(Thanks, MovieTrailerGrave!) 

I saw The Black Hole on the first day it was released and was pretty darn disappointed because I felt Disney blew an opportunity to make a more cerebral sci-fi film along the lines of a Forbidden Planet or a 2001: A Space Odyssey in favor of what was more or less a hobbled remake of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea with dashes of Star Wars, Moby Dick, and a few other bits borrowed from other classic and not so classic books and movies. It’s clearly NOT a “family film” despite the sci-fi/western shoot ’em up moments and two stupid trash can robots with big cartoon eyes that can’t be ignored as to how stupid they look mixed in with the more serious elements.

Thanks to the film not knowing which way to go tonally (and sorry, those robots never mesh with the dark mood and doom-filled dialog), what you have is an often grand looking, intentionally gloom-draped but sloppy sci-fi pastiche that’s too scary for the little kids those dopey robots were made for and too full of decent ideas better executed decades earlier to be a “great” movie. Not counting the awful “science” on display (it gets a pass from me because no one should go to a sci-fi flick expecting actual science!) I’d call it “adequate” at best. That said, there’s a niggling buzz in the back of my head that’s never left even after repeated re-viewings as recent as a few months ago. Then again, I was 17 when I first saw this and thanks to a tired ticket seller and a few early showings had already been exposed to Ridley Scott’s still brilliant ALIEN two years earlier, so my wider-eyed and more innocent eight-year old self was long buried by that point…

I’ve read and heard some excellent passionate dissections of this film that praise it pretty highly and have had lengthy discussions with people who see more in this than what’s on screen. While imagination is a prerequisite for enjoying any work of fiction, that’s NOT how a film like this needs to be viewed at all in my opinion. Adding elements to a flawed film in your mind or in print to explain away or enhance things in order to make it a better experience don’t do a darn thing for a finished product that SHOULD have been a bit more digestible. Had it stuck to one direction and gone where all that chat and debate I’ve been exposed to say it does, I’d be more accepting. But as everything in the film goes into that black hole, so goes the film’s logic along with any sense of wonder it tries so hard to generate.

I disliked the film even more after seeing a great museum exhibit back around the time it was released that featured some of the amazing pre-production artwork, matte paintings and intricate models of the doomed USS Cygnus that up close, looked even more amazing than they did in the movie. All that work for what? A film that no one knew how to market properly (that trailer above is great and unsettling, though)? Despite some very good effects work and a great John Barry score, The Black Hole ended up a whole lot of expensive sound and fury signifying Disney not really knowing how to make a film for an audience over a certain age without mucking it up in some way or another.

Sure, the actors all do their work quite well with what they have to work with, but as someone who’d already seen 20,000 Leagues and a few other films this riffs off, for all the pretty effects I couldn’t get over the lack of originality on display. Had the film stuck to the dark tone it wants so hard to work, it would have been better, but there goes your family dollar right out the window, right? It’s irksome because even back in 1981, the people I saw the film with knew the film would have benefited from a total lack of cute and dumb moments in favor of a grimmer tone and a more downward spiral of a finale than the somewhat baffling and open to too much interpretation ending that we saw. I can recall more than a few confused and depressed kids asking their parents “What happened?” at the ending and some of those parents saying things from “They all went to heaven” to “Oh, I have no idea – hey, let’s get some ice cream!” Wait, when did this turn into interpretive dance? It’s supposed to be a blasted Disney movie for the whole family!

I’ve seen this film perhaps twenty or so times since 1981 and I still don’t like it much. I don’t “hate” it at all mind you (which is why I’ve seen it so many times). I’ve just gone back to it too many times since my first viewing to pick it apart, removing and reworking the stuff that doesn’t fit and making the senseless elements make more (or actual) sense. Then again, the film shoots itself in the foot with stupid decisions made by key characters that seem more plot advancing than proper decent story development and some really silly sequences that are in there just to keep the kids from falling asleep or hiding under mommy or daddy’s coat.

Why is Anthony Perkins’ Dr. Alex Durant character so dumb to trust Maximilian Schell’s obviously deranged as soon as he’s met Dr. Hans Reinhardt? Lonely old man surrounded by puppets? Nope, he’s no Geppetto, people! Why does Ernest Borgnine’s reporter character Harry Booth try a fly that ship he’s OBVIOUSLY got no clue or training in how to operate? Who the heck sends a portly reporter on a long space voyage anyway without some sort of emergency training? What’s up with the Captain S.T.A.R.’s western fixation? And how do ROBOTS miss so much when shooting at stuff? Underpaid Imperial Stormtroopers, I can see, but these machines? How come Yvette Mimieux’ Dr. Kate McCrae forgets she’s telepathic (or remembers at the right time)? And so forth and so on. And don’t even get me started on Maximilian – that fiberglass Id Monster has a whole set of issues I won’t even get into here…

For me, the film is so trouble-packed that as noted above, once you apply any sort of basic science knowledge to things, it breaks apart faster than the Cygnus once its “null gravity” generator. As I said above, I don’t even count the science in these sorts of films as accurate, but I think that slooooow moving meteor rolling down that corridor like a giant lighted cheese puff late in the film made me throw up my hands in the theater along with a few hundred others. It’s clear that no one on the effect or writing team even considered the impossibility of that scene would outstrip any impressive effects work. But there it is, with the usual last minute escape thrown in to boot. Of course, there are PLENTY of sci-fi films that have worse stuff going on, but that moment still makes me laugh even today.

I can recall a science teacher of mine who’d also seen the film crack up laughing when he gave the class a review, calling both the film and the anomaly the crew was researching “The weakest Black Hole ever, but the only one you’ll probably EVER see!”, but that didn’t stop some from going afterwards and debating its merits when they returned from deep space. There’s supposedly a remake in the works and I’ll be keeping an eyeball peeled as it progresses. I’m thinking (and hoping) we won’t see a lot of those silly things that hurt the original so much, but were also at that point where Hollywood has made too many dark and depressing “gritty” remakes (Death Race, Total Recall, the upcoming RoboCop, et cetera) that this one might not get much notice if it’s too close to what’s already been done. Eh, we’ll see I suppose. Until that comes out, I guess I’ll be camping out in front of my TV watching the first film one more time and making up stuff as I go…