@socketwench - I think I missed this, but then I noticed your mention of the skull faces in the hell imagery. I think I may have pointed that out to you.

The Black Hole is up there with Tron with something I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to see early drafts of. The concept art for both really point to a very different story at the the start of pre-production, and more Disneyish affair of a kid's adventure with adults.

From what I remember, The Black Hole was on Disney's backburner since 1974. I do know a Vincent like robot was part of it and the mystery of the Cygnus was the main driving point of the script, titled "Space Probe One."

The Black hole wasn't part of the original script, but was added as a minor element quickly, then the main element later. I seem to remember reading somewhere that towards the end of this phase of pre-production, the ending of the movie involved a hand delivering a flower through the black hole.

Another, very uncomfortable part of the script was that a lot of Reighardt's dialogue may have been paraphrases from Hilter speeches to bring home I AM THE VILLAIN. These were removed, but I've always felt the line of "It's about time that people learn about their failures and my successes" was one that got through.

The movie was just kind of in development hell (or at least development slow-burn) until Star Wars when it got fast tracked into the movie we got in 1980. One of the major changes was changing the Cygnus from a standard hulled-spaceship into a fucking cool haunted house. Whoever decided to do that was a freaking genius.

The final ending of the movie was rewritten multiple times, with wildly different endings. One involved The ship going through the blackhole where we pull out to see Michaelangeo's "The Creation of David" with Dr McCrae looking one. The novel ends with the Palomino crew becoming a gestalt energy mind, which may have been another script ending.

I never saw the hell imagery as Reighardt ruling in hell. I always got the feeling he was trapped there inside Maximillian. Immortal, but forced to watch Maximillian rule in hell forever. Alive, but his goal just out of reach.

A personal nice touch for me in this movie? Space. Space is BRIGHT in this movie. Nebulae color the stars so we're allowed to see silhouettes of the Cygnus, and it looks RIGHT. Love that look.