A frequent question that occurs in a Facebook The Black Hole group I follow is the idea of a prequel to address what actually happened to the crew, Reinhardt’s usurping of the ship, the sentries and Maximilian’s creation as well as the fate of Frank McCrae. In truth, I think that Disney would not be interested in a prequel at this stage unless the original The Black Hole would experience a sudden resurgence of interest. Given that the idea of a reboot/remake keeps falling short, in all likelihood, we probably won’t see neither ever. I did postulate a potential draft or how a remake/reboot might look and parts did try to address things that happened prior to the Palomino’s arrival using flashbacks, video and other story telling mechanisms that could relay more than the stingy tidbits we were given in the original. While those elements would paint the broad strokes of the previous crew, etc., I did not go into too much detail to really flesh out how everything would have worked out. Thus, I would like to make an attempt at covering various avenues that I think should cover what a prequel might look like or at least add more information to fill in a variety of other “black holes” in the story.
There’s plenty of ground to cover so I think the best place to start is looking at the two named characters of Dr. Reinhardt and Frank McCrae. Obviously, based on our exposure in The Black Hole movie, the audience realizes that Dr. Reinhardt is bombastic, egotistical, highly driven and a sociopath on top of everything. He is analogous to Captain Ahab from Moby Dick in his mission to eventually unlock the secrets of the black hole and other aspects in the universe. We also know that he was probably the main person responsible for convincing the government to make the mission of national importance to fund it.
However, we learn from Kate McCrae in the movie that the Cygnus’ original mission was to find “habitable life” (probably meaning planets), which was the same as the Palomino’s. We also know that the Cygnus had been away at least for 20 earth years, according to Alex Durant. Despite having some gray in his hair/beard, Reinhardt’s age is not disclosed so it’s unknown how much he aged especially “living” in the proximity of a black hole with time dilation along with whatever scientific discoveries the crew has made regarding extending life.
The other thing we can assume about Dr. Reinhardt is that he at least is some sort of scientific genius. In the context of the film especially for the period, the idea of a scientific genius seems to encompass multiple disciplines. But the reason these things are important is to determine how and when he was able to fund such a massive project. Because a ship of that size and power along with the politics involved to convince an entire government seems ludicrous unless there was some other deals made that ran parallel to the government’s own agenda.
Then there is the topic of whether Dr. Reinhardt already knew of this particular black hole beforehand. There is little additional detail about what went on during the mission itself prior to the mutiny. One would think that a mission to “find habitable life” would be the antithesis of locating a black hole, especially when Kate also references how one of her professors theorized black holes would some day devour the entire universe. However, I don’t think it’s coincidental that the Cygnus discovered the black hole out of nowhere (unlike the Palomino apparently did in the movie)
So there’s a lot of issues that need to be addressed immediately from analyzing what we know of Reinhardt and the things he’s connected to out the door. Next, I think it’s important to discuss Frank McCrae and what his relationship to Reinhardt was. I do think that Frank and Reinhardt had a close relationship at one point. I wouldn’t doubt that Frank was someone instrumental in aiding Reinhardt to conceive of the mission. But the one quality that Frank is hinted to possess that Reinhardt lacked was a sense of ethics. Also, he seemed to be a person with leadership qualities which leads me to believe that Frank was either in charge of the mission or at least second in command, which is why the crew turned to him.
Here’s a possible idea for how things may have started given the above. Both Reinhardt and Frank were possibly fellow PhD students or professors at the same university on a project involving black holes. They would have known the basic theories of black holes such as the possibility for devouring the universe (which is how Kate is connected). However, Reinhardt at some point when he discusses with Alex about monitoring the Cygnus entering the black hole the idea of an Einstein-Rosen bridge. Because it’s still a theory, they would require proof of such a concept.
