The Black Hole: Deconstructing the Infamous Hospital Rescue Scene

Possibly one of the most frustrating and infamous scenes in 70s sci fi movie history was the hospital rescue scene from Disney’s The Black Hole. I have done way too much research and thinking about this scene from a variety of angles to the point that I can probably write a full dissertation on it. For the purpose of this blog, I want to deconstruct the scene, why it was badly made, some theories I have, comparing the scene to other movies that may have similar problems or had been done better that are parallel in nature and trying to reconcile my frustrations not only by ranting on why it went wrong but possibly determining how it could have been fixed or what might actually exist and seeing if those things could have improved the scene as well as the sequences leading to the scene.

First, I think it’s important to review the scene starting from the point where Kate notifies Vincent through her ESP about Alex’s fate and how she’s being taken to the hospital. From that moment, the pace of the movie accelerates and the tension starts to increase with the dark music playing in the background as the Cygnus is about to come to life. Up until this point, the movie’s pacing is incredibly slow. Many people have described The Black Hole as having a mysterious/gothic almost horror vibe. The design of the ship, the humanoids, etc. are lend themselves to this eerie atmosphere. I feel that this is where the movie really starts to break down and lose a lot of credibility. The poor science and technology already damage the film but it’s the immediate comparison to Star Wars once the genre shifts to space opera where the movie falls apart completely.

My theory is that the dissonance and sudden switch changes the tone so drastically and unexpectedly that it’s unnerving. The pacing is a huge problem because the movie is very uneven about how much time it selects on certain subjects. For instance, when the Palomino starts to experience the gravity of The Black Hole, Vincent is shown spinning in coordination with the camera for much longer than necessary. That segment alone does little to further the plot and mostly is used as a joke and technical feat the film makers could brag about (i.e. if Kubrick can do these camera tricks so can we because we’re Disney).

The lead up to the hospital scene itself occurs over a 2 minute and 17 second period (roughly). I counted it as the start when Vincent receives the ESP message from Kate up until the start of the slow camera pull out from the humanoid’s reflective mask of Kate (1:06:10 – 1:08:27). In between, the following scenes occur:

• Holland immediately announces for Vincent to get Bob to show them the quickest way to the hospital
• Reinhardt has the Cygnus face the black hole with one shot including the Palomino (where it’s placed on the bow, meaning the crew would be facing the black hole directly)
• Holland ordering Pizer to take off no matter what. Bob is now with them.
• Kate is being escorted by two sentries on an aircar. She struggles with her arms now bound behind her back by some unseen restraint while a sentry grabs onto her left shoulder. When the aircar stops, a new pair of sentries are awaiting her arrival and one reaches down to grab her.
• Two sentries on patrol discover the remnants of the sentries Vincent had blasted in the initial hospital scene. One takes the helmet/head to a camera to display to Reinhardt.
• Reinhardt declares that the Palomino crew are to be liquidated upon seeing the damaged helmet (which assumes he knows that they are a threat and probably know that the situation is a hoax)
• A loud alert resounds in the ship as Dan the robots sneak around on foot. A shot of sentries are shown patrolling and in one instance under a catwalk that Dan and the two robots try to sneak across.
• Reinhardt orders the engines to turn on.
• The Cygnus’ engine turns on along with a brief glance at the reactor.
• We return to the Palomino where Booth and Pizer wait impatiently while the ship comes to life.

So within two minutes a LOT occurs. There is (supposedly) a deleted scene that happens in between showing Kate being escorted inside of the hospital just before she gets bound. Those scenes only occur in rare photographs, trading cards, illustration books and the Viewmaster. But the main point here is that we get a montage of everyone involved to create the narrative of how things are speeding up. But there’s a lot of problems in the way this sequence is run because of the sudden change in tone and narrative along with the inability to focus on a single aspect. Let me break down the various problems for this sequence of events.

