The original concepts for the robots of Disney’s The Black Hole - Vincent, Old Bob, Maximillian, the Sentries - were radically different from the finished constructs seen in the film. Lovable little Vincent was transformed from a huge, insect-like machanical monster into a wide-eyed rotund cartoon robot with a pop-up head. And the evil Maximillian was originally conceived as a headless, legless hovering machine.
Robot designer George McGinnis recently recounted the changes in the robots, lamenting some of the mutations, in a frank discussion with STARLOG of the automotons he developed for the $20-million space epic.
McGinnis is an industrial designer at Disney’s WED division, which is responsible for the development and construction of attractions at Disney theme parks in California and Florida. He first became involved in the Black Hole project in February 1978, two years after artwork had begun onthe film and initial robot designs had been developed by both Peter Ellenshaw (production designer) and Bob McCall (original art designer). Why was McGinnis brought in when these two talented men were already hard at work? He recalls a conversation with the film’s producer. “Ron Miller wasn’t satisfied with them. He said he had a warehouse full of robots that they had worked on. Gordon Cooper, the ex-astronaut, who was then vice-president of research and development at WED, suggested that I could do it because I had worked on the two Space Mountains [roller coaster complexes at both Disneyland and Disney World].
“So they came to me and asked if I wanted to do an R2-D2-type robot. The original Vincent was huge, insect-like and rather monstrous. They wouldn’t let Bob McCall do that one. They wanted something cute and small. I’m sure that was an influence of Star Wars. Plus, they wanted ‘an older robot, which turned out to be Old Bob. They wanted a bad Maximillian. Before I came along they had a little robot that looked like a Mercury capsule for Vincent. It had cartoon eyes, and this was the direction they wanted to go. So I had to take it from there.” […]
