The Black Hole (1979 film)
| The Black Hole | |
|---|---|
| File:Black hole ver1.jpg | |
| Directed by | Gary Nelson |
| Written by | Bob Barbash (story) Richard Landau (story) Gerry Day Jeb Rosebrook |
| Produced by | Ron Miller |
| Starring | Maximilian Schell Anthony Perkins Robert Forster Joseph Bottoms Yvette Mimieux |
| Cinematography | Frank Phillips |
| Edited by | Gregg McLaughlin |
| Music by | John Barry |
| Distributed by | Walt Disney Pictures Buena Vista |
Release dates | December 21, 1979 |
Running time | 97 min. |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
The Black Hole is a 1979 science fiction movie directed for Walt Disney Productions by Gary Nelson. It stars Maximilian Schell, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins, and Ernest Borgnine. The voices of the main robot characters in the film are provided by Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens. The music for the movie was composed by John Barry. The plot was inspired by Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Alan Dean Foster novelized the screenplay.
Widely regarded as Disney's answer to Star Wars (though work on the film was already underway as early as 1975), at $20 million it was the most expensive picture produced by the company to date. It was generally not well received by critics, although the special effects were highly praised. The movie earned $25 million at the US box office, making it the 13th highest grossing film of the year. The film was nominated for cinematography and visual effects Academy Awards and was notable for being the first Disney film not to have a universal rating, due to mild language (being the first Disney film to include profanity of any type) and scenes of human death never seen in a Disney production before. Along with frequent subtexts, there were also metaphysical and religious themes expressed through the film, a first for any Disney film. This PG-rated Disney film led the company towards experimenting with more adult-oriented films, which would eventually lead to the creation of its Touchstone Pictures arm to handle films considered too mature in nature to carry the Walt Disney label.
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The Black Hole has been released several times on VHS and DVD. It is actually one of the very first Disney videos ever made, the first release being 1980. Although never a huge hit, it has spawned an avid cult following.
Tagline: A journey that begins where everything ends.
Plot
In the year 2130, an Earth exploratory ship, the USS Palomino, discovers a black hole with a lost ship, the USS Cygnus, on its event horizon. To solve the mystery of the Cygnus, Palomino Captain Dan Holland (Forster), First Officer Charlie Pizer (Bottoms), journalist Harry Booth (Borgnine), scientist and ESP-sensitive Kate McCrae (Mimieux), whose father was one of the ship's officers, Dr. Alex Durant (Perkins), and the robot V.I.N.CENT board the ship where they meet its captain, Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Schell), a prominent scientist last seen twenty years ago, and his army of robot troopers, headed by the ominous, mute Maximillian.
Reinhardt reveals to the Palomino crew his most ambitious project, for which he has prepared for the last 20 years: to steer the Cygnus into the black hole and explore its beyond. While most of the crew react with incredulity and skepticism upon this announcement, Durant comes to worship Reinhardt as a hero and is even willing to accompany him into the black hole.
Reinhardt claims he is the only human remaining aboard the vessel. But the Palomino crew's suspicion are raised as Booth observes one humanoid robot (who walks with a limp) tending an enormous vegetable garden large enough to feed thousands, and Holland observes a "space burial" being conducted by the humanoids. An older robot model similar to V.I.N.CENT, named Old B.O.B., reveals that the crew of the Cygnus mutinied against Reinhardt when he chose to keep the Cygnus in proximity to the black hole. After killing the ringleaders of the rebellion (particularly Frank McCrae, Kate's father), he used the fully automated robots aboard the ship, particularly Maximillian, to lobotomize the remainder of his crew and make them the humanoid robots on the Cygnus.
Durant and Kate have meanwhile accompanied Reinhardt to the Cygnus's bridge. Via her implanted ESP module, McCrae learns about Reinhardt's crimes and informs Durant, who immediately checks the bridge personnel and is shocked to find the accusations true. When he confronts Reinhardt, he is killed by Maximillian, and McCrae is sent to be lobotomized. While the rest of the crew goes to rescue Kate, journalist Harry Booth attempts to escape alone in the Palomino, but Reinhardt shoots the ship down. The resulting collision of the Palomino destroys parts of the ship. In a twist of fate, an asteroid storm occurs and starts damaging the ship even further, especially the anti-gravity generator holding the Cygnus in place.
The forces caused by the black hole cause the ship to fall into ruin. When Maximillian and Reinhardt plan to escape the Cygnus in a probe ship which they have used to scan the black hole, the large video screen on the bridge falls on Reinhardt and pins him down to the control panel. When Reinhardt calls for help from Maximillian, the robot does not come to his master's aid and goes to the probe ship.
The fight between V.I.N.CENT, the Palomino crew (who escape the fight thanks to V.I.N.CENT) and Maximillian (who is defeated) leaves Old B.O.B. damaged beyond repair, and he parts ways with V.I.N.CENT. Holland, Pizer, McCrae, and V.I.N.CENT escape aboard the Cygnus's probe ship, which, however, Maximillian had pre-programmed to enter the black hole itself.
