guy had sex with an underage girl.
Yes. And great military leaders on the good guys' teams have been doing exactly the same thing to win wars, too. How many guys did the Allies lose on Omaha Beach?
The same logic says that a guard working at a concentration camp has no reason to bother standing up against criminal orders, or trying to be humane to the prisoners when he can. They're probably dead anyway in the long run.
Definitely a dystopian universe.
Personally, I have problems equating those who were stopping murderer's and people committing genocide, with those who were committing the acts, but whatever floats your boat.
How many died on Omaha Beach? A lot more than you think, those that were killed BEFORE they reached the beach were not counted as casualties.
Do you think that if a soldier hadn't obeyed a lawful, if immoral order, that they wouldn't have faced a court marshal and execution for failure to obey orders in time of war? They were murdering people by the hundreds. A mutinous solder could have been added to the mix with absolutely no trouble.
HEY! We agree on something, HURRAH! :lol
Please understand, I am not agreeing with the decision to destroy the domes. I am looking at the views of the other characters in the movie. And if you go by the views of the other characters, then in the universe of the movie, no act of disobedience by the crew was going to stop it. If they refused to carry out a lawful order, they would be arrested and another crew would carry out the order. But they didn't care, and see anything wrong with their actions (another self-justification used by murderers). It was stated in the movie, that Lowell was the deviant personality, the rest of the crew were the normal ones. The support on Earth for the project just wasn't there. They are different breed of people, happy, content with a constant climate temperature, synthetic food and a bland environment. That is why, when the last dome is found, it will be destroyed, and few, if any in that universe will care. Freeman Lowell will be known as a lunatic mass murderer.
Times change. Situations change. Views change. Morals change. People change.
David.
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