The Black Hole (1979)

I always took the ending as the crew went to Heaven while the bad guys went to Hell.

I really liked the movie.

EDIT: Wow. I just read the thread and there's speculation over the "merging"??? I never knew that aspect of the ending was in question.

My whole family saw it and we all talked about the merging when we saw it. No one questioned it...strange.

 

Beats me now how it ended (though of course I remember Maximilian drilling some dude), but I do recall that at the age of six this was the first movie I ever saw twice in a theater. Just for the sake of nostalgia I would get a Blu-ray release.

 

Why has John Barry's score never been on CD???

 

Wow, that is EXACTLY my experience -- had the toys (I remember the Maximillian figure had exactly ZERO points of articulation!) but never saw the flick. I think my parents would have let me go see it, but THEY read the horrible reviews and didn't want to take me (I was still a bit too young to go to the movies on my own at that point) because they didn't want to sit through it. Weird that I have vivid and distinct memories of the toys and things but still to this day have never seen the film!

 

That's a great visual when you're 10 though. Hah.

 

At the end didn't they keep falling and falling then finally stop??

 

There was a lot of gnashing of the teeth in the soundtrack fan forums when Disney released the score as a download-only release several years ago. They've never shown much interest in releasing scores for their films, and the LP for The Black Hole was one of the few non-musicals that they did release.

The download itself is pretty high quality, though the music isn't Barry's best, in my opinion. The main theme is fun to put on when someone is doing repetitive work around the house.

 

I was in the Sunrise Records on Yonge St yesterday, and they had The Black Hole playing on the TV at the rear of the store... it made for some pretty enjoyable background noise while I was shopping.

And across the street at the HMV flagship store, they had 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea playing... good choices for a Saturday afternoon!

 

Sorry to resurrect an older thread but Disney & Intrada will finally be releasing John Barry's The Black Hole on CD.

Kind of exciting for me since I really enjoy this movie and soundtrack. Naturally, I have the vinyl and iTunes version but this release should be nice and Intrada does really nice work. The essay with the CD should be a good read to see what the history behind this release is all about.....

http://www.monstersinmotion.com/car...k-hole-score-soundtrack-john-barry-cd-p-16821

 

Good news. I loved the score to this movie!

 

Hooray!!! Thanks for letting us know! I've been waiting forever for this to come out on CD. The quasi-legal Italian CD just doesn't cut it.

 

I guess a lot of people are excited about this CD release. It's not listed on Amazon, but when I went to the Intrada website it states that the 1st pressing is Sold Out and it will be back in stock in 2 weeks. Thanks goodness this isn't a limited edition!

 

Intrada did a really great job on this release. Very detailed liner notes and excellent sound. The score sounds like it was recorded yesterday!

 

I ordered it a couple of days ago from Screen Archives and I hope it ships soon as even Intrada went out of stock with this release.

 

That's good to know!

Wasn't part of the hold up because the original soundtrack was a "digital" recording and the original film that held the soundtrack was breaking down? Maybe it's a urban legend but that's what I heard......

 

How's that possible for such an early digital recording, which use to sound extra harsh and unnatural, to sound like it was recorded yesterday?
I know this release is not an straight two track-original mix-down from 1979 mastering, but newly digitally remixed from the 32 track session tapes with today's digital equipment, so sure ProTools is involved and who knows how much plug-ins and filters have been used to sweeten/modernize the sound.

 

So going by todays sloppy standards in sound recording thats not such a stretch is it?

 

Thanks for the info. Will have to put my order in.

 

I don't know. You should listen to the 10 minutes of samples Intrada has on their site and judge for yourself. I just found the recording clear and natural, and not reflective of the age of the source.

 

There were a variety of reasons - it's all covered in detail in the liner notes.

 

Wow, I didn't think anyone else remembered those Read-Along book/cassette things! I had a whole bunch of them when I was a kid (including the Black Hole one)... they were great for long car rides! I also had several Star Wars and Star Trek ones as well.

"The Black Hole" Read Along:


It's funny to hear how they condense a 97-minute movie into a 10-minute audio clip.

 

I don't need to, I bought the CD, and it sounds outstanding.
In all the time since this thread was open, I have discorvered that the soundtrack for Star Trek The Motion Picture wasn't a full digital recorded, it was tracked to 16 track analog using Telcom (from Telefunken) noise reduction beeing only three tracks presented in a full digital form, that is, recorded, mixed and mastered to digital, the Main Title, The Enterprise and leaving Drydock, and that is only on the original LP and first CD edition. All laters edition used the analog multitrack mastered and were remixed to digital being the 2012 release from La-La-Land Record the most complete and better sounding, better say outstanding sounding.
This makes the soundtrack for the Black Hole the first true digitally recorded soundtrack.

 

I cannot comment on the details, but Black Hole has been remastered in 2K and looks better than it ever has (in my opinion). Don't know what elements they used for the sound.

 

Cool. So maybe we'll actually see the film released. It's a flawed film but entertaining. Love the Ellenshaw matte paintings and visual effects.