# Mike + the Mechanics' "Silent Running" question **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 24, 2003, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-the-mechanics-silent-running-question/150585 "2003-01-24T00:51:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-the-mechanics-silent-running-question/150585/1 "2003-01-24T00:51:46Z")
Was this video supposed to be part of a movie? Or was it made to _look_ like it was from a movie? ---
**Author:** ![Gundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Gundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gundy)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-the-mechanics-silent-running-question/150585/2 "2003-01-24T16:06:38Z")
Was that the “there’s a gun and ammunition just inside the doorway, use it only in emergency” song? I always found that one a little creepy. I vaguely remember the video and for some reason have connected it in my mind (entirely incorrectly) with _Top Gun_. That didn’t help, did it? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-the-mechanics-silent-running-question/150585/3 "2003-01-24T16:41:27Z")
I asked this one a while ago and didn’t get any responses. My wife didn’t believe it existed. I’m like “You remember that ‘Silent Running’ video that had the little boy who believed his father was an alien, and the rocket ship was launched from the garage?” and she starts taking my temperature! Here’s [some help](http://home.planetinternet.be/~chrischa/Cellar_1.htm): "‘Silent Running’ became a major hit single there, which helped to give the group some character and on it’s re-release the song reached number twenty-one. It also was included in the soundtrack of the film ‘On Dangerous Ground’. " [ODG](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0090836) came out in 1986 (IMDB), the same year that “Silent Running” was released. IMDB says nothing about the song being in this film, nor does [this review](http://www.coldfusionvideo.com/c/chokecanyon.html), which does give a lengthy synopsis of the movie which makes it sound NOTHING like the video. But… some places give the subtitle of “Silent Running” as “On Dangerous Ground” so it might have been made for the movie. Results of my research: inconclusive. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-the-mechanics-silent-running-question/150585/4 "2003-01-24T16:41:55Z")
Wasn’t there a movie back in the early 70’s or so called Silent Running that starred Bruce Dern and a couple of R2D2’s ancestors? I believe he killed the other crew members to save all the plant species on board. Sorry, I don’t remember the music from it. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-the-mechanics-silent-running-question/150585/5 "2003-01-24T16:45:36Z")
[Here](http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php?sid=%EC%97%3A%16_s%7F%09) are the lyrics to Silent Running, which does not sound like it has much in common with the Dern movie. Or the other film I mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-the-mechanics-silent-running-question/150585/6 "2003-01-24T17:27:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lieu \* > \*\*Wasn’t there a movie back in the early 70’s or so called Silent Running that starred Bruce Dern and a couple of R2D2’s ancestors? I believe he killed the other crew members to save all the plant species on board. Sorry, I don’t remember the music from it. \*\* It’s been a while since I saw the movie, but I believe he and one other guy were manning the ship alone, then either Bruce Dern accidentally killed his shipmate or the guy died in an accident. I don’t remember him killing the guy on purpose, but I could be wrong. I should ask my mom - it’s her favorite movie of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Umbriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de053/32.png) [@Umbriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Umbriel)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mike-the-mechanics-silent-running-question/150585/7 "2003-01-24T18:31:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Motorgirl \* > \*\*It’s been a while since I saw the movie, but I believe he and one other guy were manning the ship alone, then either Bruce Dern accidentally killed his shipmate or the guy died in an accident. > I don’t remember him killing the guy on purpose, but I could be wrong. I should ask my mom - it’s her favorite movie of all time. \*\* Bruce Dern’s character kills one shipmate in a fight that breaks out when he tries to stop the shipmate from preparing a nuclear demolition charge to destroy one of their ship’s greenhouse modules (who was following orders of the authorities on Earth). It’s not premeditated, but not exactly an accident either. Dern’s character then, however, heads back to the ship’s bridge, and jettisons the ship’s other remaining greenhouse module with the ship’s other two crewmen inside, whereupon it is vaporized by the charge they just planted. No accident here, it’s outright murder, as Dern’s character apparently decides that, with the blood of one crewman on his hands, the die is cast, and he might as well follow through and save at least one forest. He later claims, while on the radio with the commander of the greenhouse ship squadron, that the other crewmen were killed in an accident when one of the charges detonated prematurely, so this is where some confusion may have arisen. All of this, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the Mike “+” The Mechanics song. I seem to recall (from back in the days when MTV played videos, and I watched them, and pined after Martha Quinn) the VJs mentioning that the song had been used in the score of a British Sci-Fi TV movie or series (though it may not have been composed specifically for it), and that that is where the clips in the video came from. Does that spark anyone’s memories? A quick check on the IMDB under soundtracks found the song only on what is apparently just a Mike + The Mechanics video compilation. I looked up [“On Dangerous Ground”](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0090836) though, and found that it was the alternate title of a film better known as “Choke Canyon”, which I’ve never seen, but I remember was played heavily on cable movie channels back in the mid-'80s. IMDB describes it as “action/sci-fi” and gives the synopsis: “A “cowboy”-scientist is fighting a corporation who wants to dump atomic waste on a piece of land he has leased.” I’m not sure how well that fits with the footage I remember from the video, but I guess it’s possible.