El abismo negro

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.

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.

I have actually gone in here and altered and added to my original comments to make them a little less one-sided.

Did you ever have one of those mutant pets, like a cat with six toes on its front paws, or an extra ear? Well I didn't either, but you can imagine what it must be like. You'd love the thing all the more because of its flaws, because it'll never be perfect, and because it needs someone to love it. And such is my love for "The Black Hole" (1979). It is an interesting story that is rendered and explored in a mechanical manner--although visually, in terms of its set design and special effects, it is really stunning.

It's a Disney product, and like "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," it was put on the slates mainly to cash in on the space opera craze that "Star Wars" had ignited. Movies are commercial art, they exist to make money (hopefully entertaining us at the same time); and the Disney people got their best film-making talent together, assembled a dynamite cast, and cranked this out, in a very lavish and polished way, production-wise. The money is slathered all over the screen, and everything is handled in the tried-and-true Disney Studios fashion of preplanning and choreographing everything down to the tiniest of details (actors don't even PAUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF A LINE unless it was dictated, planned and rehearsed that way)...this was very near the end of Disney's run as a major producer of live-action features, and "The Black Hole" is a fitting finish. It even features cute touches, like the way the nastiest demise is saved for Anthony Perkins. If you're gonna make a slow, mechanical movie, you can at least do it with style, and they did. It is an impressive production.

In a certain way you might say I love/hate the movie. The methodical way it's constructed seems lifeless. But at the same time, it is a strange joy to see its methodical construction. It takes tremendous energy to create something so controlled. It's certainly not a film made by accident or unconsciously.

"The Black Hole," manages to be strangely trance-inducing. Once I put it on, it's hard to turn it off.

With the advancement of movie technology today, I am awaiting a re-make of this film as I can see the enhancement of the Armageddon-like atmosphere of this movie.

Even though this film came out on the heels of Star Wars I feel that for its time and its budget it was awesome and very much overlooked. I think in this case, being a Disney film, didn't help its image either. As a kid this movie scared the pants off of me. It was dark and menacing and there was the big black hole staring me in the face the whole movie. (I can still recall the extent of the willies this movie game me).

While flawed I see this movie as an artistic and hard core science fiction classic. It uses many of what I see as key elements in science fiction - known science, theoretical science, possible futures, and our fear of the unknown (I personally think even with what we know, we still know very little about black holes).

This movie was made in the feel of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Moby Dick, with the mad, yet brilliant captain, sailing a state of the art ship, knowingly, into certain and utter doom in the name of some idealistic obsession. And as it usually goes you have your idealistic yet rational unwilling passengers who want to get off the ship and survive the mad man's nightmarish dreams.

The robots, while used in a highly symbolic fashion, were original in their concept and design. I particularly liked the way V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and B.O.B. were constructed as the "avatars" of humanity - completely man-made with human-like eyes and a "soul", that only allowed them to see the "right" side of things - as we see them. While on the other hand Maximilian was brilliant as the epitome of evil and twisted humanity in this movie - a man silently trapped and condemned to an inhuman fate as part of a mechanical nightmare.

Lastly, I feel that the space backdrops and the internal renderings of the space ship, which I feel have somewhat of an impressionistic flair, are awesome and were very well done for the period. If you passed on this movie the first time I recommend giving it a second chance. Take in the movie - see its symbolism, its social commentaries and far reaching vision. I think some of the issues the movie quietly addresses are still relative today.

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