The Black Hole 1979
I remember seeing this when it came out and I think I liked it. Star Wars had come out two years earlier and Disney was jumping on that train (before they just bought the train outright) with a movie set in space with cute robots (and more menacing ones). It seems to have a decent reputation today, at least among Disney fans, so I decided to watch it on Disney Plus to determine if I should buy it. Complaints at the time were that it was slow, which it really is. It seems like the first two thirds of the movie is mostly people talking about things, not really doing much. However, there is a lot of ground to cover and the sets are pretty good, with this giant spacecraft parked on the edge of a black hole. A lot of the effects look cheap, which is surprising, since we had definitely seen better in Star Wars. Maybe that shows how far ahead George Lucas was at the time. And the acting is often clunky, along with the story. Maximilian Schell at least makes a great mad scientist. The concept of it is neat and it is at least somewhat entertaining, packing in a lot of ideas. Still, even the science is pretty horrible. Neil deGrasse Tyson says it is the least scientifically accurate movie of all time (mostly regarding black holes, which isn't really that important). In some ways, I think it may be of more interest as a gallery of very dated special effects with an annoying Disney candy coating in the form of the cute robots. Having seen it twice, I probably don't ever need to watch again, so I don't think I'll be buying it.
Written: 06 May 2023