The Black Hole (1hr 20min Cut)

The Black Hole is an odd duck of a movie. It’s trying to be a deep sci-fi film like 2001, a fun space opera like Star Wars, and a creepy haunted house in space story, all while trying to be family-friendly Disney fare. It fails to be all of them at once. However, there’s some good stuff in there once you chip away at a lot of the fat and the scenes clearly added to keep kids awake during another scene of middle-aged character actors talking.

I was surprised to find an ESL book adaptation that I found much better than the actual movie. It’s very similar, but moves much faster and cuts a lot of the less successful stuff. I tried cutting the movie to be closer to the book, although there are certain things that I can’t do. For instance, the ship’s pilot is a young Asian woman in the book, Borgnine’s character is also quite different. and B.O.B. isn’t in it at all.

As a result, the main changes in this edit are that much of B.O.B.'s scenes are cut, as is the robot playroom shoot out scenes. There’s a few trims for pacing here and there, but otherwise, the film is what it is, for better or worse. My fan editing skills aren’t able to accomplish much more than that.

The movie’s split up into several ‘chapters’ that follow the book. Each one is about 20 minutes as I’m using it for my ESL classes. English subtitles are included. Please send me a PM if you’re interested.

I’ve made some further cuts and tweaks to this. I’ve made the ‘lobotomy’ scene from Chapter 5 a bit more intense than the original and made more snips to the unsuccessful attempts to keep kids from getting bored. The links are still the same. Thanks.

All the English subtitles have been included and I’ve used Handbrake to reduce the file to more reasonable sizes. Same links as before.

I’m curious to see your version! I’ll send you a PM

Cool, got 'em! Have you considered connecting the parts into a single movie file and sharing that one? I’ll probably do it myself this weekend in FCP, but I may not get the sections stitched perfectly. If you have a version that is a “master” before breaking it into chapters, that would be the ideal!

All the ‘episodes’ should stitch together perfectly if you make a playlist with them. I use them in my ESL classes so I don’t really need a full length movie cut. Also, the subtitle files are synched to the episodes.

100% agreed on the subtitles. Creating subtitles for fan edits is a gigantic pain. I’ll be rebuilding this edit from scratch with English subtitles hardcoded to make things easier this time. AI transcription still has a long way to go.

I also had that damned ‘hero’ theme stuck in head for a week after recutting that hospital scene. Trust me, no one is more sick of it than me. 😉

I’d love if someone with VFX skills could add blood to Alex’s death.

I’ve got no problem with the meteor shower so it’ll be staying. That shot of them running away from the giant meteor on the catwalk is too great to lose.

The weird relationship between Reinhardt and Maximilian is also something I’d never mess with. It’s part of the film’s charm to me.

Thanks for the feedback though! It’s appreciated.

Bored at 3AM said:

All the ‘episodes’ should stitch together perfectly if you make a playlist with them. I use them in my ESL classes so I don’t really need a full length movie cut. Also, the subtitle files are synched to the episodes.

Sure thing, I’ll give it a shot when I have a moment.

Jamilion said:

Sure thing, I’ll give it a shot when I have a moment.

I’ve uploaded a movie length cut without subtitles.

A new cut of the film with hardcoded subtitles is coming, that will be even shorter as I found more bits and pieces to snip in order to keep the pace up.

I’ve uploaded a new cut of the film. One with English subtitles, one without. This edit is about five minutes shorter based upon feedback I’ve gotten from my students and other viewers.

Awesome, thank you, I grabbed the full movie length cut. Thanks for doing that!

Jamilion said:

Awesome, thank you, I grabbed the full movie length cut. Thanks for doing that!

My pleasure. I’d only cut it into pieces so I could have TurboScribe generate subtitles for it, but since those turned out pretty badly, there was no reason to keep it from being movie length anymore.

I’ve managed to get this an even brisker 1 hour 8 minutes. It’s still more leaden than I’d like, but it’s better. PM me for the link or, if I’ve already given you one, you’ll find it there. Only the movie with hardcoded English subtitles is available now.

Please make a version without subtitles also.

You might have to wait awhile for that, but I’ll see what I can do.

A 1 hour 8 minute version without subtitles is being uploaded now. If you want it, you better grab it fast because I’m only going to keep it there until I need space on my Google Drive.