The ending of this film, with its dualist interpretation of heaven and hell, may be the most theologically revolutionary thing to come out of seventies' children's cinema. Very Cathar in its theological structure, the soul of Dr. Reinhardt is simultaneously imprisoned within the cast-iron shell of his own killer robot in the depths of hell (a gorgeous tracking shot of incredible detail - for instance, look at the death's-head faces on the humanoids who line the valleys of the hellscape) and brought through a crystalline tunnel into the next universe. The good in a man can be rewarded even as the evil is punished, at least in the way I interpret it. Whatever you may think of the ending, it is certainly more ballsy and weirder than ANYTHING in any of Lucas' episodes.

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