Ah, Disney, you stupid morons. No, I'm not talking about their latest efforts aimed at making kids gay and grooming them for abuse ('ol Walt would want to kill these people if he were alive). No, I'm talking about when they actually just tried to make entertainment that wasn't trying to kill the souls of children.
Back in 70s, Disney wanted to make their own high-budget sci-fi movie and began making the movie The Back Hole. Unfortunately for us and for the movie, a little flick called Star Wars came out to unprecedented success for a sci-fi film, and subsequently shoved dollar signs into the studio heads and their meddling nearly (or according to some, actually) ruined the movie.
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| Some of the set design was just gorgeous |
When you watch it, the movie immediately sets up an atmosphere of foreboding, creepy mystery with it's excellent theme song (I can't gush enough about it), then with the massive and empty, almost gothic looking starship which you later learn is run by an egomaniac. The movie has some fabulously beautiful scenes and really is at it's best when setting up and showing off the creepy tone and atmosphere and unsettling aspects of the story. It also features some really good actors of the time, and has perhaps the most controversial ending to any Disney film ever.
Sadly, Disney will be Disney, and as soon as the success of Star Wars was seen while in the middle of production, they immediately insisted the movie be more of a adventure film to emulate the success of Lucas' film. This translated to a wildly shifting tone in the film, going from ghost ship vibes to cutesy robots, then to zombified crewmembers, to more cutesy robot segments, to high adventure chase scenes, to literal hell. To say the tone is uneven would be an understatement.
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| One of the coolest effects shots in the movie. |
Nobody I know really recognizes it as a great or even good film, but darn if it isn't memorable. Personally, I always loved this movie, despite all the imperfections and missteps. Not just for what it did do, but for what it wanted to do. To me, the movie seemed like it was really trying to be more of a horror movie in space before suddenly shifting in tone to a more adventure flick by the end. I honestly think that the movie Event Horizon (despite being far more extreme) had at least a little inspiration from this film, as they have a lot of similarities. I feel the movie just missed the mark by Disney trying to be like Star Wars while also fearing they would ruin their family-friendly reputation.
This is another movie I would actually love to see remade to fully embrace the horror sci-fi experience, and it seemed Disney was on track to do exactly that in 2009 when they announced the movie would be remade. However, the dumbassess at Disney announced in 2016 the remake script was "too dark for a Disney film" and then put it on hold. I guess I should have expected that from the douchebags who brought you the bull crap Star Wars sequel trilogy, screwed over the character of Boba Fett, and then blatantly try to groom kids by selling such gems like this to them:
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| Kill Disney. The company needs to go down already. |
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