Another aspect in their studies would be the idea of time dilation with the event horizon and possibly time travel. My idea would be that Reinhardt was able to prove the theory of time travel and long life on his own and kept the idea hidden from Frank. However, he would have shared the ideas of wormholes to entice Frank and build up his case for the mission. Knowing that the ideas were very far fetched for normal people, Reinhardt would concoct the idea of searching for life beyond earth as the chief selling point to the public but convinced key people in the government and corporations about his real mission. During this time, I think that’s where Harry Booth would “collide” with Reinhardt as he tried to dig up the real story. But this forms the basis of how the mission starts and where the main players interconnect.
Two missing persons from this equation that are not as obvious though are Kate McCrae and Mrs. McCrae (the mother). Given that the actual The Black Hole movie was filmed in 1979, Yvette Mimieux would have been roughly 36-37 years of age. Because of the “20 earth years” difference mentioned, when Frank McCrae departed, Kate could have been approximately a teenager, which was probably the main motivator for her to follow in her father’s footsteps. Now, the mother is a character never mentioned in the story and someone one would place a higher importance to in a prequel type of film. I assume that like Kate, the mother would have been highly attractive, maybe even a mirror image of Kate. As far as we know though, Kate’s mother was NOT on board the Cygnus and we never hear about her fate.
I will interject here that one aspect I continue to harp on in my discussions of The Black Hole is Reinhardt’s behavior towards Kate. The reason I focus on this aspect is that we never learn about the gender for the crew itself and that Reinhardt acts more than fatherly around Kate. I maintain that he has a repressed sexual urge that never is mentioned but alluded to during the movie, which is why Holland feels compelled to save Kate as well as having a rivalry to Reinhardt. But I think part of Reinhardt’s eccentricity is the lack of women around him (that we know of). I think an interesting subplot to bring up is possibly jealousy over Frank’s wife. In that manner, there are more stakes for Frank than just the matter of issues that we can infer with Reinhardt. In one sense, maybe Frank agreeing to the mission is to distance Reinhardt from his wife, believing (and hoping) that the mission will not be too long. Regardless, in connecting Kate to the mom and having Reinhardt originally possessing an interest in the wife, we can see why he might’ve felt a sense of renewal upon seeing Kate.
Next, we need to cover the crew. It’s very difficult to understand what this crew entailed in terms of roles, skills, etc. I think for a ship of that scale, the crew would require engineers and maintenance to ensure that the ship runs. Also, y0u would need people capable of piloting the ship. In addition, you would need cooks, gardeners/greenhouse specialists and medical. Finally, there would be scientists besides Frank McCrae and Reinhardt to perform experiments. Maintenance can be supplemented by robots such as BOB (who was a sanitation unit). And Vincent mentioned that there were others like himself sent into the black hole itself. So one can infer that a chunk of the heavy lifting could be handled by a variety of models like Vincent and Bob.
One question though is whether the ship would allow for women. The idea of female space explorers would not be unfamiliar as Kate herself flew on the Palomino. Considering the scale of the ship, I could imagine a few women being part of the crew. The Black Hole movie itself makes this aspect irrelevant to demonstrate that the crew had no meaning to Reinhardt except for his own machinations. But I think the movie, outside of Kate, avoided the topic of women on the Cygnus itself to avoid darker topics. My theory is that a portion of the crew would have been female, possibly family members. We don’t see any child-sized humanoids but I wouldn’t doubt at least one or two couples on board especially for such a deep space mission.
Finally, I would like to address the later part of the Cygnus crew: the sentries and Maximilian. In The Black Hole, Bob specifically mentions STAR being a prototype for the sentry robots until Reinhardt built Maximilian. This is a slightly obscure line because Bob implies Reinhardt single-handedly built up all the troops on the ship. We get little other detail beyond the fact that STAR deals with security and was the #1 until Maximilian. The reason this is so problematic is that it turns Reinhardt into some super genius capable of not only handling complex astrophysics but all types of engineering (which is why I hate Hollywood so badly at times). But for now, let’s give Reinhardt the benefit of the doubt as a savant character and eventually figure out this mess of a situation because it clearly makes no sense. But I’m going to come back to this point.
