Everyone is going green these days, but Bruce Dern takes that concept to the extreme in Silent Running, a 1972 outer space thriller. In the not-so-distant future, scientists place the last remaining plant specimens on space freighters orbiting Saturn. Earth's government plans to recall the ships at some point, with the expressed goal of reforest the planet.

Dern plays Freeman Lowell, the chief botanist on the freighter known as "Valley Forge." A devoted ecologist, Lowell adopts one of the plant domes as his own, tending it with love and care. Tired of life in outer space, his sneering colleagues don't understand Lowell's reverence toward his "garden."

When a message arrives from Earth, it tells the crew to destroy all the domes and return home. After watching the gleeful crew members blow up several domes, Lowell decides to take action. When they show up in his garden with a box of nuclear charges, Freeman Lowell makes a life-or-death decision between the plants and the people.

Although this film first arrived in theaters in 1972, Silent Running contains a powerful message that still has meaning today. Director Douglas Trumbull looks ahead to a time when mankind's carelessness has destroyed the Earth's flora and fauna. Even in the 21st Century, it is hard to imagine what kind of neglect would cause this kind of destruction.

Known for edgy characters, Bruce Dern turns in a complex performance as Freeman Lowell. Treating one dome like his private sanctuary, Lowell only eats fresh produce, rejecting the processed food favored by the rest of the crew. At times, he even gets down on his hands and knees to tend to his garden, almost like it was his backyard back home.

Silent Running also features three little droids who are way cooler than R2D2 and C3PO in Star Wars. Freeman Lowell names them "Huey, Dewey and Louie," the same names as *Donald Duck*'s nephews. With cool droids, great special effects and a powerful environmental message, Silent Running remains a classic film and one that everyone should see.

Months before Tom Cruise felt the need for speed in Top Gun, Louis Gossett, Jr. and Jason Gedrick starred in Iron Eagle, an ultra-patriotic film that flew into theaters in early 1986. Gedrick plays Doug Masters, the son of a well-respected Air Force Colonel. After his father is captured by a power-mad, Middle Eastern dictator, Doug hatches a wild plan to fly into this foreign country and rescue his dad.

With the help of his friends, Doug gathers enough Air Force Intelligence and secures the use of two fighter jets to make the trip. Doug then seeks out Colonel Charles "Chappy" Sinclair, a good friend of his father who is played by Gossett. Chappy has been mapping out his own rescue plan, but he can't believe this cocky teenager would be able to fly a jet, much less mount a rescue mission.

Definitely a movie from the 1980's, Iron Eagle is both ultra-cool and highly unbelievable. If, for instance, the security on that Air Force Base was so lax that teenagers had the run of the place, Russian MiG fighters could have easily flown in and bombed the whole place out of existence.

As played by Jason Gedrick, Doug Masters is a hotshot kid who thinks he knows everything about flying. Doug spends quite a bit of the movie wearing a flight jacket, but when he's in the cockpit, he has to listen to hard rock music. In those pre-iPod days, however, Doug has to settle for a cassette player strapped to the leg of his flight suit, and, in one funny sequence, Chappy reminds Doug to make sure that he's playing the right music when he's firing missiles.

Fresh off his Academy Award-winning performance in An Officer and a Gentleman, Louis Gossett, Jr. brings Sergeant Foley's bad attitude to Colonel Chappy Sinclair. Even with Gossett in the pilot's seat, it's hard to believe that two unauthorized American fighter jets could have left United States airspace as easily as they did in this movie.

Still, Iron Eagle has some excellent flying sequences, such as when Doug starts dropping bombs on an oil refinery. Iron Eagle definitely is a wild ride, especially if you, like Doug, remember to play the right music.