Glen here...
...with a gentle reminder that...for better or worse...today is the day Disney's The Black Hole makes its long awaited bow in a remastered, first-time-ever widescreen format (presented in the film's original 2:35:1 aspect ratio). It should be available in local video stores (and on-line outlets) starting immmediately.
When I first posted news that Anchor Bay would be releasing this title, I was astounded by how many people seemed enthusiastic about the notion. And I was delighted - as I too was pretty pumped-up about seeing this film get the treatment I felt it deserved for the first time since its theatrical release.
Before you start sending me angry hate mail about this statement, please realize I have a long standing belief that all films...no matter how lousy...deserve to be seen in all their glory - widescreen, surround, you name it. This comes from a simple conviction that I really, really hate the idea of someone else deciding for me that a movie isn't worthy of being seen the way it was intended to be seen (framing, sound, etc.)
For years, audiences have had to endure a pan & scan, murky, downright ugly transfer of this 1979 Disney flop. The Black Hole was, simply, one of the crappiest looking video tapes ever to hit the market. The oft aired master of the film shown on The Disney Channel was somewhat improved, but not by much. It took a long damn time to get a watchable transfer of TBH - but finally, it has happened.
The film is available in multiple formats: pan & scan video cassette; widescreen video cassette (both cost around $14.95); a DVD which offers either pan & scan or widescreen and 5.1 surround (about $19.95); and a collector's edition of the film (approx $39) which comes with various extras - including a "Making Of" book, reproduced lobby cards, and information on a scripted but abandoned alternate ending. I REALLY WANNA KNOW WHAT THE ALTERNATE ENDING WAS ALL ABOUT, by the way - and I wish they'd done the same "Collector's Set" thing for the DVD I just bought! ((Glen glowers, not entirely pleased)).
Why isn't Glen entirely pleased? Well, the "extras" offered on the DVD of The Black Hole are a bit anemic: a theatrical trailer (after seeing that trailer, it's no wonder no one went to see the movie), a picture gallery, and....and....well, that's it. I know cramming cool "extra" stuff onto DVDs costs money, but damn. With all that other stuff coming out with the super-duper-mega-colletor's edition video tape, it seems like they might have been able to do something a little more inventive with the DVD.
HOWEVER, what The Black Hole DVD lacks in extas is more than made up for by the quality of its transfer. I'm no technical genius...hell, I even get lost in the Talkbacks about surround systems and picture resolution which sometime get posted here on Coaxial...but this disc looks great.
All of the nuance of the film's space sequences is entirely apparent. For those who don't remember, The Black Hole is a film which portrayed ambient space as being very brightly back-lit with dense starfileds, cloudy nebulae, and so forth. Sometimes, space in TBH is bright enough to silhouette ships. It's almost spooky at times. All of this imagery works exceedingly well on the DVD. Where details and minutia were lost on the previous issues of the video, this time around "the universe" of The Black Hole is vivid and textured.
The film's concluding Heaven and Hell motifs are strikingly presented in Anchor Bay's widescreen reissue. Take special note of the "Dante's Inferno" / Hell environment to which Maximilian Schell and the crew of Cygnus are relegated in the film's conclusion. I noticed faces in the shadows of the mangled rocks of Hell which I don't remember seeing when I saw the film theatrically - very refreshing. Maybe that's because I was younger then. Which brings to mind the obvious question: how does the film play now, especially since it has been "legitimized" in a restored, widescreen presentation?
To me...on an intellectual level...The Black Hole has always been an uneven and frustrating blend of many elements and approaches. The film is an unending stream of contradictions which keep it from being as good as it should have been, and obviously wanted to be.
The Black Hole is a children's movie whose subtext and execution (slavery, selfish obsession, Heaven and Hell) are way too heavy for most kids to either appreciate or watch. At the same time, the movie is loaded with "cute" elements which are clearly meant to seduce young ones into a false sense of security while the film works its mean spirited, subversive spell on them.
It is a film whose commitment to scientific accuracy is both profound and psychotic: the opening of the film features some rather impressive zero gravity effects inside the claustrophobic confines of a small explorer ship; electricity subtly cracks along the electromagnetically attached "feet" of a little robot as it effects repairs on the hull of a traveling space vessel. Cool! Later in the film a huge, molten meteor thingie comes rolling down the central corridor of the film's principle vessel (the Cygnus) - no one gets burned & the ship doesn't decompress (it is a singularly startling image though, you gotta give it that); a few minutes later people are floating around in space with no space suits on. Ummmm...
Some of the movie's production design is amazing - the interiors of the Cygnus are desolate, eerie, and disturbing - like something out of a labyrinthine nightmare from which we can not awaken. Then we have the ship's security robots, whose looks so pointedly rip-off Darth Vader it is difficult to give the machines any credibility as legitimate entities within the story.
The list goes on and on. In short, The Black Hole is a movie with many, many interesting elements which are swirling around in a desperate search for cohesion and identity - but too many obstacles (inconsistent plotting and technical management) get in their way. As such, TBH becomes a bizarre curiosity, and a tantalizing taste of what could have been.
All of this being said, there is something about The Black Hole which promotes a "guilty pleasure" phenomenon among many people who have seen it - myself included. Perhaps this is because the film is seen as a nostalgic throw-back to many of our childhoods - when it was okay to like goofy stuff because we were kids, and didn't know any better. Perhaps it's because...for all of its shitty scripting and wooden acting...The Black Hole manages to be just intriguing enough conceptually...and haunting enough visually...to be accepted (and even appreciated) on some subliminal level. Perhaps it's because the film is, in many ways, a remake of timeless tales like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and is touching on various "classic elements" just enough to keep itself afloat in the currents of our pop psyche.
Put me in a room full of people to talk about this movie, and I'll be the first person to rattle off TBH's multitude of sins. But at the same time, I'd have to point out that the film offers many images and concepts which I have carried with me since my childhood - and still seem effective today. From all the e-mail I received when I first announced Anchor Bay's plans to re-issue the film, I know there are others out there who agree. All things being equal, the film must have done something right to have affected so many people for so many years - even if it's too subliminal or esoteric to isolate herein.
The Black Hole was a film I have desperately wanted a good, widescreen transfer of for many years. Frankly, I thought it would never happen. I am delighted that Anchor Bay has released this title - even if the company may take some hits from a contingent of viewers who believe TBH is best left buried and forgotten. Anchor Bay deserves a lot of credit for tackling this project - and they've done a really nice job, all things considered.
Even if the DVD is a little chincy on the extras...
((Glen Note: I still want to know about the original ending...))