Now, I mentioned that part of the difference in knowledge distribution would be public facing vs the government/high up corporations that would fund this type of project. In that sense, there would be very few select people on the ship that would know the actual intention of the mission. In turn, we need to fill in what happens between the discovery of the black hole and the Cygnus leaving the earth (or possibly some sort of orbiting station). Beyond the 20 earth years that passes, we also don’t know specifically when the mutiny occurs nor how fast the Cygnus can move. Given that they float next to a supposedly undiscovered/unchartered black hole, I can only assume that the Cygnus has some sort of light speed type of drive. In short, it’s capable of extreme speeds to travel to distant areas of the galaxy and possibly the universe.
In one of my (hidden) drafts for a remake, I pose that the black hole was known (at least maybe the people on earth knew), which is why the Palomino was in that sector of space. The main thing would be that the crew had no idea and possibly was guided towards that zone in the hope of rediscovering the whereabouts of the Cygnus. Because of that, I wanted to make the black hole somewhat reasonably “close” to where earth is (i.e. in the same Milky Way galaxy) to allow the Palomino to eventually make that trek. Not to mention giving some boundaries on how far the Cygnus could travel. This is important to restrict the 20 years in between and allow for other events to occur that would lead to the mutiny.
Along the way, we know for certain that one major achievements/discovery is the element Cygnium that powers the ship’s reactors. It is unknown whether that discovery was made by the proximity of the black hole itself or on some random planet. Also, in some of the unused concept art and storyboards, I know there was a slightly different story proposed of some strange society living on the Cygnus. But possibly the idea there was that they made some other discoveries of planets along the way to reinforce this idea of their known purpose.
However, an alternative idea is that Reinhardt knew ahead of time of their destination being this black hole. If we go with the idea that Cygnium was an element discovered through some experiments while outside the black hole, one other motivator was Reinhardt’s proposal of powering Earth through the necessity of being near a black hole. That certainly would be the way to convince the government and corporations to fund such a project. Also, if Reinhardt knew the agenda ahead of time and plotted the real coordinates but hid the actual destination from the crew, he could buy himself enough time to prepare for his machinations.
One other idea I have is that when they neared black hole, Reinhardt could unveil to the crew his true purpose and the need for utmost secrecy. It would have made various crew members uncomfortable but Reinhardt (or Frank) could promise them an equal share of the wealth and fame gained from the mission. In turn, he manages to quell the crew’s concerns but realizes that he would need a back up plan. Initially, he has the crew conduct a variety of experiments to test Frank and his theories on black holes. Some of those experiments turn dangerous and even fatal. I think along those lines Cygnium would be discovered at the cost of life. With Reinhardt’s philosophy of “the end justifies the means,” he shows almost no empathy towards the dead crew members and continues to push the limits on experiments, including treks near the event horizon with the space probe ship.
One of the experiments he does leads him to the idea of longer life (the immortality bit he gives Alex) as well as the start of the cyborg creation process. As his experiments increase in danger, the crew would admonish him about sending them out to the black hole. That’s where I think he starts to manufacture the sentry robots, starting with STAR. I think he justifies the idea of a robot workforce to the crew to handle the more dangerous missions and builds STAR as a side project for security. But he hides STAR’s true capabilities in getting one of the crew to perform a secret mission on the probe ship. STAR kills off the crew member and returns to “prove” that the mission succeeded, after jettisoning the crew’s body to hide the evidence. Then Reinhardt would be allowed to mass produce more of these sentries to help the crew perform other duties.
In turn, one of the crew possibly finds evidence of the dead crew member’s body with a laser blast in his chest (think of how the body might still be attracted back to the Cygnus due to the anti-gravitational capabilities). He consults with other people in secret about the body and intend to confront Reinhardt. Frank too learns of the situation and pleads with Reinhardt to stop the madness and return to earth. For now, Reinhardt agrees but is fuming secretly, which leads him to start plotting his next creation.
