That's a cool little anecdote there John! I'd always loved the idea of getting the chance to have a chat with the actors. In many ways this is a film which has stuck with me through the years, though in retrospect it was actually a pretty dark film for an eight year old to see. Considering the beautiful visual aspects of it, and my being principally artistic in nature, I suppose it's impact is no surprise.

Dang, the actor from this movie I'd like to talk with passed away. I figured Max Schell would have had an idea of was Reinhardt really just evil or insane, and who was really in charge here. Him or Maximilian.

+John Hasselbach You lucky FUCK. Robert Forster is a national treasure. If I ever met him, I'd have an aneurysm trying to figure out whether to ask him about THE BLACK HOLE or ALLIGATOR. Only after these 2 were exhausted would I ask about JACKIE BROWN.

Thank you for that info. Funnily enough just yesterday I was wondering what it would be like to ask the cast about what was going on during production regarding the ending and how they felt about the film's climax. Whether the ending was decided late in production and who had the ultimate say about it?

@John Hasselbach That is freaking awesome that you got to speak with Robert Forster for a few minutes about The Black Hole. :)

Raggedy Man I went to see it in the west end with my parents in 79 and loved it, still do to this day, I don't get why people give it such a hard time

I loved it too. I still watch it on Amazon Video. This movie was really dark for a Disney movie at that time.

I was 15 years old in 1980, watching this in cinemas in Western Australia. I went back to watch it time and time again. For people of the era, it was magnificent. Even though the ending was a little cryptic, the journey to get there was much the same as "2001: A Space Odyssey" was for people in 1969. No-one understood the ending, but the journey to the end was amazing! You had to be there at the time to truly appreciate it.

This came out 10 years after 2001: A Space Odyssey.

remake coming soon

I agree; it freaked me out a little when I saw it as a child!

Me too! I was terrified!

Maximillian? And yeah, it creeped me out too.. But what was even worse was the ending where you could see the bad professor guy flying trought space with a terrifying grin.

That and the whole acid-trip into hell at the end kept me from watching this movie again for like 20 years. Only watched it later because it came in a two-pack with Tron and the wife wanted to see it.

Same!

Same as me

You had to see it to get it. It also brought an important question. What IS ON THE OTHER SIDE of the black hole? That is what I wondered.

That is why it was a good trailer.

Nick Rogers | Trailer be like "Here's a random love/escape story. Enjoy the other random clips of what the hell people are doing near a black hole."

I know, right???

Wow. So true.

i laughed my ass off even more on your comment.

dont forget about max

That's what trailers did back then. Hell, remember the trailer for Star Trek III? "Join us on the final voyage of the Starship Enterprise" and they show the self destruct scene

Oh wow, I never knew they did that. (Sorry, never saw the trailer myself at that time.)

I think if you cut out the middle, the beginning and end would do a really good job of bringing hype to the movie without spoiling much.

That's how trailers used to be like back then.

@@mafurock33 Some trailers are still like that today. Batman vs Superman comes to mind.

Same here. I watched the movie in cinema with my dad. We are sci-fi movie fans. Such good memories.

You may be right.

Elohimofmd awesome-o

You mean Parker and Stone stole the Cartman design from the Black Hole.

You called it. This is Disney trying to cash in on Star Wars. Fast forward to 2021, now Disney owns Star Wars.

Truly bad movie. To give the movie some sort of scientific credibility (in the minds of the Disney folks), the scientist utters after making his calcs of the black hole, "pi r squared." That got a big laugh in the theater in 1979.

No. lol

It was a definitely a good movie, regardless of it not being scientifically accurate, it was entertaining.

lol..i was just going to comment on that!

I recently read that Star Tours started out as a plan for a Black Hole ride.

Actually 25 years, but yeah, Star Wars was killed by a fucking mouse.

More like: "We buy Star wars in 30 years and ruin it with politically correct feminist bullshit".

This movie isnt that bad and the movie Galaxy of Terror is another one that isnt too bad either.

Ben Ostrowsky I agree that they missed a trick by not including the stirring title theme in this trailer. As a kid, that music filled me with a sense of wonder and terror of the vastness of space and its mysteries. And then years later I found a video on KZfaq that featured this music, called "Star Size Comparison HD" uploaded by morn1415. Do check it out Ben, it's one of my favourite videos on KZfaq.

Ben Ostrowsky It also has Daft Punk! 2:00 lol.

3 years before Tron

Followed by Tron

Good idea building maximilian robot

To wit: how much better Interstellar was for having practical effects/puppets of TARS and CASE.

That was already done. (so to speak) I went to Disneyland back when this movie came out and Spacemountain was in fact decked out with the "Black hole" theme.I *think* that this movie is on the list of movies that Disney would like to *FORGET*.

I've always thought it was a little odd that this 70s/80s era we think of as a bad time for the Disney studio was also an era when the Disney *theme parks* were going great guns--Disney World opened with Magic Kingdom and then Epcot, and there was lots of expansion and innovation at Disneyland as well, since they opened a lot of the same attractions at both parks. But the Disney movies of the time don't have a huge presence at the parks these days. Pete's Dragon did end up a centerpiece of the Main Street Electrical Parade. I suppose Tron was belatedly recognized as a target of nostalgia, got a sequel and a big Shanghai ride that's coming to Magic Kingdom.

Alton Towers in the UK had a black hole ride, basically an indoor roller coaster in near darkness, with some strobe lights in parts

@@matthewstrange3778 I remember seeing the Black Hole when I was a kid at Alton Towers. I was so scared and intrigued but too little to go on it. :(

@@carolkewley7410 The black hole was basically the same as ‘the beast’ but inside. This is a video of the black hole but with the lights on: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hMqYnKyKz5ymimQ.html

Why is it a classic?