• Vincent is notified via ESP from Kate. Earlier, there’s only one point where Reinhardt mentions anything about Kate’s ESP (after the dinner scene). First, we don’t know how Reinhardt manages to learn about Kate’s ESP because the only mention of Kate’s ESP is between the Palomino crew members. We can only guess that Kate manages to bring it up in some deleted scene or that Reinhardt spied on the crew to figure this part out. But the fact is that he knows of her ESP. If that’s the case, he would also know that Kate can still relay her thoughts to Vincent and should have done more to prevent her from communicating with Vincent.
• Holland’s knee jerk reaction to immediately rescue Kate despite his general level headedness and desire to escape. The real reason he goes to rescue Kate is because they’re romantically involved but the movie completely decapitates this subplot and makes Holland’s motivations questionable. Also, it turns Kate into a selfish bitch in a way because she ought to have wanted her companions to survive rather than rescue her. And while Kate does wish ill will upon Reinhardt, I doubt she would want the same fate for her remaining companions. In turn, one has to ask what Kate’s motivations in this movie are at all besides learning the fate of her father (the book does try to resolve some of this where I believe she admits some guilt but the movie ignores this aspect).
• The shots of the Cygnus starting up adds to the overall tension because we can assume anything entering the black hole will be wiped out. However, the problem with the way it’s done here is that it de-emphasizes the rescue operation for Kate and spreads the audience’s attention away from the core. This wouldn’t have been as much of an issue to me if more time was given to Kate and the rescue efforts itself.
• Holland ordering Pizer to leave before the gravity gets too strong. I can understand Holland having a sense of nobility but Pizer would be the only person being able to pilot the ship and I don’t know if he alone could do that. And Booth is someone I doubt anyone cared about. In turn, this entire scene feels unnecessary. I think Holland could have in the first scene just order Pizer to guard the ship until they returned and it would’ve been acceptable.
• Kate’s escort service. I mostly didn’t have a problem with this scene except the way it’s filmed. Maybe the biggest issue I have is the fact that we never see how Kate’s arms are restrained behind her back. It’s a very bizarre visual when you think about the Cygnus’ design on a whole because of the fact that the purpose was to be a science operation. In turn, it’s hard to imagine that the ship had spare cuffs lying around. You could probably believe that they manufactured cuffs but why not zip ties or duct tape? Also, none of the sentries are shown with any form of restraint on their person. You can see their holsters but they don’t carry anything else. So this is more of a case of bad camera work and visualization that creates dissonance to me especially because I would want to put more urgency on Kate’s growing peril during this sequence (for which this is the only scene we get in the final product).
• The two sentries discovering the two sentries. If you examine the moment when Vincent blasts the two sentries earlier, you’ll see that the layout (with the chairs in the background outside the hospital) mirror the shot here. Also, Vincent and Bob would not have carried the damaged parts far. Bob did mention that only when the next patrol arrived would they be alerted (which actually came true here). So here’s where a major issue comes up: if the Cygnus now goes on high alert, shouldn’t these two be standing guard outside the hospital as Kate is operated upon? Wouldn’t they form the first line of defense assuming that Holland the robots would be on their way? On a side note, in the novel, Kate actually sees the sentries inspect their damaged brethren so there should have been more guards on duty around there.
• Reinhardt’s ship wide notification. There’s a loud audio alert. This is utterly stupid because the sentries are robots. Why would the ship need an audio alert if the sentries are operated by radio frequency? All it did was alert Holland the robots.
• Holland sneaking around. I have huge issues here because he’s on foot. The problem is that if you examine the design of the ship and see where the Palomino is relative to roughly the location of the hospital and compare that to the command tower and its distance to the hospital, you’ll see that both sides are almost equidistant to the center of the ship which is where the hospital/crew quarters lie. Kate’s escort uses an aircar and has full reign of the ship as well as understanding the most efficient routes to arrive at the hospital. And Kate’s sentries would receive a head start from Holland since Holland additionally needed to get Bob to help them. Because Holland had to be more careful and that Bob was slow, Holland would have been more handicapped in terms of speed to arrive at the hospital. Kate’s only benefit is whether she would be able to protest and slow down her escort and/or that the sentries themselves did not move very fast. If we want to be generous, we can probably estimate that from the moment Kate was taken into the elevator to the point she arrives in the hospital possibly took 15 minutes altogether. It’s unknown how much time Holland required to arrive at the same point given his own pace, the precautions he needed and the fact that he was on foot.
• The reactors and Reinhardt’s orders. Brief scenes but they still took away a few key seconds that I think distracted a bit from the core current narrative of the rescue.
• Pizer and Booth’s scene added nothing overall. Neither really said anything useful nor did anything.

So as you can see from my breakdown here, there’s a lot of moving pieces that I think either do nothing except add redundancy or detract from the goal of building the real tension which is Kate’s rescue. The actual hospital scene itself is only 70 or so seconds long (which is just half of the time devoted to the build). And it’s one of those scenes where I think the intent and visuals really hurt the end result. Because of how controversial and poorly put together this scene was, I want to do a closer examination of it by first breaking down each scene in this sequence then seeing where the problems creep up  (and there’s a LOT).

