Saturday, December 12, 2009

The Black Hole (1979)

I watched a not so well known Disney movie yester day, called The Black Hole. The name says it all as it is actually about a black hole.

Spaceship Palomino and crew travel around space to find new life forms when they encounter a huge black hole. Although that would be fascinating in it self, they also find the long lost earth ship Cygnus, which ended its mission of exploration long ago and was ordered to return, never to be seen again. And there it is, seemingly unharmed right next to a black hole that should've sucked it right in long ago. I won't tell you more about the plot as it takes off around there, when the crew of Palomino attempt to board the Cygnus to find out what has happened to her and her crew.

I can tell you right away it is not a cartoon, although it is a Disney movie. According to Wikipedia The Black Hole was the most expensive movie made by Disney at that time. It also got an Oscar nominee for special effects. However it didn't bring in as much money as Disney had hoped. They did another shot with the non-cartoon Tron, but that didn't work as hoped either so they gave up non-cartoons for a while. If you wanna know more about the special effects there seem to be quite some about it over at Wikipedia. Personally I really like them and none seem badly done or "hey-I-can-see-the-string"ish.

The movie has a good pace and a really peculiar ending. Not bad in any way, but odd. The actors are decent (with a good Anthony Perkins as a devoted scientist) and the slapstick introduced by the robot Vincent are very typical Disney. The music score too, with some action music being just hilarious. Sometimes you wonder if the movie was made for children or for adults. It has no particularly violent scenes and a modest language which indicates it was at least made with children being able to watch it in mind. The intro theme is great though. And it actually has one of the coolest scenes I've ever seen when they...
HERE BE SPOILER!

run on a walkway infront of a huge meteor rolling towards them.

END OF SPOILER!

The movie approaches a really interesting theme, that of what a black hole is all about and capable to do. Unfortunately it doesn't explore these themes very much but seems to go in a different direction, that of mad scientists. Also an interesting theme of course. Overall I'd only recommend this movie if you like oldschool space-effects, which can be quite entertaining. Otherwise this movie doesn't provide much of anything "new" or interesting.

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