science fiction

Technically, this is a re-re-review, because I saw this when it was originally released in 1982, then again in 2009 in anticipation of the sequel, TRON: Legacy, and again just now, in the year 2023.

It holds up! I’ve seen comments about how the plot is nonsensical or difficult to follow, but it’s really not. If you listen to what the characters say, they provide all the details you need. Basically, the programs need to blow up the Master Control Program (MCP) to clear the name of real-world Flynn, and to free all the programs being held under the MCP’s giant virtual thumb, so they can work for their users again. It’s basically a quest to defeat the Evil Wizard, but in a mainframe.

The dialog and exposition can be a bit clunky at time, and the religious references seem a little weird, like an idea not really fleshed out, and you really do need to just give yourself over to the whole system of metaphors they use to depict the inner world of the computer and programs. But if you get past these things, everything else holds up surprisingly well, more than 40 years later.

The good guys are earnest, particularly Bruce Boxleitner’s Tron character. The MCP is a complete bastard right from the start, gleefully blackmailing Dillinger in the real world and literally torturing his counterpart Sark to keep him in line in the virtual one. His dismissive “End of line” when he’s done speaking is awesome.

Jeff Bridges, who was in his early 30s, looks incredibly young and plays Flynn with the breezy goofiness that says this is Jeff Bridges.

The electronic score (with some orchestral parts done at the insistence of Disney) is perfectly pitched at capturing the otherworldly feeling of Tron. Its main theme is one I have been able to recall easily since first hearing it in 1982. The video game-inspired sound effects are also deployed to terrific effect, with buzzes, burbles and blips underscoring how different this world is, yet being perfectly suited to it.

And of course, the visuals. In 1982 CGI was new, expensive and labour-intensive. Stuff that can be rendered on a home computer today in minutes took hours for a single frame back then. And still, two things really stand out for me: The design of the CG world, and especially the vehicles, and how the simplicity of everything is actually a strength rather than a liability. Today, everything could be rendered in far greater detail, but in a way that would take away from the virtual verisimilitude. The simple clean lines and curves of the light cycles, or the minimalist design of the tanks makes them fit into this stark world of lines and shapes, pulsing with light. A denser, more sophisticated look would probably have been distracting. The people behind TRON had limited resources, but used them to great effect.

I give TRON 4 out of 5 glowing discs.

I saw The Black Hole originally in 1979, when I was 15 years old. I thought it was great. I bought the novel!

I never read the novel.

I wonder if I still have it stuffed in a box somewhere?

Last year, I watched the movie again on Disney+. I think it was the first time I had seen it all the way through since 1979. It’s goofy and weird, very un-Disney in many ways. I suspect it got the green light due to the success of Star Wars, but at its core, it’s actually more of a horror/fantasy film dressed up in science fiction clothes.

Yesterday, I saw a YouTube video about it and thought, “I’ll just watch the opening sequence” and ended up watching the entire movie again and going to bed late. And it’s not even a good movie, really.

This isn’t a review, as such, but I wanted to collect some thoughts on the movie while it was fresh in my mind. This may be a bit scattershot!

• The film starts with a black screen while music plays over it for about two minutes. I have no idea why. Are they trying to set the mood? Are they showing just how black a black hole really is?
• They obviously had no actual visual reference for a black hole in 1979, but I like to think they could have come up with something better than what appears to be blue water swirling down a kitchen sink drain.
• I like that they did some scenes in zero gravity, even if it looks a little goofy. There’s at least a pretense to realism here.
• The cast is chock-full of big stars, very unusual for any Disney pic back then.
• Maximilian Schell is great. I love his giant mop of hair and intense gaze. I also like that the killer robot also has the same name.
• Speaking of the robots, it’s super obvious that none of them are made of metal, though they are obviously supposed to be. Vincent and BOB come off the worst here, each of them looking like painted wooden toys. With lasers.
• And speaking of lasers they have this satisfying sound that is like a thunky pew-pew.
• The scene with Vincent and BOB playing what amounts to a video game with the menacing former head robot is just weird. I’m not sure why it’s even in the movie. Maybe they felt they built all these cool robots, they were going to use them, dammit!
• The Cygnus is an amazing ship design. It’s been described as a cathedral in space. If they ever did a remake, the ships need to be miniature models, not CGI. Get Chris Nolan to direct, he’s totally into that stuff.
• The special effects are all over the place in terms of quality. The matte paintings (of which the film had roughly a billion) are for the most part excellent. The meteor tumbling down the interior of the ship could pass for an FX shot made today. But other stuff, notably most of the green screen work, is terrible, like they either ran out of money for those shots, or handed them over to an intern who never got hired on full-time.
• The score (by Bond composer John Barry) is as weird as so many other things in this film. During action scenes, the score picks up, but it doesn’t really reflect the action, it’s just bombastic music.
• I love how Schell scolds the robot like a misbehaving child after it slices and dices Anthony Perkins’ character. “Maximilian, you shouldn’t have done that!” Maybe this is where J.J. Abrams got the idea to name his company Bad Robot.
• I love the initial mystery of discovering a ship that’s been missing for 20 years, hanging out next to a black hole without getting sucked into it. Alien (released the same year!) has the same kind of vibe in its early scenes, but with a lot more swearing.
• The ending is still totally bonkers no matter how many times I see it. Schell and Maximilian appear to embrace while floating in space, then, uh, merge? So now Schell is inside Maximilian, his eyes looking about frantically from inside the robot’s visor as it stands on a rocky spire in…hell? Then there’s a long glass hallway (?), an angel (?) and suddenly the surviving members of the Palomino crew are A-OK and heading peacefully toward a shiny planet somewhere on the other side of the black hole. If they do a remake, I’d love to see how they’d handle the ending, though I suspect it would end up being a lot more conventional.

