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

[Matt Hough]

Vudu has it for $7.99, too.

 

[Tino]

Vudu has it for $7.99, too.

And both part of Movies Anywhere.

 

[Matt Hough]

And both part of Movies Anywhere.

Very true, but the prices of the two services don't always match up.

 

[Tino]

Very true, but the prices of the two services don't always match up.

True but lately they have more often.

 

[Robert Crawford]

True but lately they have more often.

They seem to be trending that way. I bought the Black Hole on iTunes back on August 13th for $7.99. At that time, Disney was running a sale on several of their titles on iTunes which I also purchased. I don't think Vudu was having the same sale at that time.

 

[Matt Hough]

I went ahead and bought The Black Hole on Vudu yesterday and will watch it today.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

For some strange reason I have never seen this film. I think I'll give it a try via the TCM app on my Apple TV 4K after it airs on 10/16.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I can’t say that it’s a great movie, but it’s one I enjoy immensely. It has a very unusual vibe to it. Kinda straddles the line with one foot in the realm of kiddie sci-fi and one foot in the macabre.

 

[Jason_V]

I can’t say that it’s a great movie, but it’s one I enjoy immensely. It has a very unusual vibe to it. Kinda straddles the line with one foot in the realm of kiddie sci-fi and one foot in the macabre.

It's the best movie ever made!!

Agreed, it's not genius...but the score is hella memorable and it's delightfully schizophrenic for the reason you mentioned: it has one foot in each kind of movie and really has no idea how to meld them together. We go from floating robots for the kids to humans being cut to ribbons and that ending.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

You’re right - that score!!

And that ending!

I love that the movie has a genuine sense of danger and the unknown, but also has that Walt Disney sensibility of the “Tomorrowland” space exploration episodes from the Disneyland TV show of the 50s. It feels like something Walt could have made.

For quite a few years, I’d make a point of watching it as my first movie of the year - after midnight on New Year’s Eve after everyone else went to bed. It just felt like the right time for it.

 

[Matt Hough]

I watched my Vudu HD copy this afternoon. Picture-wise, it's grainier than some will like (I suppose I remember it looking that way, but 1979 is a long time ago), and the colors are sometimes too hot and oversaturated. It's clear, though, and it brought back a lot of memories. It's clear and sharp enough that I could easily see the wires in some of the weightless sequences (which I've never seen before either in the theater or on that DVD copy). The listing said Dolby Stereo, but it sounded like big fat mono to me, very solid and expansive, but I didn't hear separation that I generally hear in stereo films.

 

[Lord Dalek]

^Black Hole was Disney's first film with 70mm prints since Sleeping Beauty in 1959. There should be a 4.1 master out there.

 

[BobO'Link]

I can’t say that it’s a great movie, but it’s one I enjoy immensely. It has a very unusual vibe to it. Kinda straddles the line with one foot in the realm of kiddie sci-fi and one foot in the macabre.

I've always felt it leaned more towards kiddie SF. I was truly excited about this film when it came out but recall being immensely disappointed with the story, the kiddified nature, and, in the post Star Wars visual effects era, the overall rather average quality visual effects. Don't get me wrong - there are some truly excellent and beautiful matte paintings on display, but that's part of the problem. Had the movie been made just 5 years earlier it would have been spectacular, but being made and released post Star Wars it looked ancient, somewhat quaint. It didn't help to have Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens voicing the robots. I felt they were horribly miscast and, especially Pickens, took me out of the story every time they "spoke."

In spite of that, I'd like to have a BR upgrade of the DVD (and I own the better of the DVD releases).

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

^Black Hole was Disney's first film with 70mm prints since Sleeping Beauty in 1959. There should be a 4.1 master out there.

The first Anchor Bay DVD was 4.1, but that's only because they inadvertently left off the right front channel! I caught it and the disc was recalled.

Since the movie was purchased digitally, it's part of Movies Anywhere. You can check other platforms to see if they have it in multi-channel and not matrixed Dolby Surround. iTunes for sure has it in 5.1 and the surrounds are very active, especially during the target practice scenes.

Neil

 

[Josh Steinberg]

To me, all of those weird/dated aspects give it this “out of time” feeling that makes it oddly more effective for me.

 

[Lord Dalek]

I'm not sure how you could complain about The Black Hole being kiddie SF. Yes it had a PG. Yes Maximillian Schell literally goes directly to hell does not pass go does not collect $200 in the last scene. But at the end of the day...it was still a Disney movie.

 

[BobO'Link]

But it wasn't marketed that way. I remember the promos and trailers being rather serious, pretty much leaving out the cute robots and inane robot dialog. This had the outward appearances of Disney doing more serious SF and then they put in robots who mostly fit in and are designed for an animated feature. Star Wars has humor and "cute" robots but not these live action animated missteps that frequently drag down the production.

 

[ToEhrIsHuman]

This title would be amazing in 4K UHD, especially with Dolby Vision!

 

[Jason_V]

This title would be amazing in 4K UHD, especially with Dolby Vision!

It would be great in BD too. Or really anything aside from a 14-year-old DVD.

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

This title would be amazing in 4K UHD, especially with Dolby Vision!

I was just thinking the same thing. DMC could market it as their first classic live-action UHD Blu-ray title.