- 3 months ago
Copyright Disclaimer: under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Let's turn the clocks back to the dusty old year of 1998,
00:03when the Robinson family took a journey into outer space that, well, critics said time would forget.
00:10New Line Cinema's reboot of the late 60s science fiction show of the same name
00:13raked in 136 million at the worldwide box office, falling short of expectations.
00:19Reviews weren't really glowing, and no sequel came to answer a hopeful cliffhanger ending.
00:24But those aren't the only metrics for measuring a film's success.
00:27Not every film will be a blockbuster victory, but every film will find its audience, eventually.
00:34No matter how big, no matter how small.
00:37You know what? Let's go back even further.
00:40Let's start at another beginning.
00:42CBS premiered Lost in Space back in 1965, which would run for three subsequent seasons until 1968.
00:50It itself is a celestial retelling of Johann David Wyss's novel The Swiss Family Robinson.
00:55The series followed space colonists who are trying to survive in depths unknown,
01:00subjected to a host of challenges displayed through 60s-era effects to the best of their ability.
01:06It earned enough of a following to span 80-plus episodes,
01:09and became well-known in sci-fi communities as a trailblazer for depicting interstellar travel on screen.
01:15It's more Star Trek than Star Wars, but still completely of its own creation.
01:21A familial action drama that would speed around the stars, unlike what viewers at the time could imagine.
01:2730 years later, New Line Cinema would release a modern update that had a little bit more zip and excitement.
01:32Writer Akiva Goldsman is known for wild storytelling that isn't afraid to play into spectacle,
01:38like in Batman Forever or Batman and Robin.
01:41Director Stephen Hopkins could mirror the same,
01:44with credits like A Nightmare on Elm Street 5, The Dream Child,
01:48Predator 2, and Judgment Night under his belt to that point.
01:51This was an 11-year-old, stare-in-awe version of Lost in Space,
01:55that starts with a laser-zappy dogfight,
01:58and includes shootouts with spider-like creatures.
02:00It's a certain brand of entertainment anyone could predict,
02:04and achieves its goals of jetting audiences through an easy-breezy journey into galaxies uncharted.
02:11The late and very great William Hurt stars as Professor John Robinson,
02:16the leader of an expedition into the solar system to save humanity.
02:20The ozone is depleting, Earth won't be inhabitable much longer,
02:24so the United Global Space Force sends John Robinson's family to complete construction
02:28of a hyper-gate-to-the-planet called Alpha Prime.
02:32If all goes well, the Robinsons would help create an instantaneous,
02:35safe passage for humanity to their new home.
02:38Along for the ride are Mimi Rogers as John's wife,
02:41the equally intelligent and stands-up for herself Professor Maureen Robinson,
02:45their three children, a hotshot replacement pilot, and a mercenary saboteur.
02:49Heather Graham steps into the role of Dr. Judy Robinson,
02:54the spitting image of John who spent the last three years of her life prepping for the Robinson family mission.
03:00A very young Lacey Chabert plays John's teenage angsty daughter Penny Robinson,
03:05who vlogs her way through their adventure.
03:07And even younger Jack Johnson stars as Will Robinson,
03:11John's engineering whiz kid.
03:13Everybody's favorite friend's goofball Matt LeBlanc does his best Han Solo impression as Major Don West,
03:20Then finally, Gary Oldman plays a smarmily villainous Dr. Zachary Smith,
03:25a spy hired by the mutant terrorist Global Sedition Group
03:28who runs away with the show as only Gary Oldman knows how to do.
03:33Unsurprisingly, Oldman earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Saturn Awards.
03:38It was, of course, in the same year that Lost in Space earned multiple Razzie nominations.
03:44Ah yes, the highs and lows of filmmaking.
03:46Well, even though we shouldn't take the Razzies even a smidgen serious.
03:51The science fiction genre is a tough nut to crack for filmmakers.
03:55It's so heavily reliant on out-of-this-world sets
03:58that transport onlookers to places most humans will never see in person.
04:03Space is the final frontier for a reason.
04:06It's still so foreign.
04:08Not only that, but sci-fi films are frequently set in futures that have yet to be unlived.
