Duncan Jones' Five Sci-fi Movies You Have To See Silent Running (1972)
"Silent Running is a lot more political than any of the other films on my list, or even Moon itself, because it's coming out of a real time and place: Douglas Trumbull was trying to get a message across about environmental issues. Bruce Dern is fantastic in it and the characters of Hewey, Dewey and Louie are terrific as well. They created them by hiring these guys who were amputees, building costumes for them in which they walked around on their hands. Once you know that, you realise just how clever they were when they made that film. It was just a brilliant use of limited resources, and was very inspiring for Moon which we made for only $5 million; even today, I'm very willing to accept the effects the way they are if a story is well told. Silent Running is a less direct influence on Moon than Outland but, like Sam Bell in Moon, Bruce Dern's character is not necessarily the nicest guy in the world. If you haven't seen the film you have to see what he's capable of doing."
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Your Comments
1
Outland And Alien
Posted on Monday July 27, 2009, 13:47 by Gold Digger
Great to see a young director respect such overlooked movies like Outland. I adore Alien and Outland and adore Jerry Goldsmith's fantastic scores for both who really set the tone. The good old days when they had living breathing sets that looked realistic. The time and effort that went into them really showed. Read More
2
RE: Alien
Posted on Friday July 17, 2009, 17:59 by wdron
Absolutely right. Alien is my favourite film of all time. I love this list and everything on it - can't fault the man - but Alien tops it in my view. Alien is a stand-out film and absolutely looks as authentic today as it did on release, which Scott somehow also achieves with Blade Runner before CGI allowed people to create future worlds much more easily. The characters are fantastic and there's tension between them before they even land on LV426. Read More
3
RE:
Posted on Thursday July 16, 2009, 22:49 by Drone
Outland is such an overlooked film; every word a true one. So brilliant and atmospheric... like he says, it's a plausible, living, breathing world on screen Read More
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