“The point was that aliens could relate to the Drones much more effectively, without having to go through a lot of human hysteria.”. Roger reviews Wavelength by himself at the end of this video. Two Vietnam veterans, Leland McLemore, and George McCart, acted as “drone consultants” in the manufacture and wearing of the suits. Screenwriter must-read: Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino & Steven Bochco’s screenplay for Silent Running [PDF]. Assisted by three robots and a small human crew, Lowell rebels when he is ordered to destroy the greenhouse in favor of carrying cargo, a decision that puts him at odds with everyone but his mechanical companions. Wheeler shot mostly with the aperture wide open to compensate for shadow. |, March 14, 2009 Visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull (notable for his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind), made his directorial debut with this eco-themed sci-fi classic. The SOC presented a Technical achievement award in 2009 for Trumbull’s development of the Slit Scan process of motion picture cinematography. The Drones could see the aliens in this original treatment whereas Lowell could not. not too preachy considering it's obviously spawn of the hippy flower power era. or Best Offer. Than said I like both films ( 2001 & Silent running ) but I agree with Mark on this one, yes its perhaps over sentimental, lacking in the humour of the film dark star. Free shipping. Read critic reviews. “It was just a simple spinning gizmo.” As the ship passed through the rings, Trumbull again employed his slit-scan technique for the Star Gate sequence from 2001. The Martian Powet Robots: Silent Running In the first episode of the new Powet original series "Powet Robots" we look at the robots from the 1972 film Silent Running, Drone #1 (Dewey), Drone #2 (Huey) and Drone #3 (Louis) Watch this video in High Definition Check out more images of the Silent Running Drones, behind the scene So in the world of Silent Running, which incidentally takes place at the turn of the 21st Century (some sources give the exact year as 2008), there are no forests or presumably any other kind of environments with plants and animals left on Earth. The plastics were supplied free of charge by Dow Chemical, who, after public outcry, had by now become the sole producer and supplier of Napalm B and Agent Orange to the American Airforce in their “strategic defoliation” efforts in Vietnam. These guys were the original bunny boilers. Great models! They basically trained me how to shoot… I mean, this was really my film school, and they were wonderful with me.”. Learn how this 1972 film impacted Star Wars in technique, and gave one key A New Hope crew member his start. “We’re told that the old films, the Outlands and Silent Runnings, were too plaintive, too whiney. Written by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino (he of later Heaven’s Gate and Year of the Dragon infamy), and Steven Bochco (later creator of TV pioneering cop dramas Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue), Silent Running went through a couple of revisions before the story we are familiar with. Silent Running would be both a steep learning curve and his signature work, ... Star Wars is credited with the term “used universe” but Trumbull was also determined to have a worked in, “funky” feel to his spaceship, as opposed to the pristine interiors of 2001‘s Discovery. Admit it. The four actors were: drone #2 Huey (orange): Steve Brown and Cheryl Sparks. Though not a perfect film, Silent Running will certainly please genre fans. Close it up!" They found that coming down from above deck it took several minutes to adjust to the low light level. "; IMDB Trivia page Star Wars As an enormously collaborative effort, Trumbull felt the effects were directed by Kubrick, not designed by him. |, January 16, 2021 Mark Persons went on to join the Screen Actors Guild. From the first moment we laid eyes on the light speed X-Wing Fighters, we all wanted to drive one. They were made from ABS plastic, vacuum-formed in pieces and assembled together, weighing 20 lbs, including the manipulator arm, which could be removed when the camera wasn’t rolling. THE EXTRAS. Stalwart Robotic Missile Tank Starring: Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, and Jesse Vint. All orders are custom made and most ship worldwide within 24 hours. Lowell, however, becomes so fixated on his dream of seeing plants restored to Earth he faces down and murders his crew members, stealing the ship and its final remaining dome in order to preserve it. “We’ve allowed ourselves to be convinced that SF should be frivolous, for teenage boys,” Jones said in the press kit at the time of Moon‘s release. Later that same year, Valley Forge served as the primary recovery vessel for the Mercury-Redstone 1A unmanned spacecraft. | Rotten (9). ...a sombre, often pompous story, but it's also got offbeat charm... Its simplicity and unique approach to the subject matter undeniably makes it a sci-fi spectacle in a class of its own. Coming Soon, Regal Dow were persuaded by Trumbull to give assistance as a good PR move. No effort was made to hide lights or wires but only to blend them in with the ship’s fittings.”, Dern enjoyed the experience. By embracing the theme of environmental salvation, Silent Running came to be seen as a banner film for the socially conscious class of science fiction. A very cute HAL9000 in Deformed Characters. Coming Soon. Look, here you have this guy who’s a murderer. | Rating: 4/5, September 18, 2008 Three layers of fine copper wire were laced via holes throughout the clear dome to create the framework pattern. Douglas Trumball's Silent Running is a flawed classic, but that still makes it a classic. | Rating: 3.5/4 My list of other out-of-the-body films is a short and odd one, ranging from the artistry of "Bonnie and Clyde" or "Cries and Whispers" to the slick commercialism of "Jaws" and the brutal strength of "Taxi Driver. So he creates companions by reprogramming the drones.”, Wayne Smith recalled, “Six