Is The Black Hole a good movie? No. It feels like it wants to be a bunch of different things–a fantasy epic, a horror film, a disaster movie, and the science fiction part is kind of bolted on. It’s an odd, uneven mix.

But the design is fantastic, the effects, though mixed, generally hold up, and the initial mystery is captivating. After that, the film gets a bit thin, and it’s only Schell’s scenery-chewing, the ever-present threat of what will Maximilian do, and Roddy McDowell making pithy remarks that really keeps you interested. And I’ll give a few points to the general destruction of the Cygnus as it drifts to its doom.

Why did I sit through the entire movie again, though? I really can’t say. I will ponder this.

I’ve actually watched a few movies recently, perhaps finally feeling the pangs of not seeing a movie in a theater since March 2020 (it was Onward, which was on Disney+ by the end of the month as all movie theaters shut down for pandemic fun times). Now, I don’t actually miss seeing movies in theaters (hell is other people), but movies themselves? Yeah. And I’d been wanting to indulge in some science fiction. It didn’t even have to be good. Which leads me to my first mini re-review:

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013): I mostly remembered this one as being inferior to the 2009 remake origin story, and it still is. There is plenty of silliness to be had, from re-purposing bits from the original Khan storyline to no good effect (the Spock/Kirk death reversal, which lands with an utter thud), Khan now a supremely white Benedict Cumberbatch (though he is wonderfully slimy and weird in the role) and once again using improbable devices to propel the plot forward, like having all the Starfleet bigwigs conveniently meet in a room lined with huge windows and completely vulnerable to attack (guess what happens next?!)

Still, J.J. Abrams is adept at keeping the action rolling, and there is plenty here. This is basically an action movie in sci-fi clothing. There is also some nice interplay between the cast members (I could watch Karl Urban as McCoy all day long) and everyone just seems to be having a good time in their roles. The effects are big and loud and very Abrams.

In the end it’s not a bad movie per se, even though there are any number of weak points, but this is a case where Abrams’ approach of “more is more” somehow manages to hold together till the end.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Director’s Cut (1977): Spielberg wanted to fix some issues with the original film and asked the studio for money. They agreed with one condition–that he show inside the mothership. He reluctantly agreed, giving us the “special edition” of the movie. That’s also included on the Blu-ray I have, but I skipped it in favor of the Director’s cut, which is essentially Spielberg’s fixes, but with the mothership interior rightfully cut.

Some effects, particularly the matte work and the painfully obvious set that comprises the mountain road where the police chase a group of UFOs, do not hold up very well, but this movie is now 44 years old, so I’m willing to cut it some slack. Other effects still hold up decently and the mothership’s arrival at Devil’s Tower is still spectacular.

There’s a lot of very Spielberg stuff here–the camera dollying in to a character (or out), overlapping dialogue, quirky people who feel real, not out of Casting 101. There’s also something almost painfully authentic about the domestic scenes involving Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) and his family. In one early scene, one of the boys climbs into the daughter’s playpen in the living room and starts bashing apart a doll on the rail. Why? Because that’s the kind of mindless, attention-seeking destruction kids engage in. It’s great.

You can quibble with some actions of the aliens–Spielberg is clearly more interested in setting a mood than being logical, but the moods he creates work so well–from the subtle horror of screws on a floor vent unscrewing themselves and toys coming to life, to the child-like wonder of watching the mothership interact musically with the scientists gathered at the Devil’s Tower landing site.

This is also a very 70s movie. The pace is deliberate at times. There is no build-up to a final big action scene. The story ends gently, and there are no real villains. It presents the idea of aliens wanting a kind of cultural exchange. It’s hopeful and just nice.

Also, despite coming only two years after Jaws, the fashions hold up much better than you might expect. Maybe the 70s have just become hip (or groovy) again.