Daily Dialogue — September 12, 2018

“It calls back a time when there were flowers all over the Earth… and there were valleys. And there were plains of tall green grass that you could lie down in — you could go to sleep in. And there were blue skies, and there was fresh air… and there were things growing all over the place, not just in some domed enclosures blasted some millions of miles out in to space.”

— Silent Running (1972), written by Deric Washburn & Michael Cimino and Steven Bochco

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Outer Space.

Trivia: After the success of Easy Rider (1969), Universal Studios hit upon the idea to let young filmmakers make “semi-independent” films for low budgets in hopes of generating similar profits. The idea was to make five movies for low budgets (one million dollars or less), not interfere in the filmmaking process, and give the directors final cut. The movies were: this movie, The Hired Hand (1971), The Last Movie (1971), Taking Off (1971) and American Graffiti (1973).

Dialogue On Dialogue: Wall-e is a reverse of Silent Running — instead of huge spaceships carrying the last remaining forms of vegetation from a poisoned Earth, Wall-e is about the human race living aboard spaceships. Both refer to a home planet killed by pollution and environmental disaster.