The Black Hole was made by Disney just after Star Wars went nuclear. At that time Disney pretty much exclusively did kid's movies and cartoons; they hadn't yet figured out how to do an adult movie without folding it into their kid-oriented merchandizing machine -- hence the read-along tape. I'm not sure who came up with the idea to do this, but I strongly suspect there was a serious disconnect behind the money-types who saw the business Star Wars was doing and wanted a piece of it, and the guy who sat down to write the script, trying to reconcile sci fi with Disney.
I just watched the movie for the first time in a long time and I have to say, it's a pretty impressively disturbing piece of work.
Over the course of the movie you range from funny robots (for small values of funny) to 50's-throwback sci-fi Competent Heroes to Captain Nemo, and then things get seriously wierd. There are plot developments that are flat-out creepy, a guy gets disembowled by a robot, and then (spoilers!) you go through the Black Hole and into some metaphysical religious acid-trip creepy bullshit that makes 2001 look pedestrian. They really don't wrap everything up into a neat little package; the package trips on heroin and blows itself to pieces.
The special effects are surprisingly good and have held up very well. And the Cygnus has to be one of the most distinctive and memorable spaceship designs of all time. The props, design and effects departments weren't phoning this one in.
Most of what I remember from this movie, as a kid, was from the first two-thirds. I'm pretty sure most of the ending would have been over my head anyway.
I just read that they're planning a re-make. I'm sure the new one will be shiny, cleaned-up and end with a nice summary and lessons learned while still leaving the door open for a sequel should the overseas business be decent. I'd love to write the script for that one myself, but they'd never film the movie I'd want to make out of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment