Let's play a game!

Someone go.

 

Blood Simple is a great movie for sure.

 

The Last Starfighter?

 

Nope

 

It made me think that being good at arcade and video games was more than just fun. It had some quantitative value that would guarantee success.

 

Ha, that's Mr Rumsfield from The Burbs. This looks a decade before that movie though.

 

At least...

 

In the future, all plant life on Earth has become extinct. A few specimens have been preserved in enormous, greenhouse-like geodesic domes attached to a fleet of American Airlines space freighters, currently just outside the orbit of Saturn. Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), one of four crewmen aboard the Valley Forge, is the resident botanist and ecologist who carefully preserves a variety of plants for their eventual return to Earth and the reforestation of the planet. Lowell spends most of his time in the domes, both cultivating the crops and attending to the animal life.[2]

Orders come from Earth to jettison and destroy the domes (with nuclear charges) and return the freighters to commercial service. After four of the six domes are jettisoned and blown up Lowell rebels and opts instead to save the plants and animals on his ship. Lowell kills one of his crew-mates who arrives to plant explosives in his favorite dome, his right leg is seriously injured in the process. He then jettisons and triggers the destruction of one of the remaining domes trapping and killing the remaining two crewmen.

Enlisting the aid of the ship's three service robots, called drones, Lowell stages a fake premature explosion as a ruse and sends the Valley Forge careening towards Saturn in an attempt to hijack the ship and flee with the last forest dome. He then reprograms the drones to perform surgery on his leg and sets the Valley Forge on a risky course through Saturn's rings. Later, as the ship endures the rough passage, Drone 3 (later nicknamed Louie) is lost, but the ship and its remaining dome emerge relatively undamaged on the other side of the rings.

Lowell and the surviving drones – which he nicknames Huey (Drone 2) and Dewey (Drone 1) after the cartoon characters – set out into deep space to maintain the forest. Lowell also reprograms Huey and Dewey to plant trees and play poker. Huey is damaged when Lowell accidentally collides with him while driving a buggy recklessly, and Dewey sentimentally refuses to leave Huey's side during the repairs. As time passes, Lowell is horrified when he discovers that his bio-dome is dying, but is unable to come up with a solution to the problem. When the Berkshire – another space freighter waiting to see if the Valley Forge has survived the trip – eventually re-establishes contact, he knows that his crimes will soon be discovered. It is then that he realizes a lack of light has restricted plant growth, and he races to install lamps to correct this situation. In an effort to save the last forest before the Berkshire arrives, Lowell jettisons the dome to safety. He then detonates nuclear charges, destroying the Valley Forge, the damaged Huey and himself in the process. The final scene is of the now well-lit forest greenhouse drifting into deep space, with Dewey tenderly caring for it, holding a battered old watering can.




Someone else go...

 

Interesting

 

I saw it one time, when I was a kid. Not sure why I remembered this old film and posted it...

 

I vaguely remember seeing screen captures of this movie but have never seen it or heard of it. You won this round.