months went into the research, design and construction of the three drones. You’re amazed and respectful at his adjustment. All material for educational and noncommercial purposes only. | Rating: 6/10 The “beyond the infinite” tunnel of light that the Bowman character travels through at the climax was largely his own work. Silent Running. Silent Running is no jerry-built science fiction film, but it's a little too simple-minded to be consistently entertaining. Cast. At various points throughout the course of the films, R2, an astromech droid, is a friend to C-3PO, Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, BB-8, Rey and D-O. Inspired designs on t-shirts, posters, stickers, home decor, and more by independent artists and designers from around the world. Directed by Douglas Trumbull. The same attitude that you three guys are giving me right here in this room today. Dern like I said is good here, and he holds things together. I knew what I wanted.”. George Lucas’s original design inspiration for R2-D2 came after the 1972 sci-fi flick Silent Running. He’s a space pirate, and he’s having the time of his life.” In Italy, Silent Running was marketed and retitled as 2002: The Second Odyssey on their film posters. The manipulator arm was designed by Don Trumbull, the director’s engineer-designer father. Some of the contributions he made to cinema even outside of … There's terrible bits of Joan Baez singing that'll make you put the work end of a shotgun in your mouth. The Cinema Behind Star Wars: Silent Running. Silent Running by Douglas Trumbull: A 30-minute featurette in which Trumbull reflects on the film from the initial idea, the mood he was trying to establish, the effects work in the film, working with the Navy and more. | Top Critics (7) Also, new inventive photographic effects were utilized in the effects photography… The script called for miles of passageways, a kitchen, a surgery, main, and auxiliary controls, recreation room, and crew’s quarters, plus the necessary production areas. Sidney Poitier’s 7 Most Memorable Performances, All Harry Potter Movies Ranked Worst to Best by Tomatometer, The Golden Globes May Be Over, and Here’s Why. All rights reserved. We want to hear what you have to say but need to verify your email. These biomes are cared for by a small crew of mostly bored trained personnel and Drones until the day they can be brought back home to repopulate and cleanse a planet scarified by humankind’s short-sighted environmental indifference. Only one reason why! To donate, please visit our donation page, or click on the icon below: Get Cinephilia & Beyond in your inbox by signing in, © 2017 Cinephilia & Beyond. |, March 2, 2012 In order to keep costs on Silent Running down, Trumbull hired inexperienced college students to build models and work on the special effects, and one of those students was Dykstra. https://cinephiliabeyond.org/, Universal Soldier? Watch. All rights reserved. With a minimum of change, the ship would provide the look we were after.”, Trumbull and Wheeler had to think creatively to light the cramped interiors (all the power and plumbing had been stripped out of the ship). What were we thinking? As his crewmates dismiss his eating of the foodstuffs he cultivates “from the dirt,” preferring their own synthetic food and longing to return to what to Lowell feels is a bland, sterile slow death of the soul on a depleted, homogenized Earth, he snaps: “That’s right. We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future. Absolutely our highest recommendation. Here are several photos taken behind-the-scenes during production of Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running © Universal Pictures, Trumbull/Gruskoff Productions. The environmentally aware were also buoyed up by the dramatic images of the Earth, a fragile, blue and white marble in the blackness of space, as captured by the Apollo astronauts from the moon (in the early 1960s Trumbull worked at Graphic Films, contracted to NASA, where he found himself doing pre-visualisation work on lunar landers and vertical assembly buildings for the Apollo program). Freeman Lowell, his fellow crew members, and their three Drones, tend the forests carried by the spaceship Valley Forge. |, May 9, 2005 Cliff Potts as John Keenan. S p o n s o r e d. STAR WARS POSTER Princess Leia RARE HOT NEW 24X36. Trumbull said “part of Silent Running is the relationship between Bruce Dern and his drones. High quality Silent Running gifts and merchandise. Your generosity preserves film knowledge for future generations. It’s around this point that Lowell, aware of the magnitude of what he has done and the lonely, guilty future he has committed himself to, begins to humanize the Drones, reprogramming them and talking to them as if they were living companions. This is more of a Sci Fi drama, but it it's quite entertaining nonetheless. |, February 24, 2021 Within this grouping a young SFX pioneer and aspiring film-maker grabbed his chance. They won't be able to see your review if you only submit your rating. Tribute to one of the most influential, ingenious special effects gurus of our time: Douglas Trumbull. Star Wars is credited with the term “used universe” but Trumbull was also determined to have a worked in, “funky” feel to his spaceship, as opposed to the pristine interiors of 2001‘s Discovery. Regal The film stands out as a great genre film, one that helped shape the genre for what it is. But where Planet of the Apes is bubble gum Sci Fi, Silent Running is for the thinking man. We want to hear what you have to say but need to verify your account. “The set was pre-lit as much as possible and all cables and plugs were lace throughout the overhead areas. Whilst it is implausible that life on Earth could survive without oxygen generating plants and sustainable crops, the script is aiming for an emotional connection. Sign up here. “I really didn’t know anything about screen direction, about master shots, two shots, that sort of thing… But Chuck Wheeler, who was such a great cinematographer, was incredibly helpful