So I watched this for the first time since I’d seen it in the theater, and I have to say, it’s not horrid. It plays more like a 1950s science fiction movie than something made in the 1970s (which isn’t a bad thing considering some of the flicks that came out then). They really just didn’t seem to have any idea of what to do with everything. They had a concept, but no real idea of where to go with it.
Also, I’ll take 99% of the effects shots in the film over the latest CGI wankfest from the likes of Lucas. Not a film that I’d eagerly seek out to watch again, but if it happened to be on when I was flipping through the channels, I’d give it a go.
I’ll admit, I own this one on DVD, and do take it off the shelf every couple of years.
Loved it when I first saw it (I was 6). Much of the imagery stayed with me, although I didn’t remember all that much about the story (oddly, I didn’t recall that three people died on-screen… would that land an R-rating now?).
Saw it again in high school, and Og it sucked. But any time it came on our local independent TV station, I had this itch-scratching compulsion to see it. And it grew on me again.
It would be interesting to see a remake. It should keep, and build on, the somber look of the original (e.g. that wonderful robot funeral scene). But above all else, fix the dialog - much of the talk in the original is chatter that feels out of place in an otherwise moody film, and nearly all of it feels really stale. Definitely expand on Reinhardt’s character; last few times I’ve seen it I’ve wanted to identify with him as the (anti-)hero of the film but there’s not enough there. I’d give most of the scientific inaccuracies a pass. For example, I know that the event horizon of a black hole doesn’t really look like a whirlpool but it looks pretty cool as is.
Y’know, I’ve always liked this one, ever since I was a kid. I dunno—maybe it’s the characters, maybe it’s the art style, maybe it was the sense of…professionalism among the characters (like Tuckerfan said—it feels more like The Thing from Another World or Forbidden Planet than some action flick set in space with a bunch of pretty young people swashbuckling around).
Or maybe I’m just a sucker for robotic disembowlment and laser beams that don’t travel slower than a bullet.
I saw this as a kid in the theater when it was first released, and the only two things I really remember are the old, beat-up junker robot (B.O.B.) and the fact that Maximillian scared the living kid-shit out of me!
It has been quite a few years since I’ve seen this movie but I have very fond memories of it and would like to get it on DVD. It definitely was completely different and I seem to remember it having some pretty cool visuals. Maximillian scared the shit out of me too. I seem to remember a general dreadful atmosphere to the movie, so unusual for Disney.
I agree that the Disney studios seemed to be trying to cash in on the sci-fi craze of the late 70’s, but it wasn’t the first, or last, movie to prey that the flashy special effects will make up for an otherwise predictable script.
As I recall, the idea was that the black hole led to either Heaven or Hell; recall the fiery place Reinhardt and Maximillian ended up merged in ?
I thought it was an OK movie; I was another kid who found Maximillain intimidating, and the zombie-crew rather scary at that age. I found the old beat up robot overly cutsy, however.
Also, while I know black holes don’t look like that - that’s what black holes should look like !
what?!? granted it was many years ago that I saw it in the theater, but in my memory, the movie ends when they go through the black hole, and we never see where it leads to. I don’t remember anything about a church… is this a woosh? to bolster my memory, i also remember a ‘sequel’ comic book in which we do get to see the other side of the black hole (it turns out to be a parallel universe), and it also did not involve a church.
It’s a riff on the ending of 2001, where the crew has hallucinations while going through the black hole. We see Maximillian and Reinhardt become one, and then in Hell, while Yvette Mimoux (or whatever her name is) flutters through mirrored cathedral style hallways. It then ends with the ship emerging on the otherside of the black hole, near a planet.
Maximillian scared the crap out of me too - gave me nightmares. Having seen it again recently it really isn’t a good movie - but it does get some things right. I like the dark and subdued tone, how it leans more toward psychological drama rather than action. Some of the sets are great, and the score by John Barry is good, especially the main theme. But the dialogue is poor, the story is thin, some of the effects are cheesy even for its time, and that beat-up robot with the old man cowboy voice is way of place in that film.
The movie suffered on its release from overhype. It had received a huge buildup as Disney’s blockbuster space movie and in the end it just couldn’t meet expectations and fell flat at the box office.
It’s not a bad movie, quite watchable in a cheesy kinda way.
The problems with The Black Hole??
1.) The story made no sense. At all. They found themselves a nifty setting – derelict spaceship, lost for years, orbiting a Black Hole. They had gorgeous special effects (helped out by Disney’s A.C.E.S. computer-controlled camera system) They had good actors (Yvette Mimieux – Weena from The Time Machine!!. Ernest Borgnine. Roddy McDowell. Anthony Perkins (!!) and Maxmilian Schell fer cryin’ out loud! Good – Heck, these were GREAT actors). But they didn’t have the slightest idea how to tie these into an intelligible and intelligent plot.
2.) Scientific illiteracy. OK – i know I’m a hard-core geek, and not everyone is. But when you start thinking that you need a gravity screen to keep from falling into a Black Hole, when all you really need is to keep orbiting (and what you really DO need to worry about is radiation from accelerating charges falling in), then you’re in “Kessel run in 5 parsecs” territory, and we revoke your artistic license.
3.) Terminal cuteness. The original sketches for V.I.N.C.E.N.T. showed a nifty, multi-armed robot. On-screen, V.I.N.C.E.N.T. looked like a prototype for Tom Servo, with big stupid Goofy eyes. Iy’s criminal to do that. But then they compoundee this by making Old Bob a lopsided Tom Servo with crooked Goofy Eyes and an inexplicable Good Ol’ Boy Texas accent, and I wanted to pull the plug. How the hell could you take it seriously after that? (And to compound it, V.I.N.C/E. had decent dialogue, well-deliverede by McDowell. But I couldn’t watch that vartoony robot deliver it.)
You could live with faults #2 and #3, but you’d better have a stellar cast and direction if you’re going to forego #1. The Big Sleep could get away with it, but The Black Hole can’t.