A detailed and colourful illustration on this poster for the Japanese release of Disney’s live-action oddity, The Black Hole (opens in a new tab). It’s a fairly uncommon size but one that suits the illustration perfectly. Make sure you click the detail thumbnails to see it in its full glory.

The film focuses on the crew of a ship (the USS Palomino) returning from a deep-space exploration mission that discovers a black hole with an apparently derelict ship drifting nearby. After docking with the ship (The long-lost USS Cygnus – as featured on this poster) the crew meets the commander Doctor Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell (opens in a new tab)) and his team of robots, but there is no sign of the human crew. The Palomino’s crew, including Dr Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins (opens in a new tab)) and Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux (opens in a new tab)), must race against time to discover the mystery behind their disappearance and exactly what Dr Reinhardt’s intentions are.

Despite an extremely hokey script and some decidedly dodgy attempts to emulate the success of Star Wars, the film has several things that make it worth a watch, including some impressive special effects (certainly notable in 1979), well-realised space scenes, a great score (opens in a new tab) by the late John Barry (opens in a new tab) and an excellent robot design in the form of the sinister Maximilian.

Director Edgar Wright (opens in a new tab) is a fan of the film and talks about it on Trailers From Hell (opens in a new tab) (see the video (opens in a new tab)).

See the other posters I’ve collected for the film. Check out the excellent Japanese B1 and B2 posters.

The original trailer is on YouTube (opens in a new tab).