• We start with a humanoid surgeon/operator where his impenetrable glass face mask where the camera slowly closes in on the surface while Kate is shown in the reflection, now fully bound from neck to toe in a strange silver bag while her head is covered in a shiny silver foil cap. Also, the daunting music plays continuously.
• Next, Kate is shown from the top view of her head (from the foil cap) lying on the red mold as the table rotates under one of the lowered laser lamps. Two sentries are seen in the background near the table (presumably the ones that brought her to the hospital). The beams starts up (with the cap glowing beforehand oddly) and emit a strange high pitch piercing sound.
• A close up shot is shown of Kate’s face as she’s receiving the full treatment to the center of her forehead. She moans very loudly with her eyes shut tight and the silver bag’s collar/neck thingy covers her neck and the edge presses tightly underneath her jaw/throat.
• The door to the hospital slides up with Holland and the two robots by his side so that he can commence blasting the laser device above Kate’s head. The heroic music starts.
• The lasers cause the device to explode over Kate’s head with a ton of sparks flying and no protection beyond the silver bag and foil for the rest of Kate’s poor face. On a side note, if you pause a few frames, the editing is really hilarious because of how you can see black shadows placed over Kate’s face or odd pieces flying all over. So it’s clear that this all was edited by hand. Also, it’s interesting to note that Kate does not move here despite the double explosions raining down.
• One of the two sentries that we saw earlier in the background finally reacts by turning around. His companion does not.
• Holland switches his targets to these two.
• The one sentry that did not react goes down without a fight. The other sentry cannot even get one shot off and receives multiple blasts.
• The third sentry that is facing towards the doorway begins opening fire while the humanoid operator continues to swing the table around to the next laser device.
• Bob gets hit while Holland ducks.
• Bob starts to approach the active operating table and blast it a few times. Dan is no longer in the frame at all while Vincent stands outside looking in.
• The remaining sentry continues to aim poorly at Dan who is running to the left (or right from his side). Dan ducks behind an inactive table closest to the entrance.
• Dan rises up from behind the table to take aim at the sentry and scores a hit on the chest twice and causes it to go down.
• Dan gets back up and starts running towards the table.
• Dan gets to the table Kate is on (but does not face towards Kate oddly) while the damaged 3rd sentry gets up and swipes Dan’s feet from under him as Dan tries to leap onto the table. In the meantime, Kate is still moving on the table to the next laser, her eyes are opened and her head is nodding around as she’s going under the damaged laser. She looks like a zombie here. The sentry in the same shot leaps onto the table over Dan and shows his pantaloons off.
• Next shot is Dan and the sentry wrestling on the table with Dan pounding on the robot’s helmet with no effect. The table is moving towards the next laser which has already been mysteriously activated. A hint of Kate’s head can be seen to the right.
• A close up of Dan and the Sentry wrestling in the red body mold. Dan does say “Oww!” loudly when he tries to clobber the robot with his laser then tosses it to the side.
• Another shot with the active laser in the foreground as Dan successfully swings the sentry onto its back with the facial area about to receive the laser. Dan’s fingers are “struck” by the laser with no effect. The laser is striking the sentry’s left shoulder in all of this without any damage.
• A close up of the sentry’s face where it’s now perfectly positioned directly under the active laser. It explodes twice.
• The next shot shows the operating table’s top in full view with the active laser pulsating and being occasionally misaligned because of how the artist is trying to get it to run parallel to the dead sentry as the table continues to move. Dan rolls over and hops into the center of the table. The supposed damaged laser no longer is smoking nor does it looked damage. Also, Kate is out of position from where it was before and moves under it. She starts to stir with her head moving around, her legs pulling up slightly and a third movement where the right side of her body around her waist and maybe her right hand tries to lift up to show she’s struggling inside that silver bag while Holland hops over. He slips his right hand over her left shoulder and she does a sit up with her right arm (I think) sliding across her chest to try to lift herself up. Holland then grabs her left shoulder and balances her while sliding his right hand under her thighs to lift her upward. Bob floats down to fire upon the console to completely deactivate the laser (and probably the other ones too).
• A shot of the console happens with Bob doing more blast while the humanoid continues its business.
• The hospital door (which mysteriously closed at some point) opens back up with Vincent’s back to it. There’s at least two new sentry guards but there’s a blur which makes it look like three.
• Vincent knocks one guard out with some claw device, swivels, then delivers one more knock to the remaining sentry.
• Vincent turns around to face the hospital interior and does a happy spin.
• Close up shot of Kate and Holland where Kate is relieved, presses her forehead against Holland’s face (including the foil cap), Holland moves his head away then gives her a small peck on her cheek. Holland looks a little embarrassed as he stares at Kate before they both turn towards (presumably the exit) and start to make off.

Where to even start with this mess of a scene? First, a LOT goes on for such a short scene (over a minute). You get almost no time to digest it and no time to really process it because it happens so quickly. Yet there’s a lot of things that go on that make no sense such as the technology involved to make this situation possible. My recent description of the laser device itself is that it’s a case where tell don’t just show would’ve helped a lot. However, no one truly understands how it operates and the mechanics. But before delving into that part (which I have in the past), I want to talk about other problems that I’ve noticed or thought about recently.

First, let’s talk about the first scene in this sequence with the reflective mask close up shot. I think visually it’s an interesting shot where the intention is to slowly reveal Kate’s fate. I think it was meant to act as a type of potential foreshadowing and add an ominous tone supplemented by the music because of how the reflective surface of the mask in reflecting Kate was supposed to mirror what would become of her. It’s meant to be subliminal but it’s not real foreshadowing because Kate ends up safe.

The shot itself I’ve found problematic because of how it’s the only one that shows Kate’s full envelopment by the bag. However, because she’s shown in the reflection of the humanoid mask, the image is blurred and slightly distorted. We get a sense that Kate is bound but not by degree (meaning how restrictive that silver bag was). Next, the image is dropped suddenly on the audience and there’s no build up for it. We don’t see her being led into the hospital, we don’t see her getting bound, it just happens. So that alone is very disorienting just like the visual of the mask. It’s hard to say if the actress was even Yvette in this (I presume it was though).

