Lost in Space unaired pilot vs. series

[RJDiogenes]

I love the original pilot of Lost In Space-- the idea of an old-school pioneer family on an exotic alien world is very appealing. However, I also like the addition of the Robot and Dr Smith.

Lost In Space is really two different shows-- the first half dozen or so episodes that followed the original concept and then the increasingly slapstick re-imagining (leading to things like carrot people). I enjoy both (and have the entire series on DVD), but I wish they had been literally two different series. I would really have loved to see the original concept carry on for a few years.

The comic book series was excellent (although "suffered from cheesecake" sounds like an oxymoron to me), and I didn't know that the maxi-series had ever been completed; I'll have to track it down. The issue that explained the campiness of later episodes by using Penny's diary was brilliant. That's the kind of writing I really appreciate.

 

[Christopher]

Lost In Space is really two different shows-- the first half dozen or so episodes that followed the original concept and then the increasingly slapstick re-imagining (leading to things like carrot people).

Well, not really. Although the first season did get increasingly humor-oriented and Smith-dominated as it progressed, it was still a much more watchable show than the campy awfulness that was season 2. And season 3 made an effort to bring back some of the merits of the first season (e.g. giving the nominal stars more to do rather than just being The Smith, Will, and Robot Show), but ultimately sank back into inanity.

The comic book series was excellent (although "suffered from cheesecake" sounds like an oxymoron to me)

There's nothing wrong with sexiness per se, but when it's exploitative or gratuitous in its treatment of female characters, that's another matter. There's a right way and a wrong way to do it. Are the female characters choosing to be sexy for their own reasons that make sense for their characters, which is fine -- or are they being arbitrarily stripped down and posed in order to serve as lust objects for male readers at the expense of their dignity and integrity as characters, and in a way that alienates female readers? The tendency toward the latter is an epidemic problem in comics -- even more so now than in the '90s, sadly.

As I said, the LiS comics did try to balance the cheesecake with beefcake, getting the male leads shirtless pretty regularly as well as getting the female leads into bikinis, underwear, or less, so I'll give them that much. But it did often feel gratuitous and tacked on, and it didn't really feel appropriate for a comic based on a family-friendly show like LiS. They toned it down in later issues. I've heard comments from Bill Mumy complaining about how his female co-stars were objectified in the early issues -- although, oddly, the specific scene he criticized was from an annual he personally co-wrote (in which Judy and Penny were abducted as slave girls). So it's hard to know what to make of it all.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Sounds like backtracking and political correctness to me. The people who remember LIS fondly also remember their crushes on Judy or Don, or Penny or Will, depending on their age or gender or preference, so it's only natural to want to emphasize that when the opportunity arises, just as it's only natural to want emphasize serious storytelling and explain away the campiness. If having beefcake in the book doesn't alienate me, then cheesecake shouldn't alienate women-- that's just the clinging remnants of old religion.

As for the tone of the show, yes, it was a more or less gradual descent into the Batman style, but it was really the first few episodes, the ones that were derived directly from the original pilot, that had the real pioneer feel. Even the ones like the "Mister Nobody" episode didn't really capture that.

 

[Christopher]

^It is quite closed-minded for a man to make blanket declarations about what should or shouldn't offend women. In order to understand how women feel, you need to listen to them, not just lecture them about what you assume they should feel. And there's nothing "political" about respecting and understanding other people's feelings, about wanting women to be able to enjoy comics without feeling alienated or threatened by the way they're depicted. Like I said, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. And the right way is simply about listening and understanding, not about anything "political."

 

[RJDiogenes]

"Them?" There is no "them." Dividing the world into "them versus us" is the essence of chauvinism. In order to understand women, you have to speak to "them" individually, so that you can understand that they are real people, not a political demographic that you can make "blanket statements" about. What you'll also learn is that women are the equal of men-- and that means they are equally likely to be wrong, misguided, confused and seduced by ideology as you are. And if a woman is wrong about something, you need to have enough respect to debate with her as an equal. Anything less than that is condescending and patronizing.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Guys, you're kinda derailing the thread a bit.

In hopes of getting things back on track I'm going to re-post something from Warped9 "Revisiting LiS" thread from a while back.

I always saw the Robinson's mission as more of a pathfinder than actual colonization.

It would work something like this: small ship with a small crew is sent to Alpha Centauri. They live there for a year or two to ascertain whether or not the planet is suitable for a major colonization effort.

If it is not, then they radio back a report, pack up everything, except a small automated outpost station, and fly home. Mission completed.

If it is, they send a report back to that effect, along with suggested landing zones and so forth. Alpha Control will then launch the main colonization effort, Huge ships dwarfing the Jupiter II carrying a thousand colonists or more each, would set out to do the actual colonizing. Perhaps as many as 20 per year. In the meantime the Robinsons are preparing for the incoming colonists.

