MovieChat Forums > Silent Running (1972) Discussion > Was there excessive polution on Earth?

Was there excessive polution on Earth?

posted 10 years ago by alto_saxophone
6 replies | jump to latest

I know that the advertisements mentioned pollution, but the I don't recall the movie saying the Earth was polluted. I recently re-watched this film on Netflix, and it is mentioned that the entire Earth has a constant temperature of 75-degrees, so no runway climate change there like Soylent Green. They also mention there is not poverty, no disease, and everyone has a job.

So the forests on Earth don't appear to have been destroyed by pollution. Rather, something else must have displaced them. And the Earth seems livable and comfortable despite this.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] stazza 10 years ago

Everywhere on earth is 75f -- not a global average. They made it sound like it was all one big city... no more room for forrests

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] stazza 10 years ago

"On Earth, everywhere you go the temperature is seventy five degrees" is the words in the movie.
Assumeably, everything is now synthesized: food, air, life... global averaging no longer mattered in the Silent Running universe

[–] gabby_bm 10 years ago

I was under the impression that they essentially "paved paradise and put up a parking lot", pretty much eliminating the forests.

I don’t need you to tell me how good my coffee is.. 
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[–] spookyrat1 9 years ago

And the Earth seems livable and comfortable despite this.

Well, that's your assumption. The film doesn't really go into that, though we know the other 3 astronauts are keen to get back to an environment in which all plant life on Earth has become extinct. Lowell is certainly not in a rush and rejects the synthetics that apparently enable human civilisation to somehow continue to exist.🐭