After that, we see an angle from the top of her foil cap with her nose as the table rotates under the laser. This is one of the weirder shots more because of necessity in execution than anything. But I’m almost certain that they used a dummy here because the body was unmoving. Also, you don’t get a sense of the full body here. Part of it I think is to allow the explosion that occurs over the head area, which would have been dangerous for Yvette if it were done. What is interesting though is freeze framing it as the laser beams start. You can see that the lamp’s light from underneath starts to turn on as there’s a few seconds of the light reflecting off the foil cap just before the lasers start. What’s funny is how the lasers, once they start, beam directly into the head. The cap grows brighter too as the lamp glows up.

Then we get a nice close up of Yvette/Kate’s face as she’s receiving the treatment. While she’s moaning, you can see very slightly if you freeze frame the scene how the lamp moves slightly. While I have no proof, I believe that the lasers were constructed similar to how the lightsabers worked in that thin wires were attached to Kate’s head to help guide the artist in pinpointing lines to a specific spot. So as Kate’s starts grunting, you can see the lamp move in the slightest. One thing to mention about this scene is that we only see her mouth and throat moving but not the rest of her body. This is one of those cases where it’s kinda frustrating because we don’t know how she’s reacting inside of the bag. Is she struggling inside? Does she hold onto the material to brace herself? Does she try to lie still? You would think someone experiencing this type of pain would go into a fit.

From there comes the most illogical part of the movie (to me at least): the save. Holland appears in the nick of time. More than that, there’s no guards, no lock, no detection for the sentries inside of the room already. He just manages to open the door unchallenged. This part of the movie is just so bad and infuriating on a variety of levels. The music turns into that sappy heroic music to lighten the mood and more than likely any person who saw Star Wars would probably compare Luke and Leia’s famous Tarzan swinging scene to this. So let’s break down all the problems just from this one moment.

First, the idea that Holland appeared at the nick of time. We know he’s trying to rescue Kate but we only get glimpses of his pursuit. There’s no challenge for him leading to this moment. All we know is that he’s on foot, he’s also being hunted because of the loud alarms and he’s got a beaten up, broken down, slow robot in tow. Even if the sentries were awkward and slow, they still would have had a massive head start. While we don’t know how long it would normally take for someone to move from the Palomino to the hospital, I’d assume at least that person would find the trek slower on foot than on one of the aircars. Add the alarms, the need for stealth, etc. and there’s no way Holland could have matched the sentries’ speed.

Second, what happened to the guards earlier that demonstrated the destroyed previous sentries? There were two. Were the same ones that later arrived that Vincent knocked out? Why weren’t they positioned either in front of the door or inside of the door? Kate was a clear necessity and high priority to Reinhardt. If you notice, there was only a single humanoid operator when she arrived and a sentry guard waiting for her. When Vincent and Bob were there earlier, the infirmary had more occupants. That means Kate was getting special attention.

Next why weren’t there any locks on the door? If the ship went on high alert, why wouldn’t a secretive room like the hospital not have more security and locks? One might say that Bob could’ve been responsible for unlocking it. Wouldn’t they change out the locks then? It’s such a huge detail that got left out. Also, shouldn’t the two sentries that got blasted upon Holland’s arrival have been on alert to be more wary? Why were their reactions so slow?

Then let’s talk about the idea of shooting an operating device in progress of rearranging someone’s neurons (presumably). Because the device has virtually no explanation whatsoever, the film makers practically get away with murder here. I’ve stated that the device has consistency issues because of how the humanoid’s glass face plate not being damaged but a sentry robots’ head exploding. But even before that issue can be settled, we never get to know what the device actually does. One would think that it simply should drill a small hole into someone’s head based on the visual evidence. However, Kate obviously is in pain when she gets the treatment. And one thing I will admit upon closer review is that she looks like a zombie for a moment after the laser explodes (whereas I originally thought it was bad acting or a dummy). But I did see Yvette close her eyes and open them up with a blank expression as though the machine and the damage from Holland’s blast possibly had an effect upon her. Either way, if the idea of the machine was to program someone (beyond the pain of the laser itself), shouldn’t that be exceptionally dangerous for some deranged boyfriend to come around and disrupt the process? This is where the need to explain how these things operate is imperative.

From there we come to the silly wrestling match between Holland and the sentry. It’s such an odd thing to see because Holland had blasted this sentry a few times. How it managed to survive is a clear mystery. But the part where Holland says Ow is so hilarious because you can’t tell if that was ad-libbed or intentional. But it makes the scene even more hokey with the heroic music playing in the background while he’s failing to subdue this humanoid. And I already mentioned the mask but I have to bring up Holland’s fingers. The animation in parts hurt so badly because you can ridicule the movie for seeing obvious issues like this. It simply feels lazy. Of course, I don’t think the makers probably believed a nut like myself would be eyeing every frame for problems.