04:13Creators have to invent interplanetary conflicts and technological advancements
04:18that keep audience attention while executing visuals that meet our wildest imaginations.
04:24Quite frankly, it might be the hardest genre to tackle on screen.
04:28I could make that argument.
04:29You can't location scout your way to success with a movie like Lost in Space.
04:35Set in 2058, we're greeted by metropolitan architecture that's somewhere between today's
04:41suburbs and the Jetsons.
04:43Then you have the Robinsons' Jupiter 2 spacecraft.
04:46A self-sustaining vessel that hurdles through space and had to be created from scratch.
04:51On top of that, the Robinsons eventually get stranded on a nameless planet with fuzzball
04:57shrubs and mountain ranges.
04:58It's plenty to generate out of thin air.
05:01Not to forget the regular star-studded blackness, time-traveling bubbles, and encounters with objects
05:07like our blinding sun.
05:09Hopkins keeps the spirit of the 90s alive for better or worse, talking specifically about
05:14production designs.
05:15It's such a fun movie to soak in.
05:19From the angular, form-fitting spacesuits to enormous cockpits with whirring control
05:23panels.
05:24From the wall of cryosleep tubes to multiple chambers in the gigantic sleeping habitat,
05:30the Robinson surroundings inside the hyper-inventive craft look so lifelike.
05:35For a reported budget of $80 million, there's no waste in terms of set dressings.
05:40It's a bygone era, when movies used to be bigger, more grandiose, and where you physically
05:47stood on sets instead of in front of a volume LED screen.
05:51It just looks better.
05:54Lost in Space is wonderfully tactile and ridiculously detailed when you evaluate every nook and
05:59cranny crafted by the production design team.
06:02That goes for inside and outside.
06:05You'll never convince me that digital backgrounds will outshine practical craftwork because so
06:10many of these outrageous 90s concepts are such a delight to revisit.
06:16The Jupiter 2 has a completely different feel from the abandoned Proteus ghost ship,
06:20which are of course drastically different than the rocky interplanetary surface John and Don
06:25traverse in the film's third act.
06:28It's got a reach-out-and-touch-it allure that's Hollywood magic, which you can't replicate with
06:33code strings.
06:34Now, with that said, Lost in Space is a product of its period in cinematic history.
06:40In the late 90s, CGI was a newfound novelty for filmmakers.
06:45You no longer needed warehouses filled with materials to produce desired special effects.
06:51You could generate pixel builds of the Jupiter 2 for hyperdrive sequences.
06:55Or, in the case of Oldman's eventual transformation into Spidersmith, you didn't need a latex costume
07:02or animatronic mechanisms to achieve this arachnid-human hybrid look.
07:07Would it have been cooler if practical applications were used, like in something like Pumpkinhead?
07:12Undoubtedly.
07:14But computer-generated images still had their ooh-and-ah factor back then,
07:19even if they now match what you might expect from a Gen 1 PlayStation cutscene.
07:23I don't hold that against the film, though.
07:27You really can't.
07:28It was 1998.
07:31We might chuckle at Spidersmith now in its glossy and unnatural rendering, but then?
07:37Spidersmith was cutting-edge technology.
07:39It tells a story of when the film was made, and allows us to marvel at how far we've come
07:44as far as these computer animations go.
07:47We should not judge past art on modern standards.
07:51It simply doesn't work that way.
07:53For example, I love Robert Rodriguez's The Faculty just as much as I did back when it released
07:58in 1998, despite its digital creature aging quite poorly.
08:04Spidersmith has a more comical appeal in 2025, now that graphic designers can recreate photorealism
08:10on screens.
08:11But that's just a consequence of the time.
08:14I don't buy into how a film's technology quote-unquote doesn't hold up, because it's
08:20not meant to.
08:22Films serve as time capsules, which Lost in Space does by taking us back to a period where
08:28almost everything was erected on massive sound stages from scratch, while a few elements
08:32show us what the dawning of CGI implementation looked like way nearer to its beta stage.
08:39Thankfully, Lost in Space does contain loads of practical artistry.
08:44None more important than all the miniatures used to create the spacecraft movement scenes.