Ending
The film's ambiguous and rather cosmic ending, not unlike that of Into Infinity, has been the subject of some debate. As the Palomino survivors reach the bottom of the Black Hole after a harrowing flight, they appear to enter Heaven and Hell. We see Reinhardt condemned to eternal imprisonment in the metal body of Maximillian in Hell (a sequence foreshadowed in Booth's line early in the film, that the Black Hole was like "something out of Dante's Inferno"), then the crew of the Palomino are guided by an angel through Heaven. Eventually they emerge from a White Hole into what appears to be a new universe.
The film doesn't make it clear if the crew is literally journeying through Heaven and Hell, or if they've entered another dimension.
In the novelization of the book, Kate's ESP links the minds of the Palomino's crew and allows them to survive (after a fashion) as the atoms of their bodies diffuse and are scattered throughout the universe. The comic book version of the film bypasses the whole issue of what happens inside the Black Hole by having the crew enter the Black Hole on one page and emerging apparently unharmed on the next page into a universe where they encounter alternate versions of Reinhardt, Old B.O.B. and Maximillian.
Cast
- Maximilian Schell ... Dr. Hans Reinhardt
- Anthony Perkins ... Dr. Alex Durant
- Robert Forster ... Captain Dan Holland
- Joseph Bottoms ... Lieutenant Charles Pizer
- Yvette Mimieux ... Dr. Kate McRae
- Ernest Borgnine ... Harry Booth
- Tommy McLoughlin ... Captain S.T.A.R.
- Roddy McDowall* ... Voice of V.I.N.CENT
- Slim Pickens* ... Voice of Old B.O.B.
* Not credited on-screen.
Plot holes
The Black Hole contained a number of factual errors relating to space, and at least one major mistake in dialogue. During the (re)discovery of the Cygnus, Kate McCrae states that it held the same mission as the Palomino: to search for "habitable life" in the universe. Other issues included glowing-red meteors (which are, in reality, cold rocks) and the appearance of the crew in the vacuum of space without space suits, yet without asphyxiating from a lack of oxygen, or suffering from a lack of pressure. (It has been rumored that suits were designed but refused by the cast because of their appearance.)
The producers of the film addressed these issues in various magazine articles prior to the release of the film. It was stated in Starlog magazine that the black hole had accumulated an atmosphere, in addition to all the debris that was continually showed spiraling into it in the film, and that this atmosphere was breathable by humans, at least for short periods. The glowing meteors were said to be glowing because of friction they encountered while flying through that atmosphere. Neither of these are scientifically plausible, although The Black Hole is, at root, an action/adventure story rather than a work of serious science fiction.
Soundtrack
- Overture (2:27)
- Main Title (1:46)
- The Door Opens (3:38)
- Zero Gravity (5:53)
- Six Robots (1:59)
- Durant Is Dead (2:31)
- Start The Countdown (3:51)
- Laser (2:15)
- Into The Hole (5:00)
- End Title (2:34)
Trivia
- Along with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, one of the last few mainstream Hollywood productions to have an overture.
- The robot name "V.I.N.CENT" is supposed to be an acronym of "Vital Information Necessary CENTralized". B.O.B.'s name stands for "BiO-sanitation Battalion," while S.T.A.R.'s is an acronym for "Special Troops/Arms Regiment."
- The robot Maximillian was already named before the filmmakers cast actor Maximilian Schell as Dr. Hans Reinhardt.
- An alternate ending was conceived but never shot. The final scene would have involved a slow panning out from what would be revealed to be the Sistine Chapel painting of Michelangelo's The Creation. Kate's face would be recognizable in the background of the painting, suggesting that the crew experienced the beginning of time. The scene would end showing Kate looking up at the painting, suggesting that the Palomino crew did eventually return safely to Earth.
- The name of Dr. Reinhardt's ship comes from the first black hole that was discovered, which was found in the constellation Cygnus.
- In his last-ever interview (transcribed in the book, What if our world is their heaven?), Philip K. Dick referred to this movie as "crap."
- This was The Walt Disney Company's first PG-rated production, and its second overall release with that rating. (The first was the sports drama Take Down, an outside production Disney distributed in early 1979.)
- Although Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope had popularized the use of computerized motion control miniature effects, The Black Hole was largely shot using the old-fashioned technique of models on wires in front of painted backdrops. The film was something of a swansong for many special effects artists from Hollywood's "golden age", and although their techniques were hardly cutting-edge the results were widely praised.
- The film's opening titles, with their vertiginous music and graphics, were inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo.
- When the Palamino first examines the Cygnus, the rear of the model of the Cygnus has structural differences from the model used throughout the rest of the film, including the first silhouetted shot of the Cygnus.
- One of the S.T.A.R. robots was used in a short screen test of a project that would eventually become Tron.
- The track "Zozobra" by post-metal/hardcore band Old Man Gloom contains samples of dialogue from the movie. The track "It's Not Too Beautiful" by electronica group The Beta Band utilizes a section of the film's overture.
- The meteor storm sequence was used as background during the science fiction portion of Dreamfinder's School of Drama at EPCOT Center's Journey Into Imagination ImageWorks. Children would perform behind a green screen and their preformance would be shown on monitors with the meteors crashing through the ship.