Once the third sentry is disposed of, the remaining scene feels completely anti-climatic. The laser is still going and we never see when it gets turned on (inconsistency issue). Kate struggles a bit and calls out to Holland with “hurry” (which sounds like it was done in ADR). The laser sputters with the placement occasionally being animated over an open area rather than into the mold. Then we finally see Kate squirming around a lot more than before. This is one of those situations where you have to wonder why didn’t she put up more of a fight? We never really see her struggling except her throat, which sounds funny but to me it shows general problems about how this scene was shot. Also, I absolutely hated the angle where this part was filmed because at one point it’s partly used to show Bob floating down to blast the console one more time to disable the laser. Was that necessary? Why didn’t his initial shots disable the machine?

Then there’s the shot of Kate where we get one of the only shots of the back of the silver bag and the area in the back of her neck. Why is this crucial to me? Because we never know how they insert her into that thing. But it’s clear from that shot and the final shot that there’s no entry point from the back side via something like a zipper. At one time, I had thought that this silver bag was akin to a straitjacket, which would make sense since a patient for this device needed to be tightly restrained for an almost hands off operation. Also, the poor angle hides whether or not Kate was wearing her red velvet colored jumpsuit into the bag. I heard someone else say (and I thought about this as well) that the silver bag functioned like a medical surgical gown. But it’s an issue because someone suggested that she could’ve been stripped naked by the robots. I imagine that silver bag was not only sterile but used to retain body heat during the operation. Then from a filming point of view, I imagine Yvette could’ve gotten hot in that thing along with having a foil cap on top of her head (unless they used a lot of AC or fans inside the building). But it is problematic for a woman to suddenly feel violated by robots that would remove her attire and bind her in such a thing.

Then there’s a hint of where Yvette/Kate’s arm was as she’s lifting herself up. I’ve got various photos that suggest she moves her right arm while she’s being lifted up. When the left side of her shoulder is being brought upright, the right side of her body and arm get hidden from the shot but you can see an outline in forward facing views of Kate that perhaps she was clutching her shoulder or side to do the sit up.  The reason this is significant to me is that it implies the bag while constrictive was not completely binding. In short, it’s unknown if additional bindings were used on Kate to keep her restrained for the operation. Again, it’s more details that weaken the scene to me.

From there we get a short scene of Bob blasting the console. The interesting part about this scene is seeing the console itself. Before the left section is blown to smithereens, you can see that it’s lit up with some dimly marked buttons and some gauges. The meters and gauges look like someone took some parts from Radio Shack and added plastic pieces with some lights underneath to give the impression of an actual keyboard. The whole thing is like those 60’s/70’s style shitty computers and looks cheap. What’s funny is that you can see on the right side the console is completely dim and I assume that’s the portion Bob had first shot up. But the humanoid continues to move his hands over the settings.

Afterwards, we have a really lame scene with Vincent “punching” out two late sentries. This part just looks wretched because neither sentry puts up a fight. They merely run right into Vincent’s metal claw a few times then fall over. It feels so unnecessary just to give Vincent some heroic time even though the entire duration he’s just standing guard by the door. But it simply reinforces my anger in how the film makers ignored posting sentries or even a lock by that door. Add to that the little flip to make the scene supremely cheesy.

Finally, we get Kate and Holland having a romantic moment. This is the only place in the entire film that really suggest them having any kind of romantic relationship explicitly. Maybe when Kate holds Holland’s hand just before the crew enter the black hole but that wasn’t necessarily a sign of intimacy. But it’s really awkward because neither Yvette nor Robert Forrester here have any chemistry together. Robert looks really embarrassed when he’s looking at her too especially with the awkward foil on her head. I hated camera angle here because it’s one of the few up close shots we get of Kate inside the silver bag and only a slight hint of how the back of the bag is constructed. You get a slight glimpse of the back of the neck portion too. But it’s just not a great shot and too static.

That all said, I think the intent of this scene was to mimic Star Wars where Luke and Leia used his grappling hook to traverse the chasm. If you examine the major sci fi movies around that period (not including Alien because it wasn’t released by the time The Black Hole was made), Star Wars was the only film that had a heroic damsel in distress type of scene like this. It’s hard not to compare Star Wars to The Black Hole too and I’m sure there were enough major points that the people involved wanted to borrow from Star Wars. The problem though is that they seemed to miss the point and the execution wasn’t good.

In the grappling hook scene, the obvious trope was an upgraded homage to Tarzan and Jane. In Star Wars, they built up the tension to create the homage and make the scene dramatic and slightly romantic. First, both Luke and Leia were hunted and isolated with Luke blasting the door, preventing their escape (which was a possible drawbridge to get across the chasm) because he believed it would lock the Stormtroopers on their side out. So we immediately have a clear problem that Leia reveals to the audience. The tension builds up as the Stormtroopers try to break through and new ones appear on the opposite side where their destination is. That forces Leia to take Luke’s laser to defend them while he uses his grappling hook to secure their escape. So they have three adversities with the door behind them and the stormtroopers, their foes across the bridge and the chasm. Luke succeeds in getting his hook secure (and we believe it because he is the hero and has the Force on his side) and Leia gives him a kiss for encouragement (which we later discard to incest) but the moment is perfect and is complimented by John William’s majestic score.

