On the Origins of this Film.

Rating: Null/10 (15 April 2002)

I am surprised that fewer people have compared the story of "Pitch Black" to that of Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall." Surprised and gratified, as there exists only one common plot device: the sudden disappearance of a planet's several suns, the casting of that planet into darkness, the resultant chaos. "Nightfall" is about the fall of an entire civilization, while "Pitch Black" concerns the trials and hazards of a few stranded space travelers, so the latter is hardly a 'rip-off' of the former. It is a good film which does indeed succeed in distinguishing itself from the plethora of "Alien" rip-offs, in presenting likable characters that the audience actually cares about, and in presenting its story in an innovative and visually interesting way. And at an admirably modest budget. It is not a masterpiece, but it is good, it is well crafted, it can be enjoyed by intelligent men and women, and it is worthy to exist.
I just thought it necessary to point out that its exploration of a sunny world's sudden descent into darkness was not its own, that it came from a previous source of which Mr. Twohy and the Wheats (that sounds like the name of a silly band) could not possibly have been ignorant. I also believed that the way "Nightfall" capitalized on this idea was better thought out and less contrived: a planet of people unaccustomed to darkness periodically go berserk during the solar eclipses which overcome their planet every two millennia, setting everything ablaze for illumination, and, thus, destroying civilization again and again. With "Pitch Black," we have the presence of ravenous nocturnal life forms (unlikely to evolve on a perpetually sunny planet) capable of slaughtering anything in their path when the suns set (which coincidentally occurs a few days after the space travelers arrive, another extremely unlikely circumstance) on an otherwise barren world. And, as a segue, those hoodoo-like structures that crumble when the bats usher forth from them; how long would those take to form? Just to fall over in a single night? "Pitch Black" should not be reviled for its plot, as it was in no way a work of plagiarism. What is needed is a proper film version of "Nightfall."