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The Black Hole - Disney’s Gothic Horror Tale

A little essay on a favorite film that I really would love to remake.

Back in 2010, TRON: Legacy was released. It was a long time follow up to their early 80's sci-fi hit. It's initial buzz stirred up rumor that another older Disney sci-fi film might get a reboot.

The Black Hole.

Made in 1979, it seemed to be part of the studio rush to replicate the success of Star Wars. It was also the same year Paramount’s slightly tedious Star Trek: The Motion Picture lumbered into theatres.

The sci-fi elements are definitely all there. Spaceships. Cute robots. Menacing robots. Laser blasts. A soaring musical score (by John Barry). Big budget EFX. And it had a simple sci-fi premise. A scientist plans to fly his ship into a black hole and see what is on the other side of space.

But, the script was something else entirely.

The film is old school gothic horror. It's a mad scientist / creature film harking back to the days of the Universal monster movies.

If you've not seen the film, here's a quick summary:

The USS Palomino, a small explorer vessel, is returning to Earth after 18 months in space. They pick up a massive black hole on their scanners. Before they can plot a course around, they find a mystery ship, peacefully sitting on the fringe of the vortex.

The crew decides to take a closer look. Its the USS Cygnus (named after the constellation), which is a massive science ship lost over 10 years. It sits a gravity bubble which they slip into but once they venture beyond it, the sheer forces start to pull them in the monstrous black hole beyond.

As the Palomino frantically scrambles to reach the oasis, the Cygnus suddenly comes alive with lights. They find a docking platform and land. Aboard the ship, they find a completely robotic crew run by a sole human survivor.

Dr. Hans Reinhart explains a catastrophe damaged the ship and the others evacuated. But he, using his scientific knowledge and sheer determination, repaired the Cygnus and created the gravity field the ship floats in.

But, there’s something rotten in this ship of death.

Bit by bit, the crew of the Palomino discover Reinhart's dark secrets and by the end make a bid to flee as he intends to plunge his ship into the black hole itself.

If you went just by the summary, The Black Hole sounds like a true sci-fi thriller but its the elements of the story that make it horror.

- The Ethereal Mountains of Transylvania -

The five crew members of the USS Palomino are a blend of men of action and curious thinkers. Captain Holland and Lieutenant Pizer are military men, as commander and co-pilot. Dr. McCrae (the sole woman aboard) and Dr. Durant are inquisitive scientists and Harry Booth is a dogged reporter along for the ride.

The last member is a snarky, barrel-shaped robot named V.I.N.CENT. who like R2D, handles the ship’s functions. But, he comes with vocal sense of educated humor and film adds a twist. V.I.N.CENT and Kate McCrae are able to communicate telepathically (the technology is not explained).

Now, imagine these people as weary travelers in a stage coach rather than a spaceship. They've navigated across the wilds of Eastern Europe only to be confronted by a terrible storm. Their coach becomes broken or their horses run away - leaving them stranded.

Isolated and alone, they find refuge from the massive storm in a mysterious darkened castle on a hill.

And that's what the Cygnus is. It's a gothic castle. The ship itself has two towering spires, bristles with turrets and buttresses. Once lit up, it becomes a stained-glass cathedral in space. And like that castle of yore, this steel one has a mad scientist inside, hard at work.

Like Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll before him, Hans Reinhart is a classically molded mad scientist. A man driven by ego and a desire for discovery no matter the sacrifice. His bodyguard and chief robot drone, Maximillian is a space-going version of Frankenstein's monster - a mechanized killer who is completely loyal to the doctor's wishes (at least he seems to be). The ship is also manned by an army of armed droids and a crew of drone humanoids (more on them later).

- It's Alive! Alive! -

Now invited guests, the Palomino crew get the grand tour of the Cygnus and get some idea to length of Reinhart's genius and some inklings about the depths of his madness. And ever present, outside the massive panes of glass is the swirling vortex of the Black Hole - which itself is a character. The ever-present ancient God monster waiting to swallow them whole like any other hapless planet or star.

Needing to repair the Palomino, Captain Holland and his second go in search of tools and parts. They're escorted to a maintenance area where V.I.N.Cent meets B.O.B. - an older model repair bot like himself. Besides being damaged and even abused by the other robots aboard, old B.O.B. knows the truth about the Cygnus.