If it were re-done today you'd have to drop the overcrowding element, as the parts of the world that are most overcrowded, South America and Asia, would not benefit from what is basically an American effort. Although I suppose you could make it an international effort instead, but that would undermine the sabotage angle forcing us to fall back on the navigational error of the original pilot to get the ship lost in the first place.

As for Smith, geez what do you do about Smith?

First, in regards to the acting, that's simply the extent of Jonathan Harris's range as an actor. If you've ever seen him in other shows he does the exact same thing. More than five years before LiS he was playing Smith as a Spanish Don opposite Guy Williams in Zorro. Comic Opera Villain was just what he did and pretty much all that he ever did. He just ramps it up or down as needed.

Second, if the Robinson's aren't going to just space him, he has to have an indispensable role in the expedition. The role that immediately suggests itself is, of course, doctor. Now the entire party would have been thoroughly trained in first aid and basic medicine, but if someone were to pick up some alien sickness, say a space version of malaria for example, having a trained physician would be invaluable. Thus the Robinson's would be compelled to keep him with them no matter what they might want to do when he fracks up.

Speaking of which, the frack ups would be more the result of his inexperience and the fact that he's untrained for this. The Robinsons would have had several years of training for this mission, training that Smith wouldn't have. He's also not really temperamentally suited for it, but he's all they have so they'll have to make the best of it.

On the Robinsons, I'd definitely play with their ages. John and Maureen would still be in their early forties. But Judy would no longer be their daughter, she would now be John's kid sister in her late twenties/early thirties, John raised her after their parents were killed in a car crash when she was still fairly young.

Penny and Will are the only Robinson children although both are now young adults with Penny about 23 and Will 20. All are college graduates with degrees in the sciences, Will having been a child prodigy got his BS at 16.

Don I'd leave pretty much as he was, the Air Force pilot/astronaut with a degree in geology, but dial back the hot temper a bit. He very clearly has a romance with Judy.

Now I have a question. How would you re-envision LiS if it were up to you? What would change and what would stay the same? You already know some of what I'd do. I'm curious about your ideas.

 

[publiusr]

There's nothing wrong with sexiness per se...There's a right way and a wrong way to do it.

I seem to remember a PBS program where a nice lady was talking about how women wanted to give their hearts to Fred Astair, but their bodies to Gene Kelly. Not that different from the X for the wife, y for the mistress comment, but...

Now the LiS comic--is this the one that had a classic Jupiter 2 on the cover, but with a TMP aztek pattern Combined with a circuitboard look?

 

[Christopher]

Now the LiS comic--is this the one that had a classic Jupiter 2 on the cover, but with a TMP aztek pattern Combined with a circuitboard look?

The closest thing I can find to that is Jerome K. Moore's cover art to issue 3 (original art here). But that doesn't seem "Aztec" or "circuitboard" style to me, just more detailed.

The comic did established that the J2 and the Robot had been repaired/reconstructed with alien technology over the years, explaining the changes in their designs.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

It's a shame they went the direction they went with the camp. And while Jonathan Harris was absolutely right about a malevolent Smith, the solution wasn't to make him into a bumbling, blithering, boob.

They should have given him a few positive traits. First, he should have always been an extraordinary physician. Quick-witted and able to save the lives of the Robinsons whenever one was injured or sick. Second, he should have appeared remorseful for his role in stranding the family and actively solicited their forgiveness. But every now and then, there'd be a reminder that malevolence continued to lurk beneath a contrite exterior.

All of this that you mention was a part of the character in the 1998 movie, and yet, people (including the hidebound silly fans of the original series that wanted a reunion simply because Star Trek had one of sorts with The Motion Picture) rejected it.

 

[Christopher]

I didn't think the movie really got Smith right. They actually had Oldman's Smith refer to himself as "evil." I don't think that's true to his character. Smith is craven and greedy and cowardly, amoral and motivated by self-interest, but he wouldn't call himself evil, just... shrewd enough to know how to get what he wants.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

I didn't think the movie really got Smith right. They actually had Oldman's Smith refer to himself as "evil." I don't think that's true to his character. Smith is craven and greedy and cowardly, amoral and motivated by self-interest, but he wouldn't call himself evil, just... shrewd enough to know how to get what he wants.

I'll admit that saying that was a bit much, but I'll stand by what I said about him; at least, he was and acted like a competent doctor in the film when push came to shove reviving Judy (I also like that in the novelization, he was mentioned as serving in the Millennial Wars, which means that he wasn't just an incompetent play-acting boob like the original Dr. Smith.) We could have had a series of movies, but the silly obdurate fans and the public kiboshed the idea.