@@sodaftpm185 Its a classic sci fi film.It was the first for Disney.Disney spent alot of money making the black hole.After Star Wars came out, Disney wanted to make a picture bigger than Star Wars. Unfortunately they failed but over the years it became a cult classic.Alot of people today still love the movie.Its a dark sci fi movie and for its time, thats what kind of made it diffrent from all the other sci fi movies during its time period.Hope that helps you out.Peace!!!✌✌👍😀

Same with Never Cry Wolf and Dragonslayer.

Steven Stratton Well, Disney does have a Black Hole Remake in development, but it’s going to be written by the co writer of Pacific Rim Uprising. Which really sucks because the original writer for this film was Jon Spathis, who co wrote Prometheus. The thing is though, he said he had a fun time writing the script for the remake. He even said that it was “faithful to the original but still clever in all of the ways that the original was silly”.

Steven Stratton it’s on Disney plus

I was wondering if anyone else remembered the cereal merchandising. Was it Shreddies?

@@davidnorden1972 Yes it was Shreddies. You got the best toys in Shreddies.

Firekeeper Exactly, being a laser light there is no reasonable way it could be "packed" into visible moving segments and the segments themselves would be really slow travelling in respect to the actual speed of light (399.980 km/s). In many movies the "laser segments" move roughly around 300 m/s which makes no sense as in the the same time the laser beam being generated would have travelled 23.998.800.000 meters. Even considering a very short burst (say 0,1 milliseconds) it would travel 39,9 km (39.900 meters) in this time so the human eye would simply not see it, we would just lightly perceive a small "flash" even looking at the target, let alone seeing nothing looking at the trajectory. :-)

@@sandrobindelli5607 Did you see Terrible Writing Advice's video on Sci-Fi militaries?

I'd say even Don Bluth got the lasers right, when he created that animated arcade game "Space Ace."

Ian Johnstone I love this and Star Wars

Jerry Grantham Nope the soundtrack is by John Williams and the Boston Pop Orchestra, at the time of the movie I bought both this soundtrack and the Star Wars one (same author) on vynil records.

The soundtrack that's used in this movie remind me something from James Bond.

@@sandrobindelli5607 it's by John Barry... check the opening credits

@@stevejohnson130 because John Barry did the Bond films beforehand

@@sandrobindelli5607 John Barry composed the score for The Black Hole and it was performed by a 94-piece orchestra specially put together for the recording. John Williams may have recorded some of Barry's music with the Boston Pops, but he (and they) absolutely didn't work on the original film.

they had a pitch black out at the end of the movie it was scary -_-

No, it’s because you first watched them as a kid, now you’re less prone to be scared.

They say the new horror movie "Old" is the scariest movie since Jaws. Well, I bet everyone will change their minds, once they see the ending of Old.

I like this and Event Horizon 😎👍

Interstellar made sense, this one does not.

+Zedric but we have to admit that they already understood something! the black holes distords time ;)

+Zedric Interdimensional communication through a paradox of time between two people via a dusty book shelf? Yeah , makes perfect sense.

+poontang3zizo yeah, INTERSTELLAR ,was a waaaaaaaaaaaaay to long ,piece of fantastically overrated shit ,imo =)

***** IMO it was neither too long, nor too short. The soundtrack was amazing, the visuals were too and they had Kip Thorne for the science. The writing was brilliant in my opinion, but to each their own.

They should remake it, and replace his character with Sean Bean.

@@Raguleader Ben Afleck as Dan Holland, Chris Pine as Charlie Pizer, Robert Downey Jr as Hans Reinhardt, and Craig Ferguson as the voice of Vincent.

You wanna explain why?

Kalkas53 Actually, It didn't fail at all. It cost $20 mil to make plus $6 mil on advertising and it made $36 mil domestically. Those are pretty good numbers. Any modern movie with a $150 mil budget would need to make over $250 mil to match those percentages, roughly.

don waldren I remember reading somewhere that a movie is a financial failure unless it makes an amount that is over twice what it cost to make, since studios typically split the gross earnings of a movie with theaters 50-50. And it should make a considerable amount over that as well, since it only breaks even (and doesn't make a profit) if it only makes twice what it cost to make. But I'm a bit confused about this since Disney's making a Tron 3 (and I'm glad they're making it), which implies that Tron: Legacy made a profit. But Tron: Legacy made $400 million, which is $60 million over its budget of $170 million, but Disney also spent a lot of money on advertising.

None of the best sci-fi movies appeal to the mainstream audience. This is an excellent sci-fi movie.

It's most star track then Star Wars with James bond-like music.

Not exactly a failure. It made a $15 million profit. If it made $5 million more it would have been considered a hit by the suits at the studio. But $`15 million in 1979 is about $99 million. That's a tidy profit anyway.

It would be a scary experience going inside a black hole.

Remember when they came out with the arcade pinball machine for the black hole? Definitely one of a kind when it came out!

Gargoyle Man space mountain (sort of )

me: Shut up and take my tickets!

A black hole isn't really a hole. If it were possible to see it, it would be a sphere.

The opening of the flush pipe in the bathtub is like a black hole, but only 2D-ish, when water in the bathtub flows away because of gravity. I've always imagined, that a real black hole sucks everything into it in 3D (from all directions).

Those people wanted to enter the black hole but didnt get a chance.

This was before Michael Eisner took over as CEO.