08:50In an interview for the documentary Sense of Scale, the film's model unit supervisor,
08:55Nigel Blake, reflects fondly on the now quote-unquote outdated practice of using scale models to shoot
09:01the Jupiter-2 in action.
09:03Photographs bring us to these massive living dioramas where the Jupiter-2 crashes into
09:08snowy terrain, or the massive proteus build that dwarfs its creators.
09:14Nowadays, the Jupiter-2's launch sequence would be completely digitized, as not to require
09:19all the building, smoke, and fire effects.
09:21But using miniatures is an art form that gave movies like George Lucas' original Star Wars
09:27trilogy its famous star-cruising visuals.
09:31Blake tells about finishing Event Horizon and jumping right into Lost in Space with excitement,
09:36trying to describe the joy these model shoot days bring.
09:40Actors would even come to set just to see all the shrunken creations Blake's team would
09:44customize, because again, there's a special kind of movie magic to seeing a real object
09:50with your eyes, versus the pretend CG that's added in post-production.
09:55Hopkins and his team find a stable blend of digital and tangible effects, because the thesis
10:00of science fiction requires effects that require computers.
10:04Whether we're talking holographs or reactive armor that forms to the wearer's body, or Penny's
10:10lizard monkey, Blarp, or the Fang spider aliens, they're all requiring digital help.
10:17I like the virtual reality, very video game feel of Will's controllable robot, as he's
10:23surrounded in these neon lights that replicate the mech's abilities.
10:27Blarp looks as adorable and lovable as a 1998 CGI lizard monkey can, and the aliens sell what's
10:33needed.
10:34This isn't Ridley Scott's alien franchise with xenomorphs you can bring to life using costumes.
10:40The spiders crawl fast, fly through space, and are doing their darn best considering
10:45when Lost in Space was made.
10:48Because of this, you can tell Hopkins only opted for computer animation when necessary,
10:53which earns a good dosage of good faith.
10:56Although, the film cut its gigantic and most impressive puppeteering effect for time.
11:03We only get a little CG Blarp that ya-ya's and coo's, but there was an entire other
11:08storyline where Penny encounters Big Blarp, which is Blarp all grown up inside the time
11:14bubble.
11:15The footage now exists online for easy searchability, which I suggest you go check out.
11:20Poor Big Blarp didn't make the 2 hour and 10 minute final cut, but he deserves our love.
11:27Storytelling carries itself with a hokey all-in-the-family vibe that is what the Swiss family Robinson is
11:32all about. These aren't action heroes trying to take over the galaxy. These are professors and
11:38brainiacs trying to bring humanity into its next habitat. This is PG-13 science fiction aimed at the
11:45widest demographic possible. Only a few cuss words and some quote-unquote frightening imagery short of
11:51getting a softball PG grade. Goldsman's screenplay reads like a sitcom special episode that's also a
11:57pilot, teeing up a franchise that would unfortunately never come. It's about fathers and sons coming
12:04together, alpha males meeting their romantic match, and big swings that require explosions
12:09every so often to keep things exciting. It's a popcorn movie in the most family-friendly package,
12:15which is the correct mindset to indulge. Matt LeBlanc never found much success outside of television
12:22acting, but he's right at home as Major Don West. It's almost as if Joey Tribbiani is playing the
12:28role, the way West continues to brazenly flirt with Judy without any subtlety, even in front of her
12:35father. He's hardly a galactic heartbreaker on par with Han Solo, but fits Lost in Space as a
12:42gunslinger type who rolls his eyes at all the right moments. LeBlanc's how-you-doin-in-space
12:47act between imminent threats is the comedic relief the movie needs. That, and I really wanted a
12:53reunion between Don and his bestie fighter pilot played by British actor Lenny James. And I mean,
13:00listen, I'm not going to lie about Lost in Space being this dense sci-fi exploration with boundless
13:07over-your-head jargon. Its themes are clear, and far more focused on the Robinsons themselves.
13:13The Crux of Proceedings dedicates its time to John and Will's dicey relationship,
13:18because John is your typical workaholic who belittles his genius son's accomplishments.