 

[Christopher]

^Don't blame the fans; the movie just wasn't very good. It lost sight of the premise inherent in the title -- a family lost in space -- in favor of a convoluted time-travel plot that was really only done as an excuse to cast Bill Mumy as an adult Will, and that was thus rendered rather pointless once Mumy's Babylon 5 schedule required him to turn it down. It didn't treat the characters very well, mistakenly assuming that the only interesting family was a completely dysfunctional one, and thus totally failing to capture the spirit of the original Robinsons. And do I even need to mention the Blorp?

There's a lot of potential in the idea of doing a reboot of LiS that's more serious and in the spirit of the first 5-7 episodes. But the '98 movie was a very flawed attempt at best.

(That said, I loved Lacey Chabert as Penny. Her voice was sort of annoying at that age, but she totally stole the movie. The rest of the cast was rather less memorable.)

And the original Dr. Smith was indeed a competent physician. Part of the reason the Robinsons kept him around in the first place was because he saved Maureen's life when she had trouble reviving from hibernation. He was also a pretty good computer programmer, as we saw with his alterations of the Robot's programming. But later episodes played up his cowardice and greed rather than his competence, because that was what Jonathan Harris wanted to play and evidently what the audience wanted to see.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

^Don't blame the fans; the movie just wasn't very good. It lost sight of the premise inherent in the title -- a family lost in space -- in favor of a convoluted time-travel plot that was really only done as an excuse to cast Bill Mumy as an adult Will, and that was thus rendered rather pointless once Mumy's Babylon 5 schedule required him to turn it down. It didn't treat the characters very well, mistakenly assuming that the only interesting family was a completely dysfunctional one, and thus totally failing to capture the spirit of the original Robinsons. And do I even need to mention the Blorp?

Said stories were a part of the original show, IIRC (as was the Bloop/Blarp). As for dysfunctional families, this was the first REAL vision of the Robinsons that didn't make me want to barf up my lunch-no family is perfect, not even the Robinsons, and that came through in the way they were portrayed. That you or other fans of the original series didn't get it is your problem (and BTW, now you know how fans of the original Battlestar Galactica feel about the characters from the new series being the way they were!

There's a lot of potential in the idea of doing a reboot of LiS that's more serious and in the spirit of the first 5-7 episodes. But the '98 movie was a very flawed attempt at best.

So you say. Two critics-the late Bob McAdorey and C. J. Henderson in his book The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies-gave quite glowing reviews of the movie, Henderson even praising how everything worked and made sense.

(That said, I loved Lacey Chabert as Penny. Her voice was sort of annoying at that age, but she totally stole the movie. The rest of the cast was rather less memorable.)

I though that Bill Hurt was amazing as John, Heather Graham banished the original portrayal of Judy to the Phantom Zone, Matt LeBlanc gave more to the character of Don this time around, Mimi Rogers made Maureen come alive a lot more than even in the first season, and Jack Johnson filled Bill Mumy's shoes more than adequately. All of them made the Robinsons come alive more than the original actors (with all due respect to the originals) as a real family with real problems, not just your typical 1960s problem free family that was more bland than the 'family' on board the U.S.S. Enterprise on Star Trek: TOS (and as bland as everybody said the main characters on Star Trek: TNG were in the first two seasons.) And this time, John and Maureen kissed!

And the original Dr. Smith was indeed a competent physician. Part of the reason the Robinsons kept him around in the first place was because he saved Maureen's life when she had trouble reviving from hibernation. He was also a pretty good computer programmer, as we saw with his alterations of the Robot's programming. But later episodes played up his cowardice and greed rather than his competence, because that was what Jonathan Harris wanted to play and evidently what the audience wanted to see.

And that's why, aside from the loss of confidence at the end, I preferred Gary Oldman to Jonathan Harris. All of those were part of him too, minus the sniveling behavior. As for the medical competency in the original Smith, I didn't see much of it except in the first episode (and considering what was said about Smith in a bio someplace on the 'Net, it seems that he may have faked being a doc even before he began to loose his marbles due to magnetic radiation.)

 

[RJDiogenes]

Guys, you're kinda derailing the thread a bit.

True enough.

Now I have a question. How would you re-envision LiS if it were up to you? What would change and what would stay the same? You already know some of what I'd do. I'm curious about your ideas.

Well, at the risk of bringing up past digressions, one big problem with the original LIS is that it was genuinely sexist. The women were all stereotypes locked into traditional roles and behaviors and completely desexualized. They would need to have more active roles and be cross-trained to do anything Professor Robinson and Major West could do. As for Dr Smith-- as much as I love the character, I don't think that a reboot focusing on the pioneer aspect would really need him. Especially in light of my next paragraph.

One thing I really liked about the original pilot is that they drifted through space for untold years before crashing. This makes much more sense than the revised pilot, because it was going to take fifty years to get to Alpha Centauri (thus the suspended animation), so how did they find all these planets within days of each other?

