The Black Hole

Release: 1979
Director: Gary Nelson
Production Company: Walt Disney Productions

Notable Cast:

Anthony Perkins as Dr. Alex Durant
Yvette Mimieux as Dr. Kate McCrae
Ernest Borgnine as Harry Booth
Roddy McDowall as VINCENT


Plot: The crew of the Palomino come across what appears to be an abandoned ship in space. The ship is near a black hole and somehow defying the gravitational pull. They figure out that the ship is the missing Cygnus and go in for a closer look.

The Palomino encounters some issues and is able to dock with the Cygnus. Aboard is Dr. Reinhardt and a seeming army of robots. He shares with them his goal of taking the Cygnus through the black hole to see what's on the other side.

The crew become suspicious of the human like behavior of the robots on the Cygnus and a horrible mystery unfolds.

The Monster: This time we get Maximilian who is the chief henchman of Dr. Reinhardt. Silent, heavily armored and featuring spinning blades of death, Maximilian is an adversary worthy of any galactic jumping crew of do-gooders.

Maximilian is heavily damaged in his big fight with BOB and VINCENT but manages to survive and ends up in hell, merged with his master. Honestly, if there is one bright spot in this movie, it's Maximilian. He might be a little goofy looking by today's standards but he gives off a real vibe of menace. You quickly understand that the crew of the Palomino know that any move against Reinhardt will bring them face to face with an opponent they might not be able to beat.

As the film progresses we see that Maximilian will kill without a second's thought. He kills Dr. Durant even against Reinhardt's wishes. Truly, a great antagonist here.

Thoughts: Admittedly this movie probably skirts the idea I set this blog up with. This is a movie with a budget and from a big time company. In fact, this movie is a real oddity from Disney as they appeared to be trying to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars with this film. In my defense this movie is kind of a sci-fi horror film.

I have a lot of nostalgia for this film. I first encountered the film as a Read Along book. If you don't know what that is, it's a children's book that came with a 45 record that would kind of narrate and act out the book for you. I really liked the book as it captures the strengths of the film which is the visuals but skips some of the other flaws. I saw the movie later, I was still fairly young, and liked it because it was a sci fi movie with some cool visuals.

So with the rose colored glasses of nostalgia I will readily admit this movie has massive flaws as a film and the positives don't outweigh the negatives. Disney was really trying to change their image and do something new and it kind of comes through with the mistakes made here.

Let's talk about the positives of this film first though. The mood is great in this film. There is a real sense of isolation and an undercurrent of dread on the Cygnus. Something about the whole ship just feels off. You are immediately on edge as soon as they arrive. I also think Reinhardt and Maximilian make for great villains. Maximilian has a real Darth Vader vibe to him and in general looks cool. I also enjoyed Ernest Borgnine and how his character arc played out in the film.

So to say the ending of this film is a total mess would be a vast understatement on my part. It feels like someone thought 2001: A Space Odyssey was awesome and then completely missed the point when they tried to do their own version of it. What we get is the Cygnus and the crew of the Palomino fall into the black hole and get a surreal heaven and hell kind of thing. It's really not a satisfying conclusion to the movie at all. Even as a young kid, I still found the ending to be a letdown.

The visual effects are also a bit of a mixed bag here. The effects in the film aren't bad but watch this side by side with Star Wars and you will see what I mean. Star Wars is 2 years older but it feels more modern in how the effects come across. With The Black Hole, it feels like a well made movie from the 60s. I even showed my wife, one of the action scenes and her reaction was "the bad guys aren't moving", which is sadly true. The battle scenes in Star Wars were absolute chaos at times with people running around and shooting each other. In this, the robots stand in a line and get shot by the heroes.

And then there's VINCENT and BOB. They come across like cynically made toy ads. Both of them are just annoying as the film progresses and I think you could have easily removed them from the film entirely and not lost anything, VINCENT in particular spends the entire moving just spouting cliches and other claptrap that makes you wish Maximilian would have just shot him and gotten it over with. I am not a fan of the little robots that could as an adult.

Also as an adult, I really kind of like some of the story and the lore that the film put out there. I am kind of interested in the story of the Cygnus and Reinhardt. How long were they in space, how did he take over the ship and what was his thought process? I think I kind of resent the movie as an adult for dangling an interesting mystery that they kind of just gloss over in a few words from BOB.

I think that might be my biggest issue with this movie. There was some level of potential in this movie but the people in charge didn't have the ability to really put it all together.

Verdict: I'm going with ** here. That might be a little too high as I think this film is more bad than good but you could spend time on worse entertainment.

Where to Watch:
Disney+ Subscription
Amazon Prime Streaming (Paid Link)
The DVD also appears to be $10 or less on eBay.