The Black Hole (SE)

In the late 70s and early 80s, Disney's rather unhelpful corporate motto changed from `What would Walt do?' to 'Star Wars should have been a Disney film.' Unfortunately, rather than embracing pictures that went against the tide, they interpreted it as jumping on the sci-fi bandwagon and spending a then-huge $17m on The Black Hole. The script famously went through years of rewrites (there was no black hole at all in the original drafts) and it's tempting to guess that most of the interesting ideas it may have started with fell by the wayside in the process. Disney's biggest problem was their own hype, pitching their first PG-rated film as a groundbreaking 2001-style adult epic rather than the Flash Gordon Goes 20,000 Leagues Under Space serial style shoot `em up aimed at kids that it really is. Much was made of the finale, so secret that multiple versions were reputedly shot and none of the cast allowed to see the script's last pages, only for the black hole ultimately revealed to be little more than a live-action version of Fantasia's vision of Night on Bald Mountain before throwing our cardboard heroes out the other side in a rushed and underwhelming anticlimax.

The human element isn't exactly well developed, with Robert Forster, Yvette Mimieux, Ernest Borgnine and Joseph Bottoms playing stock cardboard characters while Maximilian Schell hams it up as the mad scientist and Anthony Perkins goes through his large stockpile of mannerisms and ticks as his star-struck wannabe apprentice in a competition to see who can chew up the most scenery (Max wins by a mile thanks to great egomaniacal dialogue like "It is time de vorld forgot about ids failures und learned about my successes!"). A couple of mildly irritating anthropomorphic robots voiced by the unbilled Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens are thrown in because, y'know, Star Wars had robot sidekicks so they should keep the kids happy.

John Barry's score veers between effective and lazily repetitive, but on the plus side the film does at least throw in plenty of spectacularly silly action en route and Gary Nelson's direction is more than adequate, even pulling off one striking visual coup as a deserted spaceship suddenly springs to light. But the real star and auteur of the film is designer Peter Ellenshaw who gives the film such a magnificent look that you don't mind the absurdities too much (good job too, since this is the kind of film where no-one has difficulty breathing in a vacuum and where fiery meteors roll through the spaceships like a boulder chasing Indiana Jones). The giant spaceship Cygnus is a veritable Crystal Palace of girders, glass and lights while the black hole itself a marvellously unrealistic whirlpool of stars in the far distance. A travesty of science and engineering it may be, but when it looks this good it's a price worth paying. (It's also curious to note that, with its lost revolutionary spacecraft and its mad commander, it's easy to see the plot's unlikely influence on Event Horizon and the I'll-plagiarize-anything Sunshine.) Best watched with the brain on standby mode, but not without its incidental pleasures.

Once again Amazon have lumped together the reviews of three different DVD editions. The UK versions has a decent widescreen transfer but no extras; the long-deleted Anchor Bay release has a good widescreen transfer but is marred by a stereo track that favors only one channel but does include both widescreen and fullscreen versions; while the Disney Region 1 NTSC DVD corrects the soundtrack problem and includes a 16 minute retrospective featurette on the film as well as the trailer.

OK let's get the bad things about the Black Hole out of the way first of all. Some of the dialogue is unbelievably naff. It has an overtly judgemental morality which runs throughout the film from start to finish. Very occasionally the SFX slip, and you see wires holding up robots etc. Some of the scenes are cloying, particularly involving the antics of the overly cute, heroic robots... Also the makers would have done better to remember what effect the vacuum of Space would have on people NOT wearing spacesuits...
Put all that aside though and you are left with a minor sci fi masterpiece. Atmospherically the film is an outright winner - it is just so Gothic, from its sets, robots, and cowled and hooded undead crew. It also boasts one of the very best musical scores by John Barry. Visually it is stunning, Space has seldom looked this good. The blue/black background of space with its dense clusters of stars looks as good as it did on the day that it was released. Unlike Star Wars and its visibly dated mattes, this film has more than withstood the test of time.
The film's visual pinnacle though is the giant space ship Cygnus.
A cross between Brighton Pier and The Eiffel Tower, this Gothic behemoth is like no other. The scene where its lights are switched on suddenly and unexpectedly, is one of awe and beauty.
The exploration of the ship, culminating in the arrival in the control tower is stunning. Ditto the firing up of the ship's Frankenstein Lab like reactors and huge engines for its final journey to the Black Hole. Even in its death throes, this huge vessel retains a sad dignity.
Acting honours go to Maximilian Schell as an intergalactic Captain Nemo. Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Perkins, Yvette Mimeux, and Robert Forster all provide very able support though.
The blood red robot Maximilian (I wonder how that name was arrived at...) is an inspired creation, and has a temperament to match its colour scheme...

The dvd is great, picture and sound are both superb. Playing the film in 5.1 Dolby Digital on your home cinema is something else, especially when your memory of the film in the cinema is in mono. All sound channels are free of distortion and nicely separated. Both Surround channels in particular are superb.
Get this dvd if you can (the Collector's Edition on Region 1 is superb)) and add one of sci fi's most underrated films to your collection.

When it first came out this film was universally slated,and flopped at the box office,looking back at it now its kind of easy to see why.Disney did kind of botch it,in a lot of ways it is a very flawed production,and above all else its a Disney film,and thats where the problems stem from.Because while they tried to be forward looking in many ways with the production,it also had to remain a traditional Disney film,the result was it ended up being half arsed,neither one thing or the other,and more than a little confused.

But time has been very kind to this film,in many ways it has now come into its own and proved itself right.Yes some of the effects have dated,some badly,but some still look pretty cool.When the meteors crash into the Cygnus,this still packs a punch and still scores on the wow factor.The desigh of the Cygnus itself,and the sentry robot look fresh,someone could have come up with them yesterday.Its main problems however still remains,the story line and Disney.For its era it presented us with quite scientific story,as opposed to the action adventure,simplistic one of say Star Wars(and no Im not having a go at Star Wars).Problem was they took massive libertys with it,got some of it very wrong,threw in some religious posturing and an ending that still sems to make little sence,though is spectacular to look at.While there were no kids or animals in the film,Disney replaced them with the two doe eyed robots,Vincent and Old Bob,who they used to try and pull at the heartstrings of the viewer.Though to be fair they did compensate for this with Maximillian,one of the most evil robots ever created.

But despite all of this,I always loved the film,and I still do.It rattles along at a fair pace,builds up nicely and is always very entertaining,and for a film that is more than 30 years old now,thats pretty good going.