10 Movies That Did Star Trek Better Than Star Trek‏

8. Silent Running

What it gets right: Pacifist science fiction Things are actually starting to look up for him again right now, but veteran character actor Bruce Dern's heyday remains the New Hollywood classics he starred in during the late sixties and early seventies. He won acclaim and awards alike for his performances in Coming Home, They Shoot Horses Don't They? and The King Of Marvin Gardens, but our favourite remains Silent Running, the sort of sci-fi film that only a bunch of hippies could make. Well, in a different way to John Carpenter's Dark Star, the stoner answer to 2001. Like those films Silent Running doesn't have your typical thrilling genre plot, instead chronicling a ship preserving some of the last remaining plant life from a ravaged Earth until the planet can support them again. The characters, design and viewpoint of Silent Running bridges the gap between the New Deal politics of Gene Rodenberry's original vision for Star Trek and the peace-loving philosophy of the swingin' sixties, producing a film that might not be on the radar of Trek fans, but really should be. It may not have the strong character drama of the classic show - since Dern's Freeman Lowell is alone on the ship, save for a group of robots named after Donald Duck's nephew Huey, Dewey and Louie - but the mission should definitely seem familiar. Last time we saw it, though, whales were involved...