Entered this thinking it was a rewatch, but really couldn't remember any of it, wondering now if memories were overwritten by the View-Master™® reels or the picture book?

In 2026, overall I do not like the movie, so perhaps move along if you're a fan.

It's a strange patchwork of influences, a Bible camp version of 2001: A Space Odyssey mixed with Star Wars, and probably a whole bunch of 1950s stuff I don't know.

The end is terrible, they do the 2001 Star Gate sequence, except more circular in geometry, and the results are biblical/judgement day kind of stuff, offensively bad. It's hinted at throughout the movie, they think that the Black Hole will show them the mind of God, and answer all mysteries of creation. Until they entered the Black Hole, I was trying to interpret this in a scientific sense, as in learning about the fabric of spacetime or such, but it's far more literal.

The science and physics are horribly inconsistent. They do very well simulating zero gravity, just like 2001, but then one of the crew members is telepathic, and communicates with robots via ESP when conventional EM signals are unable to get through. The physics gets progressively worse, at the end they are outrunning meteors that are smashing through the ship, and I'm not even gonna mention the Black Hole.

Doesn't feel like a 1970s movie at all, it's more 1950s B movie gothic horror (half the "robots" are lobotomised humans ⸻ I didn't remember that). Hard to believe it was made after Star Wars by a company with the resources of Disney. Star Wars (1977) still feels real, visceral, physical, used, worn-out, dirty; objects have mass. On The Black Hole, you can literally see the cardboard and the sheets wobbling, it looks like a live theatre set, expensive and flimsy.

Soundtrack is quite good, sort of John Williams channelled through Les Baxter, didn't mind that at all.

Plot is laughable, characters are absurd stereotypes. I suppose it would suit Mystery Science Theater 3000. Don't know quite what I was expecting of the movie, but I have become an Onion article:
Aging Gen-Xer Doesn't Find Bad Movies Funny Anymore
https://theonion.com/aging-gen-xer-doesnt-find-bad-movies-funny-anymore-1819565797/

#Movies #SciFi