The rescue scene is not well thought out because there’s no real focus and too many people are involved while the tech involved is far too advanced and require more explanation to make it believable. The small peck on Kate’s cheek by Holland came out of nowhere because their romance subplot disappeared and the audience is grasping at straws where we can only attribute the construction of the scene to being a wannabe version of the similar scene from Star Wars. A lot of the visual encoding goes over the viewers’ heads like the laser brain machine, the overall architecture of the hospital and the containment used for Kate. Then the sudden arrival of Holland feels utterly contrived with the silliness of the childish robots adding insult to injury.

Most people will simply refer to this scene as the “baked potato” scene justifiably so. The problem though is that there are actual precedence and other places where similar devices have been used or even in reality where it’s not entirely far fetched. However, the way it was filmed just felt cheap and not well thought out at all. But I have mentioned that other places and even in real life how these aspects did not come out of nowhere (beyond someone’s kitchen). Let me point out pre-existing or co-existing examples of this:

• The notion of being wrapped up in foil actually was a thing for cryogenics starting in the 50s. There’s videos about how people would be placed in foil cocoons then stored in a kind of liquid nitrogen container and preserved. People with dire conditions like cancer (and probably a ton of money) would be placed in this type of stasis. In one magazine, you can even see Kate wrapped up more heavily than just her head within a foil cocoon. A later interview with some of the film makers even called it a “foil wrap job” in a joking manner. But my guess is that they probably were aware of these cryogenics projects and might have thought that wrapping Kate (or other patients) in foil would be necessary in part for the conduction part of the head as well as preservation if they needed to keep the body cold for sometime after the operation.
• A foil/mylar cocoon shown in The Avengers where Diana Rigg had been captured and wrapped from head to toe. However, in her case, she was to be electrocuted. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the film makers fancied a younger Diana Rigg and were inspired by this form of a James Bond style fate.
• Battlestar Galactica used silver blankets with a similar diamond shaped pattern stitch in a few episodes. They too had a medical unit where patients could recover in a medpod. The medpods used these blankets for bedding. Because both shows were conceived around the same time, I wouldn’t doubt the producers influenced one another and had access to similar tools and materials on top of ideas.
• The space program around the late 60s and 70s often used silver type of materials for reflection or survival blankets.
• Numerous sci fi movies and TV shows used silver space suits as a motif

I think with The Black Hole part of the problem was the setup with the sudden shocking reveal. My guess is that people inside weren’t very confident about the execution/appearance. If we look at the “foil wrap job” story that sounded like a joke, then you might believe that maybe in the earlier or initial iteration, the complete body foil might’ve been troublesome to apply. The one image I have makes the silver foil cocoon look partly broken up. Also, I think for consistency’s sake, trying to replicate the look would be tough especially in between takes where Yvette had to get in and out of the thing. It seemed that it would just be impractical which probably forced them to abandon everything except the foil cap (which I believe is the real reason why they asked Yvette Mimieux and Jennifer O’Neill to cut their hair beyond the stupid gravity issue). Nonetheless, the major point here for me is that the silver bag and foil cap come out of nowhere. It’s one of those situations where there’s no chekov’s gun and no build up to create anticipation and tension as well as a satisfying callback.

Next, let me talk about another movie that had a lot of problems, which I’ve focused on in the past: Alien. Alien’s most controversial problem was the infamous cocoon/egg lair where Ripley discovers Dallas and Brett’s bodies. The problem I’ve described is that no one really understands what’s going on. There’s visual cues that help slightly and drive people to a certain conclusion. But with the director’s cut eliminating a lot of dialog from the original scene and script, there’s a lot of missing aspects that caused a three way split in interpretations between Ridley, O’Bannon and Giger. However, I think everyone will agree that when you see the scene or read about it, it’s quite disturbing and possibly one of the most horrific aspects in Alien.

But because the movie never goes into detail about how the cocoon/egg process works, it makes the scene very frustrating except for the absolute most hardcore fans that accept the canon from all these movies combined. As a result, you see a lot of disagreements on what eggmorphing supposedly is, whether or not Dallas was turning into an egg or whether he was a future facehugger victim, if Brett was cocooned and converted into an egg or simply being used as food. None of these things are ever answered and we can only supplement the idea using what we know from nature or trying to logically break down what ought to have happened using the clues from the movie.

That said, that entire cocoon/egg process has the same level of frustration for me as with this hospital scene because of the massive gaps in logic. Ridley’s solution early on was to cut it and use pacing as his biggest explanation for removing it. Later in life, I agreed with his assessment but felt the decision was better because of how poorly executed the Director’s Cut ended up with this scene.