to me, as was Harry Sundby, who was the lighting gaffer. Silent Running, 1972. Shots of the Valley Forge, the domed greenhouse ship from this movie, were used to show 'agricultural ships' in "Battlestar Galactica. Intended for editorial use only. Smith and Trumbull wanted it to be “modular in construction, open, and to incorporate six geodesic domes for housing the ecological systems or gardens. The film is enjoyable for its intimacy, seriousness, and intelligent character work, virtues not perpetuated by the subsequent new wave. "Star Wars" works like that. Trumbull started off on the project as an illustrator but ended up helping devise many of the complex photographic systems which the film needed. Douglas Trumbull – Then and Now: A five-minute piece in which Trumbull discusses his career from early work and beyond. Silent Running is also important to Star Wars for another key member of the crew: John Dykstra. Interview with Douglas Trumbull by Castle of Frankenstein magazine (Issue #19). Instead, various ways were explored and devised to cut costs, including the extensive use of an aircraft carrier, an aeroplane hangar (for the forests), and special front projection equipment. After the end of all botanical life on Earth, ecologist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) maintains a greenhouse on a space station in order to preserve various plants for future generations. |. Extras on this release include: Audio Commentary by Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw It was a small, pneumatically and radio-controlled aluminum device that gave the drones the dexterity to weed, play cards, weld and perform surgery. Once initial successful tests were carried out to ensure a bilateral amputee could walk on his hands with a prototype suit on, the hunt began for suitable performers. 69 sold. Visual effects guru and a man who has designed the template for Vfx in films, Douglas Trumbull is a true genius. Enjoyable, but slow paced, Silent Running is one of those films that you need a few viewings to get into. He’s beginning to crack, to feel his conscience. There is no more beauty, and there is no more imagination, and there are no frontiers left to conquer, and you know why? Richard Yuricich, who later worked on Blade Runner, was in charge of animation, “taking these cut-out photographs of stars and spaceships and domes, and shooting them on the animation stand.”. Among the most intelligent and entertaining sci-fi films of the 1970. Star Wars X-Wing Fighter Bongs. | Rating: 4/5 We could envision it as a full-sized space freighter.” Hundreds of Japanese model kits of German WWII tanks were cannibalized for interesting surface texture shapes. For his substantial technological contributions to the industry, which include having designed the groundbreaking special effects for such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and Blade Runner (1982), Trumbull was awarded the Gordon E. Sawyer award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2012. According to a August 14, 1981 Hollywood Reporter article, Universal sued Twentieth Century-Fox, claiming that the droid "R2-D2" in Star Wars was an infringement upon the design of drones Huey, Dewey and Louie. People were gradually coming to the realization that something needed to be done about decades-long pollution, resource depletion, overpopulation, nuclear proliferation and other man-made hazards to the planet. When 20th Century-Fox sued Universal in 1978, claiming Battlestar Galactica (1978) was a ripoff of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), Universal retaliated by contersuing Fox, claiming Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) was a ripoff of Silent Running (1972). t uː ˈ d iː t uː /) or Artoo-Detoo is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas.He has appeared in ten of the eleven Star Wars films to date. THE AUDIO. One reason why! January 30, 2019 April 4, 2021 firstmagnitude 1245 Views 4 Comments 1983, Return of the Jedi, Silent Running, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Searchers, The Secret of 'Star Wars', Wavelength. Jan 25, 2021 - Paper models - cutouts: science fiction from movies, television, etc. George Lucas apparently admitted that the inspiration behind the "look" of R2-D2 was the trio of Huey, Louie, and Dewey from Doug Trumbull's film Silent Running, which was released five years before A New Hope. The best thing about Silent Running is still Bruce Dern, whose characteristically fearless performance keeps the episodic story in motion. Ma Earth can no longer grow food after we pollute the bejesus out of her and so we build a greenhouse in space to preserve the idea of growing food. RoboCop, Terminator, C-3PO, OptimusPrime, Superman, Gun Walker, Lens Head Recon Robot, Huey, Duey and Luie from Silent Running, Lots of Star Wars, Star Trek, check all categories. Legendary filmmaker and Academy Award®-winning special effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull joined post-secondary students and faculty for a Higher Learning Master Class. Wayne Smith, credited for “Special Designs” on the film, writing in 1972: “Our budget did not allow for extensive set construction. It doesn't fulfill the potential of its ambitious themes, but. Douglas Trumbull, after a fruitful collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey, was 29 when he chose to write and direct another science fiction film. Please reference “Error Code 2121” when contacting customer service. “If you rotated it around while the shutter was open, it created a ring,” Trumbull recalled. The desperation of the lead doesn't really come across as often as it should've but all in all, a solid effort. The same thing… ‘well everybody has a job.’ That’s always the last one. Silent Running is an end of the world pic set against a Sci Fi landscape. And that is—nobody cares.”. The DVD/Blu-ray of the film is available at Amazon and other online retailers. The exterior of the spaceship model was twenty-five feet long. Watch. 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