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All in all it’s a gross abuse of casting that turns a handful of respected actors - and Yvette Mimieux - into a boring waste of space. Some of the blame goes to Gary Nelson, who directed some really solid episodes of Gilligan’s Island, but is entirely out of his element here. I’m curious as to whether he even spoke to his actors at any point during filming, because the only person who seems remotely motivated here is Reinhardt, and he’s nuts! Everyone else looks confused and bewildered about everything they’re doing and saying, to the point where the most emotionally present members of the cast might be the robots.

Oh God...and speaking of robots....

I loved Vincent’s pluck and feared Maximilian’s hulking menace...when I was a kid. Now, I think Vincent is a pretentious asshole whose predilection for speaking in patronizing riddles makes me want to cut him into little pieces with a lightsaber. And speaking of Star Wars, The Black Hole came out two years after - and it’s not going out on a limb to say the influence is obvious. Vincent’s squat, round shape and spinning head are slightly reminiscent of R2-D2, and his snooty accent (courtesy of an uncredited Roddy McDowall) is essentially C3PO minus any form of human compassion. Slim Pickens (also uncredited) voices Bob, a battered cousin to Vincent who talks like a gas station attendant from rural Kentucky, because that’s just the kind of personality you want around when you’re stranded halfway across the galaxy.

I can only imagine if NASA sent a team of astronauts on a deep space mission accompanied by a condescending little bastard like Vincent, with his big stupid Mr. Potato Head eyes. I guarantee that ship comes back 600 pounds lighter. And while Maximilian the Deathbot is one of the film’s most memorable characters, he’s not enough to overcome everything else that’s wrong with it, particularly when it becomes painfully apparent that he’s made out of drywall or something. The film pointlessly devotes an entire subplot to these machines and their idiotic rivalry - no doubt meant to appeal to kids - but it adds nothing to the story, and it's jarringly intercut with the considerably more somber main plot.

And it's this relentless tonal dissonance that makes The Black Hole more grating than anything. Is this for kids or adults? Is it supposed to remind me of a George Lucas adventure or a Stanley Kubrick space opera? Is there really a deeper meaning to the story or is all that existential shop talk just smoke and mirrors? Am I supposed to laugh or be scared? The answer, of course, is YES! Disney was clearly very anxious to make a film kind-of-like-but-legally-distinct-from Star Wars. And they wanted it so bad, they appear to have taken an unused horror script about a mad scientist in a spooky castle, replacing the castle with a derelict spaceship and most of the monsters with silly robots, because someone heard that kids like silly robots that live in outer space.

The Black Hole boasted some cutting edge (for the time) special effects, a respectable cast and an audience ready and willing to be entertained. But it tries to emulate other, more successful films like Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey without understanding why those films worked as well as they did. It feels like a malformed, cynical cash grab designed to capitalize on whatever seemed most profitable about pop culture at the time. By the end, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a John Travolta and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in a laser fight with the Muppets - on roller skates.

But you know what? It's not all as bad as it sounds. The first 30 minutes or so aren't terrible, and the question of what lies on the other side of a black hole is intriguing. But you can forget about exploring any of that; the black hole itself is little more than a hook that allowed Disney to set a rather ordinary Gothic thriller in space. The deadly vortex gets talked about a lot, and it's visible outside the ship for almost half the movie - merely a passive voyeur both to the hubris and vanity of a fictional madman, and that of a movie studio that vastly underestimated it's audience. The Black Hole is a better film than its reputation suggests, but it's still, sadly, a wasted opportunity of grand proportion.

I still can't help but harbor a soft spot for it, though. It made me want to explore both science fiction AND real science, and because of that I discovered a fascinating new world of actual knowledge and quality entertainment. So in revisiting one of the guilty pleasures of my youth, I guess you can say that at least in my case, Disney got their money's worth. I just hope the eternal gratitude of my inner child is worth $20 million.

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