In the case of the hospital and humanoid conversion process, it’s almost the centerpiece of the Cygnus so you can’t simply ignore it. Once Vincent discovers the truth behind the crew, the movie turns around in tone. But with the combined scenes that lead up to the hospital scene and the hospital scene itself, it’s highly unsatisfying given that there’s a lot of wasteful, almost self-indulgent scenes that add almost nothing to the movie that drag on or worse yet not only detract from the movie but make the movie look utterly stupid.

With that in mind, I wanted to propose ways to correct these scenes, possibly using some deleted footage that’s known through rare photos, trading cards and even the Viewmaster to put together a more logical and cohesive answer. First, I think at some point they need to establish Holland and Kate’s romantic relationship. Even if it’s brief, they need to cut some parts out (like Vincent’s spinning scene) to show that the pair have a fling going on the Palomino. You don’t need an extraneous, gratuitous scene (such as one of the cut scenes that shows the two floating around and kissing in an interview) but at least state that both want a future together. That provides more motivation for Holland to be protective of her and why he risks his life to rescue her despite the odds. Those scenes exist in some fashion so they can be repurposed.

Next, I would have Holland give Pizer a one liner as he’s exiting the Palomino about guarding the ship. You don’t need Pizer and Holland arguing because in the end, that scene didn’t matter. But it would make sense to ensure that the ship is intact, which should inspire confidence in Pizer and doubt in Booth. That would eliminate two unnecessary scenes.

Another major thing that would need to be established is determining how and when Reinhardt learns of Kate’s ESP ability. Kate uses her ESP three times in the movie, none of which are in the direct presence of Reinhardt. Reinhardt only reveals that he knew about the crew’s recall to the ship via her ESP but at no point is it suggested that anyone tells him that. I think the only way he could know is to demonstrate that he’s spying on them through their little comm link devices. The reason this is important is that Kate’s last known ESP in the movie occurs when she informs Vincent of Alex’s and her fates. But if Reinhardt knew about Kate’s ESP, he should have done more to prevent her from communicating with her crew.

The way I partly fix this issue is when Kate is riding down the elevator. I think there should be a brief moment that shows her concentrating in delivering her message to Vincent. I would use that moment to have the sentries react in part by restraining her arms behind her back and forcing her out of the elevator once the doors open. That would disrupt her ability to concentrate and possibly show that Reinhardt and the sentries are wary of her ESP capability.

Instead of the scene with Charlie and Holland arguing, I would add a timer by having Holland inquire from Bob the estimated time to reach the hospital from the Palomino. Then once Kate is restrained and moved out of the elevator, I would have her communication cut from Vincent for a while in a black out period. That would lead Vincent or Holland to have Bob guess how much time it would take Kate to arrive at the hospital. In turn, that starts the timer and increases the sense of urgency for him. You can have them periodically ask how much time is remaining in between shots as they move forward.

The aircar scene with Kate I’d keep the same as long as I can establish the restraints in the elevator part. Then the audience won’t have to worry about what’s keeping Kate’s arms behind her. I would place the start of the Cygnus’ engines before the liquidation part. Or I would try to handle the scene in the same spot where I’d reverse the order. Reinhardt can give the signal, cut out the reactor and engines firing (to save on some time), have Holland react to it and possibly get info from Pizer then have Reinhardt see the sentries showing the destroyed bodies of the comrades. In the novel, Kate passes the scene of the damaged sentries which to me suggest that the hospital and the sentry bodies weren’t far from one another. So I might add Kate coming up the hall towards the hospital door.

The alarm part I’d kill entirely. Instead, I would have Bob receive the alert signal and inform Dan and Vincent. It simply makes no sense having that loud alarm go off when the ship is run by sentries. The humanoids themselves wouldn’t care either one way or another. However, I would start adding obstacles in front of Holland in terms of security that Vincent and Bob have to bypass or more sentries where limited but stealthy combat is necessary. Either way, he shouldn’t have a straight shot to the hospital and during this time he will be reminded by Bob or Vincent about Kate’s situation and the overall time.

Next, I would re-add the deleted scene of Kate first arriving at the hospital. The scene will go like this (using visual cues found from different existing sources and trying to reasonably reassemble the scene):

• The door to the hospital opens up with Kate and her two sentries outside. The two sentries shove Kate inside a few steps.
• A broad view of the hospital room is shown as per the various deleted images. Kate’s designated operating table is in the middle of the scene as the three approach. A third sentry awaits on the opposite side of the table while a humanoid sits on the console with his back facing Kate.
• As Kate approaches the table, the console swivels around with the humanoid standing up to face his newest patient. He gestures towards the 3rd sentry to retrieve something out of Kate’s (and the camera’s) sight.
• Kate is pressed against the edge of the table by her two captives who keep their robotic gloved hands firmly attached to Kate’s arms.
• The humanoid goes to sit once again as the 3rd sentry comes into Kate’s view.
• The 3rd sentry presents a folded up silver bag and foil cap and places the cap on the table. Then it unfolds the silver bag which is the size and shape of a human body.
• The grips of the sentries grow tighter in anticipation of their upcoming duty while Kate squirms at the prospect of what will happen to her while the humanoid begins turning the operating apparatus on and having the top lower slowly.

