The thought busters: Black Hole Or how I learned to love a telepathic robot.

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It was 1979 and I was 9. My uncle took me to see a space movie made by Disney. He and my mother didn't know about all the violence and shooting. I didn't know about Black Holes, Retro Gravitation drives, magnetic levitation, Telepathy, robots, space ships, or Star Wars. I was 9 and we didn't have the Internet so my exposure to these things were limited to my mom watching Star Trek and my dad complaining about it.

Most, ok many people can't track their love of space programs to their origin. I on the other hand can list the two movies, when I saw them, and where I saw them. The second is Battle Beyond the Stars which I will be covering later.

The first is 1979's Black Hole. The story is about an exploration vehicle sent out looking for habitable planets for earth to colonize. Not that I understood that then. The crew of the Palomino finds a derelict ship on the event horizon of a Black Hole. As they are examining the ship they are pulled in to the black hole. After a valiant effort to save the Palomino they dock with the mystery ship.

This mystery ship is the USS Cygnus and has lost it's crew and is now crewed by a group of robe covered androids lead by the monstrous Maximilian. The androids follow the instructions of the mad Doctor Hans Reinhardt in his efforts to explore the inside of a black hole.

The there are several robots in this movie and I fell in love with one of them on the his first scene in the movie. Old BOB was a BiO-sanitation Battalion robot that was voiced by Slim Pickens. I wanted one, I still want one. Many of my friends are fans of R2D2 and Cp3o but I think they are nice enough but they don't have the power of Old Bob. Pickens performance turns a rusty old robot into one of the new frontiers greatest heroes. I didn't think of Bob as a utility device. The other hero robot was Vincent a newer model of the same type of robot. But he didn't have the same feeling of someone who had lived a life or adventure.

There were many other robots in the movie but they were just stormtroopers in another appearance. They could have been anything from walking trash cans to flying donuts because they were just not memorable. I think the they were called Star or something like that. Really they were just there to shoot and miss and get shot. I think they may have been red shirts ooops wrong movie.

Since there were Hero robots the director decided to include a villain robot. I don't mind telling you I had nightmares about Maximilian. When Doctor Hans Reinhardt built Maximilian to carry out his orders but I cant tell you that can I it would be a spoiler. Lets just say WOW bad robot. You have to spend the time one weekend to see this great Sci-fi Gem.

If you haven't had a chance to enjoy this Classic of Sci-fi you may get a chance to see it later as a remake. Thanks Disney