When film characters vanish into black holes and vortexes

entering the stargate in 2001: A Space Odyssey
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From 2001: A Space Odyssey onwards, cinema has offered up a succession of black holes and vortexes. We take a look into them.


Most stories contain a moment in which the central character crosses the threshold from one world to the next. This crossing could be familiar and everyday, like a holidaymaker stepping off a plane in a new country. Or it could be fantastical, like the title character’s fall down the rabbit-hole in Alice In Wonderland.

In many respects, the sequences in science fiction films in which their protagonists disappear into a stargate, black hole or time warp are hardly different from the surreal tunnel author Lewis Carroll described in Alice’s adventure. They’re a gateway into the unknown ā€“ the door from a recognisable reality to a new place that holds a secret or some kind of hidden truth.

The assorted black holes and vortexes listed below turn up with fascinating regularity in genre films ā€“ perhaps because they reflect our human fascination with the unknown. None of us can truly know for sure what awaits us when we shuffle off this mortal coil, and so having the heroes and heroines of our stories journey into unfamiliar territory (a kind of metaphor for death or the afterlife) has a subconscious appeal.

What’s noteworthy about the journeys listed below is that while they all look familiar ā€“ a swirling tunnel of light and colour ā€“ they’re all tonally very different. Some are frightening; others are full of scientific curiosity. Still others are exhilarating. Again, it’s perhaps a reflection of our own relationship with life’s great unanswered questions.

So let’s begin with what might be the pioneering vortex that started it all. After Kubrick’s Odyssey, sci-fi cinema would never be quite the same again…

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey’s iconic stargate sequence. Credit: Warner Bros.

Stanley Kubrick’s grand voyage into the unknown is one of the most influential sci-fi movies of all time, and it’s the likely reason why so many movies that followed it contained their own moment of kaleidoscopic beauty.

Having survived the murderous attention of his ship’s rogue computer, HAL, astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) reaches his mission objective: Jupiter. There, he and his bulbous pod are sucked into a shimmering stargate, as brought to life by Douglas Trumbull and his ground-breaking slit scan optical effects. 

That stargate leads Bowman into an alien realm that is seemingly beyond his ā€“ and by extension our ā€“ comprehension. Time seems to have no meaning here, as Bowman sees versions of himself at different stages of his life. It all builds to the final shot of Bowman, seemingly reborn as a cosmic foetus, now at one with the universe. It’s an inscrutable, iconic image, and the sequence as a whole captures our collective fascination of what might lie beyond our everyday reality.

Read more: 2001: A Space Odyssey | Douglas Trumbullā€™s contribution to a sci-fi classic

Star Wars (1977)

Star Wars' jump to lightspeed.
Jumping to lightspeed in 1977ā€™s Star Wars. Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm.

The Millennium Falcon’s jump to lightspeed sums up George Lucas’ own boyish take on sci-fi: where 2001: A Space Odyssey was all about the mysteries of the universe, Star Wars is about adventure. As the stars surrounding Han and Chewbacca’s ship run and smear, we’re left with an exhilarating sense of speed; our heroes whiz off into space not staring in fear, like David Bowman, but with the grin of carefree hot rod racers. 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

In translating the much-loved 1960s TV series Star Trek to the cinema screen, creator Gene Roddenberry ā€“ and director Robert Wise ā€“ opted to throw in more than a hint of Stanley Kubrick’s grandiose approach. The production was so keen to capture a sliver of that 2001: A Space Odyssey brilliance that Douglas Trumbull was hired to work on the visual effects ā€“ and whether you’re a fan of The Motion Picture’s deadly serious tone or not (this writer rather likes it), it has to be said that those visuals remain terrific. 

Which brings us to the first Star Trek feature film’s late, psychedelic sequence, in which Leonard Nimo’s Mr Spock is sucked into a vortex of stars as he approaches the mysterious entity, V’Ger. “Curious,” Spock tells us as he disappears into a spooky tunnel of lights. “I’m seeing images of planets, moons and starsā€¦”

True to form, Spock confronts the unknown with unflappable Vulcan logic.

Read more: Star Trek revisited | The Motion Picture, and a film whose reputation has grown over time

The Black Hole (1979)

The indescribably weird ending to 1979ā€™s The Black Hole. Credit: Disney.

The success of Star Wars saw studios clamour to get their own sci-fi films into production, and 1979 was the year they started sprouting in cinemas like mushrooms. Of the crop released that year, The Black Hole was perhaps the darkest and weirdest ā€“ which was something of a surprise, given it emerged from none other than Disney.

What might have been a family-friendly adventure darkens rapidly as the plot unwinds, as the film’s heroes explore a vessel perched dangerously close to the edge of a black hole. The ship contains the Captain Nemo-like mad scientist Reinhardt (Maximillian Schell) and his genuinely unnerving robot sidekick, (weirdly, also named Maximillian).