The crew of the behemoth starship never left. They're still aboard and still doing their duties. They ARE the drones. When the Cygnus was ordered to return, Reinhart wouldn't give up his dream.

Crewmen tried to wrest control from him, but the Mad Scientist had his army of security bots and Maximillian squash the mutiny. The poor remaining souls were rounded up and then zombified by another device of Reinhart's making. They became living corpses. Doomed to haunt their own ship. The idea of a ghost ship crewed by undead is a very creepy nightmare indeed.

And this is DISNEY movie.

- No Escape -

The horrors revealed and Reinhart's madness looming, the Palomino crew know they must flee the Cygnus before the inevitable. Dr. Durant, feeling his own scientific career was lacking, initially desired to remain aboard as the rest of our heroes politely head for the exits. But once he finds out the truth and tries to excuse himself, Reinhart's onto them. Attempting to flee, Durant to murdered by Maximillian before Reinhart can stop him. Which creates another moment of horror. As Dr. McRae reels in shock, Reinhart whispers to her that he fears the menacing robot he created. His own Frankenstein creation is exerting a will of its own and the scientist is losing control.

As the men of action dash to free Dr. McRae, who is on the block to be zombified, the reporter Harry Booth panics. Fearing the Cygnus is already too close to the black hole, he steals the Palomino in a vain effort. Not a trained pilot, Harry's erratic flying alarms Reinhart that he may damage the Cygnus and ruin his experiment. He has the scout ship blown to pieces by his ship's laser cannons.

The crew are now trapped in the haunted castle in space, with the voracious Black Hole swirling ahead and growing closer by the minute!

- Dante's Inferno -

In the final and possibly most controversial chapter of the Black Hole, the Palomino survivors fight to reach the Cygnus' probe ship in a desperate bid for freedom as the Cygnus plunges into the abyss. The titanic vessel, already damaged from the Palomino's collision, hurtles into a spiral - the event horizon between our universe and the next. Unable to escape the astronomical level of gravity, the crew dives the probe full speed into the Black Hole as the Cygnus collapses upon itself.

And here things take a surreal detour. The viewer is now witness to what might be a Hell in space as the crew see a strange vulcanite landscape with armies of drudging mournful souls and flame plumes. And high above, on a cliff, lording over them is Maximillian. But, he's changed. He's now some demonic hybrid of Maximillian's robotic body and Dr. Reinhart's helter-skelter eyes - looking out from within. Merged perhaps?

Is this some kind of shared hallucination of the crew as the fluctuations of gravity warp their minds as well as warp the reality around them?

One of the last images of the film is brightly lit cathedral-like tunnel where the viewer is over-taken by what appears to be angelic spirit in white. Then, suddenly the ship bursts out of a... white hole? a worm-hole on the other side of the galaxy or in another universe all-together.

The villains are dead or left behind, killed by the monster Reinhart courted.

- Dark Disney, Very Dark -

Watching The Black Hole through modern, adult eyes it's a wonder this movie didn't warp kid's minds. Likely because it was such a dud. It's slow with bland characters and really very little action until the end. All of it odd because Disney seemed to push it at kids with V.I.N.Cent being in all the promotional material. Disney spent a LOT of time and money making Black Hole tie-in products, mostly for younger kids.

Meanwhile, this film had a mad scientist who was responsible for mass murdering members of his crew, then sentencing the rest of them to life as brain-fried zombies. Hundreds of them. Maximillian slaughters a man with rotating knives (though not shown you can watch Anthony Perkin's face and hear the grinding sounds clearly).

Then after all that Hell, you plunge the little tots through a virtual Hell with your own robot Satan overseeing all the doomed souls being tortured.

Of course our scientific knowledge of what black holes are make this film a complete fantasy. Even in 1979, there wasn’t much science to suggest a black hole was a conduit anywhere but rather a gravitational phenomenon that merely grows larger as it consumers more matter to itself.

And what might be the saddest, scariest thing? I really wished Disney would reboot it. I really want to see a well-done Black Hole - even if Neil DeGrasse Tyson called it the most unscientific movie ever etc. I know this movie's ideas could be really cool. Even if it's still a brooding dark horror film.

#Disney #The Black Hole #Black Hole #sci-fi #screenplay #screenwriting #film #writer

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