So before I go into a few scenes that I want to add, let me comment about a few things. First, parts of this scene as I described are from photos. For instance, the humanoid is shown sitting and eventually standing perpendicular to Kate. There’s a few long shots with the 3rd sentry on the opposite end of the surgical table. And there’s a closer shot of Kate with her two sentries squirming from one of the illustration/photo books. My guess is that she starts squirming in that closer shot once she sees laser section descend and/or the revelation of the silver bag and foil cap. I made the silver bag unraveling more dramatic to increase Kate’s uneasiness here.

From there, I would actually have the two guards that found the destroyed sentries stand in front of the hospital door and lock it down. It just makes no sense for them to wonder off when Reinhardt knows that Kate is inside and would require additional security. This also puts a delay on the timer for Holland’s sake and increases the obstacles he must cross. Also, from here on out, I would put all the attention on Holland’s team and Kate’s situation. I might add at least one fire fight or maybe the aftermath where Vincent pauses as he gains a momentary connection to Kate. Note that in the novel, Kate does make a few additional attempts to connect with Vincent and has some more inner dialog to reveal her emotional and mental state that the movie does not bother to handle.

I would have a quick swap back to Kate where we see her being inserted head first inside of the silver bag. Maybe her eyes are tightly shut while her two escorts lift her off her feet so the third sentry can drag the bag over her body. We might see that her arms, legs and other parts might have additional bounds like duct tape or leather straps to constrain her once she’s inside the bag too. Like we would see that her hands might be tied in front of her or with some kind of device that prevents much movement (like Han as he was frozen in carbonite). But that would help visually explain how she’s prevented from wriggling away easily beyond the bag itself.

Once more swap to Kate would show the sentry zipping the bag closed then applying the silver cap over her head. This last part would disrupt Kate’s concentration for remainder of the sequence as the sentry’s touch would frighten her. Then once the cap is applied, the two sentries can slowly deposit her into the red mold while the third one returns to its guard post. Finally, the laser apparatus would descend fully into position just before the table starts to move.

As I mentioned before, the most infuriating part of the movie occurs with the nick of time style rescue. Instead of having that, I would have Holland battle a small gauntlet of guards including two that are posted by the door. I might even have him fight the two that initially brought Kate on the aircar but the idea in general is that Holland will experience a delay before Kate starts receiving her treatment. Also, I would have Kate get beamed more than once.

One of my problems is that the table design makes no sense. I know that the general idea with the rotating table mechanism is to have a futuristic bond-like incoming saw for a damsel. However, it really doesn’t work here once you examine the visuals. The thing is that the table has six red molds that can sit underneath six laser devices. These devices are attached to a mechanical ceiling apparatus that can be lifted high off from the table and lowered just inches away from a patient’s face/head. The issue is that it’s never explained why the table rotates (the actual function not movie logic reason) nor what each of these laser devices do. In the earlier hospital scene, the one humanoid that receives an operation gets beamed once for a second or two then moves to another section of the table. Before Vincent and Bob leave, you can see one humanoid, possibly the same one getting another dosage. We never see the first humanoid get up and leave though. I can only assume that the one humanoid is receiving the laser treatment from different positions on the table.

Now, that would make sense if each of those lasers had a different purpose besides intimidating the audience. This is where I want to introduce the idea that Kate is given a few of these lasers successfully before Holland can rush in. One of the biggest differences between the novel and the movie is that Kate receives more inner dialog in the movie. In this section, Kate pleads for anesthesia. My thinking is that Kate should get not actual anesthesia but something that induces lassitude. Because when we see her in the scene receiving the laser, she doesn’t move much and the crew would not want her misbehaving or trying to escape during the operation. Also, when we look at the initial humanoid in the first hospital scene, it receives treatment for no more than a little over a second. Kate’s treatment did last longer by comparison, which may suggest a more invasive treatment.

Maybe to get her to cooperate, the sentries at some point could hold her down so that the initial laser pacifies her. In turn, her link to Vincent would become weaker and more sporadic while increasing the rescue party’s urgency. In that manner, what Holland really is fighting for is saving Kate’s soul as she goes through this process. Doing it like this makes the scene more urgent and allows Kate more moments where she can react to the situation. Like the book describes her transition from anger to fear. You can partly see that when Kate is first dragged into the elevator and stares at Reinhardt. She doesn’t grieve for her fallen friend but wishes death upon Reinhardt. But the moment the sentry gives a more urgent pull, it forces Kate to acknowledge that she has little power against her captor. Also, once she’s fully inside of the elevator and the door closes slowly around her, she looks backward and notices the second sentry inside with her (not sure if she knew of the second one up until then). But it dawns on her that she’s trapped and forces her to confront her new reality. Likewise, I think it’s important to establish Kate’s mental and emotional disposition because the book does a better job at driving home the idea of fear for Kate, which is why she continues to reach out and plea for help.

With all these corrections in mind, I think that the scene would improve tremendously.

 

 

 

 

 

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