13:24Penny's complaints about blasting into space when she should be hanging at the mall are overridden by
13:30Will's feelings of neglect from his number one hero. John spends all his time focused on his work,
13:36so much so that he ignores the amazing things Will has achieved by winning multiple science-based
13:41awards. It might take the extreme realization of meeting older Will, who, sidebar, is played by
13:47Jared Harris with a distracting American accent, but their resolution hits the notes required.
13:54The Lost in Space reboot isn't trying to reinvent the wheel. When John pouts because Maureen always
14:00pushes back on his complaints, she's quick to respond with a cheesy but also entertaining,
14:05yeah, because we're married. When Penny talks into her wristwatch recording device, you know,
14:10Penny Vision, she would use the cringiest tween dialogue, but it's also kind of funny.
14:17Everyone's bartering in stereotypes that never overcomplicate the film's main objective,
14:22to smuggle some thrills into a common Hallmark-type family dynamic. They're an all-American family on
14:27paper, but now they're fighting corrupted murder bots and multi-legged creatures while trying to work
14:32out their problems together. Gary Oldman is, as you probably guessed,
14:38the piece de resistance of Lost in Space. Smith's presence is a perfect destabilizing agent who
14:45keeps us constantly thinking of danger. He's a coward, a crook, and will do anything to keep himself
14:51alive, which extends to being an asset for the Robinson family. He's always bargaining with his
14:57life, using his forked tongue to make the best for his shady betrayer while stuck aboard the Jupiter 2.
15:03He's one of the greatest character actors of our time doing what he does best, rightfully bringing
15:09a cartoonish villainy to the terrorist lackey who turns into a spider bug person thingy.
15:15You also have to acknowledge who Lost in Space was made for, and that's a brand new audience.
15:21Those who watched Lost in Space evolve from black and white into color back in the late 60s
15:26probably weren't clamoring to see a nearly 2000s version. While notable in sci-fi communities,
15:33the title would have to garner an audience of new faces, the next generation of moviegoer.
15:39Times changed over the decades, and theatrical releases need that special pop.
15:44You can't have a space odyssey without warring alliances attacking humans,
15:48complete with fleet battles. Hopkins meets the expectation of common moviegoers in 1998
15:53while retaining the show's central motivations. And again, Lost in Space is not a bulletproof watch.
16:01Continuity jumbles around as the Robinsons bop about timelines. The global sedition gets introduced
16:07early as an antagonistic force, only to be forgotten once the Jupiter 2 gets lost in space.
16:13There's some funky narrative navigating once Old Will comes into the picture.
16:17Penny, Judy, and Maureen seemingly vanish from the third act, which we now know is because of Big Blarp.
16:22Hopkins doesn't avoid some pitfalls that come with directing a film at hopes to start a franchise,
16:29including that optimistic ending. It's a shame how nothing else would come to follow.
16:35Multiple primary actors signed three movie deals that were ultimately scrapped when the North
16:39American box office couldn't recoup the film's budget. So here we are over 25 years later,
16:45but we're still talking about the film's legacy. Lost in Space has amassed its following,
16:52and they're the ones who this release targets. Like I said before, every movie has its audience.
16:59Hopkins did what he could to bring Lost in Space up to speed with justice.
17:03Like the inclusion of multiple actors from the original show in bit parts. You know,
17:10June Lockhart playing a principal with a gorilla body in a bikini. No, but really. Hopkins did
17:16everything he could to retain the soul of Lost in Space. Like recasting original robot voice actor
17:22Dick Tufeld to once again deliver the iconic line, Danger, Will Robinson. Don't worry,
17:27he does it better. Danger, Will Robinson. Danger. Lost in Space will now forever be a standalone,
17:34but it's not lost to a black hole, never to be seen again. It's a snapshot of 90s filmmaking
17:40that comes with a nostalgic sweetness, both uncomplicated and ambitious. It may not be as
17:47quoted as Star Trek or have its own cinematic universe like Star Wars, but that doesn't diminish
17:52the film's worth to those who've become its proud champions. Movies come, movies go, but not every
17:59movie gets redistribution through special editions. For Lost in Space to join that club means something,
18:06and if you own this disc, well, I'm happy it means something to you too. Rock and roll.
18:22Rock and roll.
18:28Rock and roll.
Comments