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How bout a Blu for The Black Hole (1979) (1 Viewer)

Kyrsten Brad

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Well folks, here's one from the space-faring Imagineers at Disney (back in 1979 anyway). It is Disney's The Black Hole. There is a DVD available (I think) which has decent PQ but oh how this movie would look on Blu.
Be nice to have a commentary from Anthony Perkins and Yvette Mimieux. Sadly we just lost Maximilian Schell this year and Ernest Borgnine back in 2012.
Black_hole_ver1.jpg


Seems I'm not the only one looking for this movie either.


DisneyWiki article

Trailer for The Black Hole (YouTube)


Now who's with me on a Blu for The Black Hole. Shout Factory might be interested, that is if they could license it from Disney (who doesn't seem to be too inclined to release a blu).
 

Ronald Epstein

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Kyrsten (or Brad),

First...

I know you are new here. Very happy to have you aboard with us. I will kindly ask that
you not refer to the other site and threads posted there about this film. This is a separate
community, and we are just as much aware of the popularity and demand of this film
without having to refer our members to discussion elsewhere. We can easily discuss
this title here. I am certain you are going to see a lot of positive comments on this board
about The Black Hole.

It's definitely one of Disney's most popular live-action films. One of my favorites.

I would not be surprised that this film is already in the works to be released for Blu-ray.

However, that being said, they had been working on a restoration of 20,000 Leagues Under
The Sea three years back, and that release still has not surfaced on Blu-ray.

Mary Poppins was the big live-action release last year. Would not be surprised to see
The Black Hole and 20,000 Leagues this year. A lot of members also holding out for the
release of Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

I am certain these are all in the pipeline. It's just that Disney hasn't been pushing many
of their classic live-action films to Blu-ray and I am wondering if the current market change
(where less classics are being released by all the major studios) is the reason for the slowdown.

By the way...

We have Disney folks reading this forum on a regular basis, so your request will be read
by those that matter most.
 

Matt Hough

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Unless Anthony Perkins recorded something years ago, he's not around now to do a commentary.

With Disney coming near the end of their classic animated features to release, they're going to have to start on the live action classics next (though, of course, they're diving back into the already released animated classics with a new Sleeping Beauty release, I noticed).
 

stevenHa

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Yes I hope they start releasing their classic live action fantasies from the 50's and 60's on blu ray - Sword and the Rose, Third Man on the Mountain, Robin Hood, Prince of Donegal, Johnny Tremain, Davy Crockett, Zorro, The Great Locomotive Chase, Darby O'Gill, Love Bug, Grayfriar's Bobby, Happiest Millionaire, In Search of the Castaways, etc. I did see advertised from Mill Creek that Pollyanna and Absent Minded Professor would be released by them in blu ray in 2013 but nothing happened ?
 
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Jonathan Perregaux

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As someone bought the paperback novelization when this movie came out, I add my tiny vote for a Blu-ray release. Please Disney, give us a journey that begins where everything ends.
 

cb1

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stevenHa said:
Yes I hope they start releasing their classic live action fantasies from the 50's and 60's on blu ray - Sword and the Rose, Third Man on the Mountain, Robin Hood, Prince of Donegal, Johnny Tremain, Davy Crockett, Zorro, The Great Locomotive Chase, Darby O'Gill, Love Bug, Grayfriar's Bobby, Happiest Millionaire, In Search of the Castaways, etc. I did see advertised from Mill Creek that Pollyanna and Absent Minded Professor would be released by them in blu ray in 2013 but nothing happened ?
100% to all of this!
plus Black Hole, 20k Under the Sea, Treasure Island!
 

Mark-P

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stevenHa said:
Yes I hope they start releasing their classic live action fantasies from the 50's and 60's on blu ray - Sword and the Rose, Third Man on the Mountain, Robin Hood, Prince of Donegal, Johnny Tremain, Davy Crockett, Zorro, The Great Locomotive Chase, Darby O'Gill, Love Bug, Grayfriar's Bobby, Happiest Millionaire, In Search of the Castaways, etc. I did see advertised from Mill Creek that Pollyanna and Absent Minded Professor would be released by them in blu ray in 2013 but nothing happened ?
That wasn't Mill Creek's ad, it was an ad in the inserts of some Disney releases, specifically the Finding Nemo Blu-ray.
 

