[sinanju]

Yeah, it never made any sense why Dr. Reinhardt even made Maximillian and his evil battlebots. What the hell did he need them for?

The cutesy-poo “good robots” with Slim Pickens(?) doing the voice of one was pure kiddy-movie Disney and did not belong in an otherwise serious flick.

And since the whole fricking mission was to go through the black hole in the first place, why did Reinhardt need to lobotomize his crew in the first place?

And the LSD-tinged religious imagery also clashed with everything. Hey, if you’re going to cram that in at the end you should have brought up religious themes a few times in the script.

[Steel Wolf]

Oh, and Maximillian dramatically and violently disemboweling the guy with whirling razor blades... that probably didn't need to be in a kids movie with cutsey robots. I remember how annoyed my parents were (they had assumed that the scene was going to end in a scare, not a horrible gut slashing dismemberment) after reassuring me nothing bad would happen.

I remember seeing that as a small kid, then seeing Maximillian in hell, and thinking, Do robots go to hell? And why him? It was kinda messed up how he killed that guy, but isn't that what he was built for? I mean, he had rotating razor blade hands, obviously they were put there to disembowel people. Shouldn't he be in robot heaven for doing his job so well?

Years later, I saw the movie, and realized that it wasn't confusing at all. Just stupid.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

As far as the religious imagery, I put it down to “movie killers”, elements stuck into movies that just suck the fantasy out of them.

Poltergeist II also got nailed by angels, right at the end. That, and an over-ambitious tequila worm.

Another movie killer is the gratuitous use of Nazis, usually in science fiction. That knocked down Flash Gordon and The Fifth Element by a few pegs, though they also both had some unrelated cringe-worthy bits.