Frank calls for a meeting with the crew to announce that they will be returning and that their mission is considered a failure. The announcement is broadcast back to earth (which will take time due to the black hole’s interference). That gives Reinhardt an idea to continue the project where he sets up a power failure in the reactor that prevents all but essential life support systems to function. In short, they can’t immediately return. Frank and a few others grow suspicious of Reinhardt being involved and call him out on the issue. Reinhardt speaks privately to Frank and mentions about their longstanding friendship and colleague that if they did return, their entire life’s work would be ruined. That momentarily pacifies Frank while repairs are made.
During the ship repair, Reinhardt hides in a secret experiment room where he’s been working on various projects, including the sentries. One of his secret projects involves the creation of the humanoid/cyborg that utilizes the knowledge he has gained by their proximity to the black hole. He appropriates one of the spare medical tables and instruments where he constructs the mechanism for not only brainwashing humans but extending their life capability through it. He utilizes the dead body of the crew member STAR killed and manages to partly resuscitate him. Frank uncovers Reinhardt’s papers on the experiments and realizes what Reinhardt is doing. He confronts Reinhardt on the immorality of the experiments and that it wasn’t what they agreed upon. He tells Reinhardt that because they’re friends, he’ll only have Reinhardt detained until they get back to earth.
Frank calls a townhall type of meeting with the crew to inform them of Reinhardt’s doing and apologizes about everything. At that point though, Reinhardt describes the situation as a mutiny and turns on his sentries’ assault mode on. A few crew members try to fight back but instantly are killed by the armed sentries’ laser fire. Reinhardt rounds up most of the crew and has them guarded in their quarters by the sentries. Only a few are allowed to perform their normal duties where absolutely necessary but the majority of the crew are kept in captivity.
With most of the crew imprisoned, Reinhardt is able to freely enact his next set of machinations which is to convert the old hospital into a humanoid processing plant. The crew though Reinhardt still considers mostly necessary to operate the ship so he continues to feed them and allow them to do simple actions like shower or use the restroom. The crew which have not been imprisoned use some of the maintenance robots to send messages to the imprisoned crew, especially Frank who is guarded by STAR. A new rebellion is plotted out with the maintenance robots (including BOB) aimed to either help arm the crew or provide cover for an escape.
They stage a coup with BOB deactivating STAR so Frank can escape and use a device to shut door the guards watching over the crews’ quarters. Besides the probe ship, there’s a lifeboat at the front of the ship similar in specification to the Palomino. It can only hold a certain number of the crew so they send a small contingent in the hope that some can escape and warn earth. What they don’t count on is Reinhardt’s ability to switch the ship back on and his latest creation: Maximilian. A few of the escapees attempt to assault Maximilian but their weapons prove ineffective. Maximilian quickly cuts down a few of the crew but is instructed to keep as many alive as possible with the sentries filtering down to surround them and bring them back to their quarters.
The number of sentries doubles as Maximilian helps increase production. At this stage, all activities are monitored with every room having a camera or microphone. During a restroom break, Frank notices that a few of the imprisoned crew are missing. Eventually, Reinhardt goes to visit Frank and offers a truce to the crew where he asks them to continue their duties or face certain consequences. Frank continues to oppose Reinhardt where Reinhardt makes a final offer to Frank where he says he can escape but must send back his wife to him. Seeing the ruthlessness of Reinhardt’s full schemes, Frank vehemently denies Reinhardt’s wishes. In turn, Reinhardt predicts Frank’s actions and has Maximilian execute Frank similar to how Alex gets gutted in front of the imprisoned crew. A few people protest for which Reinhardt shows his final card: the result of the humanoid processing plant where the few crew that had disappeared are shown to have been converted into the humanoid form.
Reinhardt then has the crew siphoned off to the reformed hospital to be converted and programmed into his minions. Reinhardt declares Maximilian as his new second in command which pisses off STAR. STAR knows that Bob cause problems and gets the other sentries to beat BOB up into submission. The other maintenance robots are discarded while Reinhardt has the Cygnus pull in closer to the black hole to prevent earth from detecting their precise location.
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