Jason_V

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The Black Hole soundtrack was the first thing I bought off of iTunes. I'm also stil holding onto the DVD copy even though I don't watch it nearly enough...it's a fun, kinda goofy movie that Disney didn't make before or since (I'm not counting John Carter). Great music, pretty good effects for the time. I'd be game for a BD whenever Disney decides they want to do it.
 

SilverWook

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They might sit on this the way they sat on Tron, until after the remake comes out, or gets scuttled.

Definitely a must buy for me. I've owned it on every other format. The old Laserdisc actually had a slightly "squeezed" image that plays nice with a 16:9 display today, even though it's still cropped.
 

Brian McP

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The work of the great Peter Ellenshaw will certainly be the highlight of any bluray release of "The Black Hole", as well as that wonderous score by John Barry (can anyone ever forget the opening titles of this movie?) -- also great seeing the likes of Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Perkins and the rest of the great cast in the middle of all this.

My one fear of a bluray release of this movie would be the main drawback to those that saw this movie in 70mm back in 1979-80, namely the amount of film grain that would appear on screen once any kind of special effect element appeared on screen, including scenes of the black hole itself, swirling outside the windows of any spaceship in the picture.

Seeing it in a theatre, the amount of passes the film would have to go through an optical printer (or whatever they had by 1979) would add huge amounts of film grain to scenes when people would be talking to each other -- suddenly, in the reverse angle, with no effects in the shot, the picture would be as pinsharp as anything ever seen -- for those who know the picture, the scene when Yvette Mimeux and Anthony Perkins debate whther or not to join Maximilian Schell, in his banquet room, with the black hole in the background -- this scene is the one I remember this film grain being most noticable.

I know back in 1979, it was the best one could do -- would Disney do any kind of cleanup job on this before it went to bluray?
 

MatthewA

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Brian McP said:
I know back in 1979, it was the best one could do -- would Disney do any kind of cleanup job on this before it went to bluray?
I watched this in HD recently via Amazon Instant Video (they've got some of the not-yet-on-Blu-ray-and-I'll-be-shocked-if-and-when-they-do-come titles of all eras), and the increased resolution revealed a lot of the seams of the optical effects. The ability to improve upon it depends on the existence of all the separate picture elements. They could combine them digitally, but that would cost money, and for a title that didn't live up to initial box-office expectations, I don't see them going that far. It would cost less than a remake, though. Reducing the grain would just make it look smeary and do nothing to increase sharpness or do anything about the jarring shot-to-shot contrast changes. They came up with their own effects process just for this film, and I'm not entirely sure how it works or how it differs from the sodium vapor process used on most of the 1960s-1970s films.

There's also plenty of stuff from the film's release they could put on an eventual Blu-ray: Disney's Wonderful World did a whole making-of, and there was even a 30-minute syndicated documentary about black holes. According to The Disney Studio Story, they also shot three alternate endings.
 

DowneastBuffAlum

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The Black Hole in BD would be nice, but I'd really like to see Disney put out "Dr. Syn, The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" in it's original episodic TV edit. An awesome turn by Patrick McGoohan.
 

Jason_V

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DowneastBuffAlum said:
The Black Hole in BD would be nice, but I'd really like to see Disney put out "Dr. Syn, The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" in it's original episodic TV edit. An awesome turn by Patrick McGoohan.
How is this any different from the existing Disney Treasures version? IIRC, there was both the theatrical version and the original American version (the "mini series").
 

dbailey100

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It would be a first day purchase for me, Lord willing. I've been waiting since 2009 for a HD release of this film. I watched it on iTunes (I think) a couple of years ago...brought back fond memories of my love of sci-fi, space travel, robots, and singularities into the unknown.
 

Sam Favate

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I'd love to see this on blu-ray. Great visuals and a great score from John Barry.
 

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