BLACK HOLE, THE

(December 1979, U.S.)

Let's all go back to the year 1979 for a moment. For over two years now, STAR WARS (1977) had taken control of the entire world. Everybody was drooling to cash in on the latest sci-fi craze. ABC-TV had BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. Ridley Scott made ALIEN. James Bond gave us MOONRAKER. STAR TREK had it's first motion picture. And finally, Disney gave us THE BLACK HOLE. This was also the very first film Disney put out that had a rating of PG.

Admittedly, THE BLACK HOLE can be accused of ripping off too many character elements of STAR WARS; the three heroes of the spaceship Palomino (two men, one woman; sound like Luke, Han and Leia?), the older sidekick with all the advice (sound like Obi-Wan Kenobi?), the evil robot villian with the big helmet (sound like Darth Vader?) and the small robot with wit and intelligence (sound like R2-D2?). To its credit, though, there is no climactic space battle or great explosion at the end. Oh yeah, and the film stars Anthony Perkins, too - Norman Bates in space! Cool!

THE BLACK HOLE, for me, it a movie of pure childhood memories that I've chosen to embrace. My stricter standards of moviegoing today would deem much of the acting and dialogue in this film less than wonderful (corny, too). The special effects and visual effects, however, do not fail to entertain and impress the eyes and mind. There is a particular sequence when an asteroid crashes into a part of the spaceship Cygnus and rolls towards our heroes who must get across a long bridge before it hits them that is stunning to watch (I wonder if Speilberg and Lucas were inspired by this scene when they created the famous similar opening sequence in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK)? John Barry's musical score is rather dark and menacing, and that's good. There's also the visual reference to DANTE'S INFERNO. In a long, dialogue-free final sequence, the travelers reach the bottom of the black hole in a probe ship and appear to enter Hell, then Heaven. That alone could warrent a PG rating, as I can't imagine any small child understanding any of that. I was 12 years-old when I saw it and I didn't get it.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Lt. Charlie Pizer: " Vincent, were you programmed to bug me?"
V.I.N.CENT: "No, sir, to educate you."