In the final reel, Reinhardt pilots his ship into the aforementioned black hole, and we’re treated to a distinctly Kubrickian psychedelic lightshow. And then, no doubt to the delight of small kids in cinemas across America, it appears that Reinhardt finds himself trapped in Hell, his body fused with that of his own robot. One of the more twisted endings to a major Disney film? Quite possibly.

Tron (1982)

Jeff Bridges gets uploaded in Tron. Credit: Disney.

Vortexes aren’t exclusively the preserve of space movies. Tron, another genre film from the Mouse House, takes place firmly on Earth, though a greater chunk of its duration is given over to an early 1980s depiction of what a virtual world might look like. To get to that virtual world, though, programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) has to be digitised by a high-tech device, which sends him into a portal of eye-popping geometric shapes. These days, it looks like a likeably retro screensaver you might have on your laptop; back in 1982, it was truly cutting-edge stuff.

Solar Crisis (1990)

If you haven’t heard of Solar Crisis before, that’s because it was an incredibly expensive box office disaster for the Japanese and American studios that co-produced it. Years before Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, the film introduced its own mission into our nearest star, with the crew’s mission to prevent a massive solar flare from wiping out our planet. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solar Crisis ends with a welter of colourful visual effects, which are so similar to the ones Douglas Trumbull came up with years earlier, they’re even intercut with shots of a blinking eye. Miraculously, Stanley Kubrick didn’t sue ā€“ maybe he did what most other movie-goers did in 1990, and studiously avoided it. 

Stargate (1994)

A vortex with real visual flare: 1994ā€™s Stargate. Credit: MGM.

By the 1990s, the swirling vortex had become visual shorthand for a leap from one realm to the next. In Stargate, director Roland Emmerich and his collaborators come up with a twisting tunnel of lights and clouds, as James Spader’s protagonist is flung from Earth to the planet Abydos. Like the jump to light speed in Star Wars, it’s a sequence filled with a sense of adventure. “What a rush” indeed.

Read more: Stargate, and the short life of the ā€˜making ofā€™ CD-ROM

The Fountain (2006)

Life, the universe and everything: The Fountain (2006). Credit: Warner Bros.

Director Darren Aronofsky appeared to be channeling a bit of Stanley Kubrick’s spirit when he made his own epoch-spanning odyssey, The Fountain. Its story cuts between the 16th century, in which High Jackman plays a Spanish conquistador, to the present, in which Jackman plays a surgeon, and the distant future, where Jackman plays a space traveller. It all builds to the final sequence of a supernova, and a profoundly Jackman, bathed in golden light, approaching some form of cosmic enlightenment. It’s bold, artistic, stuff, there are certain effects shots that look worryingly like the opening credits from defunct talent search series, The X Factor.

Enter The Void (2010)

Gaspar Noé takes us into the afterlife in Enter The Void (2010). Credit: Fidelite Films/Wild Bunch Distribution.

Maverick director Gaspar Noe once said that he was inspired by Tron when he made this hallucinogenic art film, though its copious dollops of sex and nudity make it distinctly un-Disney-like. Graphic and saucy though it is, Noé’s film nevertheless shares much in common with 2001: A Space Odyssey ā€“ right down to a dizzying drug trip into the unknown. Unlike the other films listed here, though, Enter The Void makes a direct attempt to depict what the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead might look like.

Interstellar (2014)

Originally set to be directed by Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar mixes the former director’s humanistic warmth with Stanley Kubrick’s fascination with scientific detail. This extended to Nolan hooking in scientist Kip Thorne as a consultant, not to mention the use of ground-breaking research and visual effects to create the most realistic black hole ever put on a cinema screen. The sequence where Matthew McConaughey’s character descends into the wormhole is a VFX triumph ā€“ especially when viewed on a big screen ā€“ and once again, the vortex becomes a gateway to a realm that is far beyond our everyday reality. 

Podcast: Interstellar (2014) and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2007)

High Life (2018)

Probably best not to watch Mia Gothā€™s fate on an empty stomach. Credit: Wild Bunch.

This sequence in Claire Denis’ disturbing sci-fi fable is fascinatingly counter to a similar sequence in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. It’s a bleak, despairing film, with one particularly memorable scene being the fate of the luckless criminal, Boyse (Mia Goth).

Piloting a craft into a black hole, she’s briefly treated to a Doug Trumbull-esque light show ā€“ but then the grim reality of physics kicks in, and what happens to her next isn’t for the squeamish. While some vortexes lead to enlightenment and oneness with the cosmos, others lead to much darker places. Such are the dangers of journeying into the unknownā€¦ 

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