Lost in Space

Yeah, the movie has some really nice special effects and action sequences, but as long as science fiction fans can be placated with some pretty computer-generated flight sequences, a few large explosions in outer space, a nifty-looking alien or two, and a future setting, no decent science fiction (with strong characters, good hard science, and interesting philosophical issues) is ever going to come out of Hollywood. While I can’t say that even the original Lost in Space television series took its science and future history as seriously as even, for example, the original Star Trek series, this movie version goes out of its way to insult the science fiction fan with untenable science and non-plausible situations.

The base plot premise is that earth will become uninhabitable in two decades because of pollution and overcrowding (recycling was just too late), although this fact is only really known to certain portions of the one-world government and the Sedition (the bad guys in the movie). The government has scoured the near-reaches of the galaxy and found only one suitable planet for habitation and colonization. In order for colonization to occur, there must be a massive hypergate both near earth and near this planet, Alpha Prime. The Robinsons are being sent in stasis at sub-light speed in the Jupiter 2 to Alpha Prime, where they will supervise the building of a hypergate. Earth will finish its hypergate while they are in transit. Mankind will be saved. So far, okay. But look at the execution.

First, this mission, on which the fate of the world depends, has no back-up pilot, so when the Sedition murders the pilot, the government must recruit an unwilling volunteer. The night before the mission, Mom is packing (so much for NASA-like checklists and the future of feminism), the younger daughter is able to avoid security to cruise the mall, and a spy (Dr. Smith) gains access to the ship—not by using his ground crew clearance, but by hiding in a crate. (Although scanning technology clearly exists, nobody scans the ship before take-off and does a count.) Nobody but Dad and the older daughter really wants to be on the mission, and no wonder! After sleeping for ten years (earth is doomed in twenty, remember), a huge hypergate must be built at Alpha Prime. By whom? The family Robinson and their single robot? With what? Earth’s hypergate is humongous. The Jupiter 2 is tiny. Nothing can be sent by hyperspace ‘til the gate is built. So I guess the family must mine Alpha Prime, construct factories, build components, and construct the hypergate in near space in less than ten years after they arrive—this isn’t a family picnic, it’s slave labor.

The brash new pilot knows who is going on the mission, but supposedly doesn’t recognize elder daughter as Dad’s kid, then goes out of the way to be insulting and contentious hours before he blasts off for what looks to be the rest of his life with these people. Everybody but the pilot is unhurriedly hugging and strapping into stasis tanks as the final twenty seconds of the countdown is being ticked off, then the pilot (who hates stasis) jumps into cryogenic sleep, too, without waiting to clear the solar system (with its associated traffic and higher risk of needing to be awake to do something) less than a day later. Bad things happen and the crew is forced to go into hyperspace directly through the sun (while plowing through the sun is inconsistent with the notion in much of sci-fi of hyperspace as simply being faster-than-light-speed travel, it could work consistently with thinking of hyperspace as fourth or nth dimensional travel, so no problem there). We are told doing this without a gate means they will come out of hyperspace someplace random within (why not without?) the galaxy. They are (surprise!) not only lucky enough to come out right near a planet, but right near a oxygen-atmosphere, life-supporting, habitable planet, instead of in the middle of a super-nova or just in some big empty spot.

Here, they promptly do a bunch of stupid things, encounter some cool spider aliens, pick up a pet (a terrible computer-generated special effect monkey critter which seems more of a market tie-in for younger viewers than a recognition that Penny had a pet on the series), crash the craft, and start worrying that they are (shock and amazement!) lost in space next to a mysterious time bubble. They quickly split the party and go incommunicado, the latter due to an alloy in the time bubble surface that means their communicators don’t work through the border (though they work fine on either side). This would be an okay plot device, if they didn’t repeatedly show that one can clearly see and hear through the bubble border, meaning the problem could be simply solved by having someone just inside the barrier to relay messages (by voice, moving through the barrier, or even setting up an easel with a pad of paper) to those outside. Then comes some hokey time stuff and a dryder come to big-screen life. After the Jupiter 2 explodes with everyone but Dad and a now grown-up Will (remember, hokey time stuff is happening) aboard, the survivors have a choice of sending someone back to either (a) earth before the mission (in order to prevent the sabotage of the Jupiter 2 by Dr. Smith, thus, saving the world from extinction) or (b) to the Jupiter 2 moments before it explodes, killing everyone (so Dad can say "I love you" to not yet grown-up Will). Of course, (b) is chosen. Why? Because it is the choice which will allow them to make a sequel to this lousy flick!

We are then treated to some gobbledy-gook about escaping the planet’s gravity by diving into the middle of the disintegrating planet, which obligingly breaks up on cue and, in a complete contravention of any theory of gravity with which I am familiar, simultaneously ceases to have enough gravitation oomph in the component parts to hold the spaceship from escaping to space, then becomes a black hole, which threatens to suck in the spaceship much as this sucky movie sucked in suckers during its first weekend. To escape, they aim the hyperdrive (the one that can’t be aimed) toward Alpha Prime and hypergate someplace random (which will, of course, if they are stupid enough to produce a sequel, be somewhere with a habitable planet and neat-looking alien life). Of course, they could have turned on the hyperdrive and gone someplace else random as soon as they discovered they were lost (and they could apparently have kept doing that indefinitely, as far as we know, ‘til they came out somewhere recognizable), but that wouldn’t have made for much of a movie. Guess what? Neither does this.

As for the cast, Gary Oldman does a very good job with Dr. Smith. William Hurt has gotten blandness down to a science. Mimi Rogers’ talent is wasted on a bit part with only a few lines, none of them good (catch her, instead, in The Rapture, an interesting, but really really bizarre movie about the end of the world). Matt LeBlanc acts about as well as someone who became famous for posing for underwear ads can be expected to act (his best acting to date, in my humble opinion, is the Friends episode where he teaches an acting class). Penny is a delight, but the other kids are ho-hum. I thought the closing credits (with jazzy version of the old theme song) were cool, never mind that they bear no relation to the movie in style and occasionally in content (the cute alien critter name is different than in the movie and the reason for the Daffy Duck trademark notice is, at best, obscure—check out the shape of the cloud from one of the exploding missile/flares—and, at worst, wrong—Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny do make appearances, however, as the space pilot explains to a trained space traveler how constellations came to be named. Duh!