Silent Running

Silent Running is a science fiction movie of 1972, directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Bruce Dern as the main character Freeman Lowell. It was made with a very limited budget and has since achieved something of a cult film following.

The movie depicts a grim future, in which all plant life on Earth is extinct, and only a few specimens are still preserved on three spaceships that are in orbit around Saturn; but time is running out for them.

The science is not always plausible, and the special effects are low quality even by the standards of the time, but the message is powerful.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

When orders come from Earth to jettison the domes that contain the plants, blow each of them up with nuclear explosions and return, Freeman Lowell decides it is his mission to save the plants on his ship. Each ship carries three domes. He traps his crewmates (who are anxious to return to Earth) in one of the domes that is about to be jettisoned, and they are killed when the dome is blown up.

He and three robot companions (Huey, Dewey and Louie) fly through the rings of Saturn, and one robot is blown away from the ship due to the turbulence of the rings. A second robot is badly damaged in an accident. Lowell eventually leaves the third robot in charge of one of the domes.