The Black Hole (1979)

It's official......originality in Hollywood is DEAD.   

But at least back THEN, remakes were not as common, and the original Falcon's hard to find, apart from some Tube sites.


Problem is EVERYTHING is rehashed these days, and most of the stuff being rehashed don't NEED to be rehashed in the first place. I say either make something NEW or in the very least make a sequel or something, and stop redoing everything. I mean there's a reason I have not gone to a theater in 12 years.

I looked at the 44 biggest movies coming out in April. There's another Captain America, not sure if that counts as a re-make but it is e sequel. There is a sequel to Rio for the kiddies. It looks like the original Godzilla is getting a re-release before the summer remake. So do we call it 2/44 remakes/sequels next month? Less than 5% doesn't seem too hateful and none actually appear to be remakes (at least remakes of anything I've ever heard of).

I saw Avengers in 3D a couple years ago in the theatre and thought it was awesome. Re-watched it on DVD at home, but the theater experience was superior. Did see the Hobbit 2 in 2D. Great to see Smuag on the big screen. Well worth $2 on a Saturday morning. I know Hollywood is playing it safe with these franchises, but there are still some good movies out there. It still looks like 95% of the stuff out there is original, just not devoted the largest budgets. Among the re-make hate going on is there also novel/comic adaptation hate brewing here?

Still looking for the new Judge Dredd at the used DVD store. After the Stallone version it was a property that needed a remake. But I watched The Black Hole a couple years ago and am not sure that less Ernest Borgnine will work in a remake. The original still seemed pretty good after all these years.

So in the first 25 years of wide release motion pictures there were three Maltese Falcons? I'm glad Hollywood doesn't inundate us with remakes like they did during the "Golden Years" of cinema.

IMO, Dredd isn't a remake of Judge Dredd. It's another adaptation of the comic. Just like Batman Begins isn't a direct remake of Batman (1989). They're basing it off the comic, rather than the previous film.

The first "The Ten Commandments" was made in 1923 before the Heston version in 1956. The main reason for those remakes? Improved technology. Black and white silent movies were remade with "technocolor" and sound. That is happening now, as CGI improves the blue screen effects of 1980's movies. Reading over the wiki entries for remakes, many were made in the golden age of Hollywood. It is nothing new.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_remakes

Remaking movies may have been more acceptable back in pre-TV Hollywood because the only way to see a movie then was in a theater. Once a movie's run was over, it was put on the shelf unless it was popular enough to be reissued. There were probably a lot of cases in which a remake seemed fresh because few people saw (or remembered seeing) the original. Also, there were few opportunities to directly compare a remake to the original. Remaking a movie was a more understandable practice back then.

Nowadays, remaking a movie is less defensible, and one would think less desirable. You can see practically any movie you want whenever you want. People see favorite movies over and over again. In this environment, almost any remake will face the risk of seeming stale. You'd think studios would be reluctant to greenlight a remake of anything that was even slightly popular, if only for the fact that people can stay home and watch the original instead of paying to see the new version.

That maybe true for those of us who like to watch older movies on TV and DVD, but there is a lot of young people who don't even know some originals are around.  Most of my staff didn't know originals of Robocop or Total Recall were around!  They knew about the 1998 Godzilla but nothing else.  Unless there was a video game for it or it was on a reality TV show or MTV, they have never been exposed to it.

That's what's wrong with these kids today...wastin' all their time facebookin' and snapchattin'!  They don't know what they're missin'...they shoulda wasted their time watchin' endless hours of television, like our generation did!    Why, in my day...

...stop skateboarding on the sidewalk!

... and get a haircut ya long haired hippy freak!

Remember when they used to actually PAINT matte paintings?

I like this matte shot.

This isn't exactly on-topic, but fans of "The Black Hole" may get a kick out of a section of the soundtrack to this video on star sizes. (The music certainly had a powerful effect on the young ladies in my earth science class.)

Great movie