Goofs for
The Black Hole (1979) More at IMDbPro »

• Crew or equipment visible: When Pizer floats away from the rest of the crew toward the black hole, two suspension wires can clearly be seen holding him up.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Wires are visible on V.I.N.CENT and BOB, and on members of the crew floating around the "Palomino" throughout the film.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Palamino crew gets on the track car that takes them to the bridge of the ship, Vincent floats ahead of the car, but just as the car starts to move, you can see a metal bar connecting the car to Vincent's back that isn't visible in other shots.
  
  

• Revealing mistakes: During the robot funeral, only the floor and far wall were built as a physical set. The sloping side walls were a matte painting. At the beginning of the scene, the robot's head at the far lower left disappears under the matte painting. At the end of the scene, when they are filing out of the room, the robot's head at the lower right bobs behind and under the matte several times.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the dinner sequence after Reinhardt excuses himself to meet up with the probe ship, the film runs in reverse on an exterior shot of the dining room. You can clearly see Captain Holland walk backwards around the room and sit down.
  
  
• Continuity: Despite the fact that throughout the dining room scene characters come and go through an interior door, as is clearly shown in later exterior shots, the dining room is set apart from the body of the Cygnus atop a scaffold-like tower with no elevator, walkway, ladder or any means to enter or exit.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As the large screen that pins Reinhardt is swinging wildly immediately before it falls, the message it's displaying is not moving with it.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: At the very start of the movie, when Vincent announces, "The largest black hole I have ever seen, Mr. Pizer," and Pizer replies, "Hmm. Let's look at it on the holograph," the viewer can see someone's hand turning Vincent by his left foot. The hand stays there for a moment before pulling back off-camera.
  
  
• Factual errors: Dr. Reinhardt talks about sending probes beyond the event horizon and then having them return. By definition, it is impossible to return from beyond the event horizon.
  
  
• Factual errors: Meteorites flying through the universe are frozen rocks that would only appear to glow if they were to enter an atmosphere or fly close to a sun, yet the ones flying into the black hole are glowing. Since black holes swallow everything, even light, it is scientifically impossible that it would be generating heat or an atmosphere.
  
  
• Factual errors: When B.O.B. and V.I.N.CENT are preparing to compete against the sentry robots in the shooting gallery, V.I.N.CENT makes a reference to US Navy Admiral David Farragut's famous quotation "Damn the torpedoes! full speed ahead!" B.O.B. replies, "He also said something about going in harm's way!" Admiral Farragut did not say this. Instead, it was Captain John Paul Jones, recognized as the father of the US Navy. Captain Jones's quotation was "I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm's way."
  
  
• Factual errors: Once the meteorite crashes into the Cygnus, the Palomino crew should have been killed within seconds due to the decompression. However, they survive for several minutes and are even seen scrambling out into the vacuum of space to board the probe ship without any protective suits.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The eyes of the actor playing the black sentry robot that is defeated by V.I.N.CENT in the shooting gallery can be seen inside the robot suit before it short-circuits.
  
  
• Factual errors: A "real" black hole cannot be actually seen directly because its location lies behind the event horizon. If the black hole is seen, as it is shown in the movie, it would mean that the ships (the Cygnus and the Palomino) would have already passed over the event horizon, without any possibility of turning back and thus, inevitably "sucked" inside the black hole.
  
  

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