Lost in Space (film)

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Lost in Space
Lost in Space Movie Poster
Directed by	Stephen Hopkins
Written by	Akiva Goldsman
Starring	William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Lacey Chabert, Heather Graham
Release date(s)	April 3, 1998 (USA)
Running time	130 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Lost in Space is a feature-length motion picture, produced by New Line Cinema, and is an adaptation of the 1965-68 CBS television series Lost In Space. The main characters were played by William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, Matt LeBlanc, Gary Oldman, and Lacey Chabert.

The film opened at #1; the first new film of the year to do so due to the success of Titanic. Audience reaction was mixed and box office results were insufficient to justify a planned sequel.

Some of the actors from the TV Show appeared in the film. June Lockhart appeared as Will's teacher in a hologram. Mark Goddard appeared as the general who picks Major West for the mission. Angela Cartwright and Marta Kristen appeared as news reporters. Dick Tufeld performed the voice of The Robot. He was also the announcer and the original voice of The Robot in the television series. However, Jonathan Harris, who played Dr. Smith in the series, refused to make a cameo appearance in the motion picture version.

[edit] Plot Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the year 2058, the Earth will soon be uninhabitable after the irreversible effects of pollution and global warming. Professor John Robinson, lead scientist of the Jupiter 2 Mission, will lead his family to the habitable planet Alpha Prime to prep it for colonization. The Jupiter 2 is equipped with a hyperdrive that allows faster-than-light travel, which will eventually be employed to evacuate the citizens of Earth. However hypergates must be constructed on Earth and Alpha Prime to provide stable points of departure and arrival.

Dr. Zachary Smith is bribed by a terrorist organization to sabotage the mission, and ends up an unwilling stowaway as the ship blasts off. The sabotage causes the ship to veer towards the sun, so the crew activates the hyperdrive in a desperate effort to escape. Unfortunately, without a hypergate as an end point to warp to, the ship and its crew end up in a random part of the galaxy. Soon they encounter an Earth ship from the future, which has been infested with silicone-based spider-like lifeforms, one of which scratches Dr. Smith. Compulsive Captain West self-destructs the future Earth ship and destroys the spiders, however the shockwave from the explosion damages the Jupiter 2, and they crash land on a nearby planet.

On the mysterious planet the Robinsons locate a fuel source with which to repair the damaged Jupiter 2, however it lies in the center of a strange, growing bubble. John Robinson and Major West explore the bubble and discover it is actually an area of time distortion where future versions of Dr. Smith and Will Robinson have constructed a time machine and are planning on returning to Earth at an earlier time to prevent the family from getting lost. They are all betrayed by the future Smith, who is revealed to have transformed into a giant spider-like monster as a result of the spider scratch he received on the future Earth ship. John Robinson battles the future Dr. Smith creature, while Major West returns to the Jupiter 2 with the power source to evacuate the other Robinsons.

The family attempts to escape, but the time bubble has made the planet unstable, and it is violently breaking apart. The stranded John Robinson watches as the Jupiter 2 is hit by debris and explodes in the sky. Future Will lets his father use his time portal and John travels back in time to the bridge of the Jupiter 2 just before it exploded. Rather than attempt escape into the atmosphere, he has West pilot the ship through the planet's core as it is breaking up. They escape, but the collapsed planet forms a small black hole that begins to suck in the Jupiter 2. Once again the Robinsons must activate the hyperdrive, and presumably they are transported to another random point in the universe and once again lost in space.