The Black Hole

A journey that begins where everything ends

THE BLACK HOLE (PG)

D: Gary Nelson

Disney (Ron Miller)

USA 🇺🇸 1979

98 mins

Science Fiction

W: Jeb Rosebrook & Gerry Day

DP: Frank Phillips

Ed: Gregg McLaughlin

Mus: John Barry

PD: Peter Ellenshaw

Robert Forster (Capt. Dan Holland), Maximilian Schell (Dr. Hans Reinhardt), Anthony Perkins (Dr. Alex Durant), Joseph Bottoms (Lt. Charlie Pizer), Yvette Mimieux (Dr. Kate McCrae), Ernest Borgnine (Harry Booth)

Following the success of Star Wars, Disney produced this sci-fi movie which was incredibly expensive for it's time but has dated incredibly badly. The production values were pretty good for 1979, but considering this is two years younger than George Lucas' classic it looks no better than sci-fi hokum of the 1960's.

The story is pretty thin. A group of astronauts find a ship drifting in space on the edge of a black hole and discover it's occupied by a mad scientist and his cohort of robot servants.

The rest is standard Disney fare and it would probably be best enjoyed if seen through the eyes of a child, otherwise it just seems like another movie in a long list which tries and fails to generate what Star Wars achieved for cinema.

6/10

Did You Know:

To film the special effects, Disney originally wanted to rent the Dykstraflex camera system, the first computer-controlled camera, created for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), from Industrial Light & Magic. The price and rental terms were unacceptable, so Disney created its own version. The result was Disney's A.C.E.S. (Automated Camera Effects System, which was radically superior to the Dykstraflex system), the Mattescan system, which enabled the camera to move on a matte painting, and a computer-controlled modeling stand.