El abismo negro

It's 2130 and Day 547 on board the USS Palomino with Captain Dan Holland (Robert Forster), Lieutenant Charles Pizer (Joseph Bottoms), Dr. Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins), Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine) and Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux) with ESP abilities to talk to robots. Robot VINCENT discovers a large black hole and a lost ship the USS Cygnus. McCrae's father is suppose to be on board. The ship is not abandoned as first thought and is filled with robots run by the mad Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell). He has been alone for 20 years refusing orders to return to Earth. His most formidable robot is Maximilian.

I remember really liking this as a kid. Watching it now, the science is wrong. What's with ESP? I can even see some of the wires. I do like some of the designs. I love the VINCENT and Maximilian robots. The special effects is a mix bag coming after Star Wars. Its 50s sci-fi motif is actually quite interesting for the era. I would love to see this story remade with the science redone. There is a fine mad scientist movie here.

Not only is The Black Hole beautifully made from a technical aspect, it has marvelous performances. Robert Forester (Jackie Brown), Anthony Perkins (Psycho), Ernest Borgnine, Maximillian Schell. It does get a little campy but it is a Disney movie after all and it can be forgiven its attempts at comic relief. This is a very unlikely sort of film for Disney, were it made today it would have been made under the Miramax header rather than Disney, and like another unlikely Disney film, Tron, it is tragically underrated. The special effects and set design are breathtaking, but it is the script which is the best part. The ending is one of the most surreal and haunting in any science fiction film (and especially bold for a Disney film) The characterizations are wonderful and the robots, especially Maximillian (in my book the greatest cinematic robotic villain to date), are unforgettable.

This is a movie with a great premise, a superb villain in Maximillian Schell as both Dr. Hans Reinhardt and his alter ego Maximillian the robot. Some of the staging and shots are among the best of any science fiction movie. And the ending comes close to the ambiguity of A Space Odyssey especially with its shot of the melding of Reinhardt and his robot ending up in a Dantesque vision of Hell, which is incredible given this is a Disney film. Do not forget the haunting music by John Barry which echoes a faint James Bond sound.

The weakness, and there are too many to note, are best seen in the V.I.N.CENT robot and his mentor bot, Bob. These characters were obviously meant to appeal to the kiddies who were no doubt the target audience.

I imagine there were some mighty discussions on the set of this film as to whether they should be making a classic or childish crap. Unfortunately the latter choice seems to driven the bottom line.

The Black Hole was one of many films that were released with the intention of cresting the sci-fi wave created by the huge success of Star Wars (1977). More specifically, this was Disney's attempt at the genre and I think it was the studio's first movie that didn't go for a U certificate. The film that it can best be compared to is Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was also released the same year. Both movies sport fantastic special effects and production values, while both also are surprisingly - and pleasingly - slightly left-field in their approach. Neither really fall squarely into the action/adventure bracket that Star Wars so obviously did, they rely more on atmosphere, some psychological aspects and have some enigmatic qualities which seem to indicate the influence of the earlier hard sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space odyssey (1968). For these reasons, I find both these films to be decidedly under-appreciated and interesting. The Star Trek franchise of course went down a different, more comforting route, from the second feature The Wrath of Khan (1982) onwards, while The Black Hole remained a one off that has become more and more obscure as the years go by. So much so that it could reasonably be considered a cult movie on account of its selective appeal.

From the off, this is visually a very interesting film. It has great sets and model work, which make the giant space craft where the majority of the action takes place an evocative setting. The special effects throughout are in general very impressive and still look good today. But the visuals have been constructed for more than mere spectacle as they combine to create a pretty interesting atmosphere on the whole; they ultimately are used also to set up the strange and ambiguous ending which involves visions of Hell and an alternate universe. This kind of oddness stands out these days, as most big budget sci-fi endeavours mostly avoid such ambiguity, but this is definitely a plus point for The Black Hole. Another serious asset is the really effective main theme from John Barry. This is in all honesty one of his best bits of individual music, its sweeping yet mysterious and complements events on screen extremely well.

The story itself is pretty simple and boils down to a deep space crew discovering a mysterious spaceship near a black hole, they board it and events escalate. The story is perhaps oddly presented in some ways as there is material quite obviously aimed at kids, like the cartoonish robots (the main one, V.I.N.C.E.N.T., being voiced excellently by Roddy McDowell) but at the same time there are also some decidedly sinister aspects to this one too. So I guess it had a bit of a split focus in some ways, not that that is a terrible thing but it may have accounted for its marginalised position in the sci-fi cinematic pantheon. But whatever the case, I consider this to be one of the best that 70's science fiction has to offer. It's mysterious and left-of-centre nature mean that it is one of the more interesting entries in the genre to revisit.

I saw this movie in the theater when I was 6 years old. So you have to remember that frame of reference when you read these comments.

I saw The Black Hole when I was six years old and, of course, I loved it. Although what I remember the most about that experience was my first glimpse of Maximilian, the giant killer red robot. Maximilian terrified me. And he ended up being the first movie character to ever really scare the crap out of me.

If you were 6 years old kid in 1980, you would remember this film. Because even though it's silly to make the comparison today, at one time the Black Hole held a special place in the hearts of kids everywhere, mainly because it featured a character who was even scarier than Darth Vader.

That's right, Star Wars came 2 years earlier than the Black Hole, and Star Wars had a frightening guy in a black mask named Darth Vader. But let me tell you that to a kid growing up in 1980, Darth Vader was NOTHING compared to Maximilian. Darth Vader was a pansy compared to Maximilian, and I'm not just joking around. If you were a little kid in 1980, you knew about this movie. And you knew who Maximilian was. And you spoke about him in terms of reverence. Because you don't mock the robot who haunts your nightmares every single night.

That's how big a deal Maximilan was at the time.

Yes, The Black Hole has flaws. Yes, the rest of the robots are comical. And yes, the science fiction in the movie makes no sense. And sure, I'd agree that the sight of Ernest Borgnine in a tight turtleneck is disturbing and I never want to see it again. But none of that really matters to me. All I care about is that this movie features Maxmilian the bleeping killer red robot. And from a pop culture/movie history perspective, that makes this movie a classic.

Personally, I think that the Black Hole is a pretty lame movie. But in 1980 I would have ranked it alongside Star Wars as the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life. And of course, that is almost solely because of Maximilian. So don't make fun of this movie. Just remember that it cause a lot of nightmares in kids from the 70's and early 80's. And please give it props for featuring a villain that (at one time) was cooler and scarier than a guy named Darth Vader.

So here's to you, Maximilian.

Please don't Cuisinart me through a book.

Mario's Movie Rating: 5 out of 10 (at least it's somewhat entertaining)

Mario's Maximilian Rating: 10 of 10