MovieChat Forums > The Black Hole (1979) Discussion > Never saw this as a kid, but ...

Never saw this as a kid, but ...

posted 9 years ago by Jason_Hoehn
2 replies | jump to latest

... I really wanted to see this one when it came out in the theater. I read the book, had the comic (or graphic novel, I guess) and enjoyed those as a kid, I was a fan of it, even though I never saw the actual movie. I just never got to see it when I was 10.

Fast forward to today. After literally decades of forgetting about this one, I stumble across it and decide to download it. So, more than 30 years after it's release I finally get to watch it.

Wow.

Ya know, I bet my reaction would have been the same when I was a kid. Cheesy, kinda dumb, but it sure looked good.

Goofy robots (that you want to like, but come of as exceptionally silly) some bad acting, a slow plot. BUT, the saving graces of this move are the design of the thing, and the effects. Granted pale in comparison to movies of today, but for 1979, visually, this movie was excellent. Some great art direction and set design, some really interesting direction, and overall a really good look to the movie.

But man, it's dumb!. Then again, (like I say about a lot of science fiction movies, especially from that era) it IS a children's movie, and a DISNEY movie to boot, so you gotta let that slide a bit. This really is one of those "gee-whiz!!..." sci-fi movies. I was ten when this came out, and I was at exactly the right age for it. Lots of lasers, lots of robots, a couple of pretty cool spaceships. Some (albeit cheesy) action, and a big ol' black hole floating around out there, just to keep it interesting.

Glad I watched it, finally, and it I wouldn't say I was disappointed by it, but it was pretty much exactly like I thought it would be.

Movies like these, you need to watch with the mindset that you are watching this in 1979. You need to experience it as you would have in 1979. It's like watching an old silent movie. Realize this was made in a different era. You need to watch them almost as accidental scrapbooks of the time. Watch it for what it is.

With that said, at times the music was TERRIBLE, (awful awful awful) and a couple of the scenes made me laugh out loud. The fromage meter was hovering in the upper nines in a few scenes, which, in some ways made it better.

But hey, in the end it was entertaining. Kinda wish I had seen it as a kid.

[–] residentevil6901 8 years ago

I was 6 when it came out and was super excited to see it as I was a huge Star Wars fan and thought this could be something similar. Boy was I wrong, it was boring as hell to me. I did like the robots, thought they were cool. The ships & interior designs were great but yet I was bored out of my skull. After many years go by I decide to watch it again and love it. It's one of my guilty pleasure movies today, it is a bit slow which is probably why I thought it was boring as a kid but I sure do appreciate it a lot more now. If I thought it was boring you might've felt the same if you saw it as a kid. So in a way it's probably good you didn't see it until years later. Some people absolutely hate this movie, I can see why, but that's their problem.

[–] Blueghost 8 years ago

It's a product of its time and of a studio that was still trying to play catch-up with the rest of the film industry. So you get a film like this that's a little off here and there.

Disney even did a survey of kids during the 1970s because their market share was falling off. And one of the responses, IIRC, was that Disney films were corny. The Black Hole has a little bit of that, but if you can watch scifi from other studios, then you should be okay with this film.

I think the biggest criticism is that the two screenwriters they hired were used to writing Westerns, and they wrote a haunted house / mad-scientist movie for The Black Hole, when it probably needed someone with a little more science savvy.

Still, I like it for what it is. Science fiction, in my book, is a little more forgivable because sometimes the film makers simply don't know some of the science and engineering they're presenting.