I agree that the overpopulation angle would have to be changed, especially given the long travel time. A "seeding" project would be more appropriate. Perhaps, like in Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth, they learn that the sun will die within a century or two and the Jupiter Project is strictly about the survival of the species.

The ship would have to be a lot larger to carry the supplies needed (the classic Jupiter 2 design could be the landing module). They'd have to have advanced genetic manipulation ability to ensure survival in an alien ecosphere. Although the fact that they would end up in a different alien ecosphere than intended and that there would be no follow-up families arriving to help build a self-supporting community would lead to hardships that drive the plot.

Other than that, I would focus on their lives on an exotic alien world-- unfamiliar and dangerous flora and fauna, ancient ruins of an alien species, a difficult climate resulting from an eccentric orbit-- basically all the stuff that was established in the first few episodes of the show, only revised to make use of current knowledge in genetics and astronautics.

We could have had a series of movies, but the silly obdurate fans and the public kiboshed the idea.

That's because, despite your defensiveness, the movie sucked. Aside from the convoluted plot and inanities like flying through the core of a planet, the idea of turning the Robinsons into a dysfunctional sitcom cliche was ridiculous. They were chosen for the colonization mission for a reason. Even in the planning of a Mars exploration mission, much effort is being put into the psychological selection process-- with a one-way colonization mission, that process would be even more refined.

 

[Christopher]

^Don't blame the fans; the movie just wasn't very good. It lost sight of the premise inherent in the title -- a family lost in space -- in favor of a convoluted time-travel plot that was really only done as an excuse to cast Bill Mumy as an adult Will, and that was thus rendered rather pointless once Mumy's Babylon 5 schedule required him to turn it down. It didn't treat the characters very well, mistakenly assuming that the only interesting family was a completely dysfunctional one, and thus totally failing to capture the spirit of the original Robinsons. And do I even need to mention the Blorp?

Said stories were a part of the original show, IIRC (as was the Bloop/Blarp).

Yes, there were a couple of time-travel episodes in the show, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to focus the first movie based on LiS on a time-travel premise. It's called Lost in Space, not Lost in Time. It's a bad idea to introduce an audience to a premise by telling a story that's not even about that premise.

And yes, of course I'm aware that Debbie the Bloop was part of the original show. That doesn't change the fact that the execution of the Blarp in the movie was horribly done. It's not about whether the elements were included at all, it's about how well they were executed.

As for dysfunctional families, this was the first REAL vision of the Robinsons that didn't make me want to barf up my lunch-no family is perfect, not even the Robinsons, and that came through in the way they were portrayed.

Plenty of real families do get along pretty well. They have their disputes from time to time, sure, but it's absurd to say that the only "real" families in existence are ones that have no idea how to communicate or get along. That's just as much an oversimplified cliche as the impossibly perfect family.

The Robinsons in the early episodes of the show did have some real and genuinely interesting conflicts without needing to be dysfunctional. For instance, in "Welcome Stranger," John and Maureen had a wonderful scene debating whether it would be safer to risk sending the children home to Earth or to risk keeping the family together. It was a really great kind of conflict, the kind where both sides are genuinely valid and there's no easy answer, rather than the lazy kind of conflict that comes from the characters just being jerks or hating each other.

That you or other fans of the original series didn't get it is your problem (and BTW, now you know how fans of the original Battlestar Galactica feel about the characters from the new series being the way they were!

It's very petty of you to make this personal, and it's leading you to misunderstand my position completely. I'm not that kind of rabid purist. I would welcome a version of Lost in Space that reimagined the characters in a way that was actually good. There is nothing wrong with reinventing a story; all that matters is whether it works. And the LiS movie didn't work. I prefer the original show because the original show, in its first season at least, worked better than the movie. If the movie had worked better, I would like it better. But it didn't. It was a mess.

And that's the last thing I'm going to say to you about this, because it's not worth being personally abused over a mere movie.

 

[davejames]

I actually thought the movie got a lot of things right, in terms of the darker tone, the designs, the Robot, and most especially the actors. Going back and watching some clips on Youtube, I'm really surprised at what perfect fits they seem to be (especially Oldman as Smith, Hurt as the father, Graham as Judy, and even LeBlanc as Major West).

The problem, as others have pointed out, is just with the awful, sitcom-y way the family is written, and with the muddled, nonsensical plot. Not to mention the slightly cheap and low-budget feel of the whole thing. The movie just doesn't feel nearly as rich or fleshed out as it should have been.

 

[Christopher]

The designs were okay, and the casting wasn't too bad, though I feel it could've been better. But I don't know if a darker tone was "right." Darkness is trendy these days, but that doesn't make it intrinsically better. Sure, the backstory of LiS is fairly dark -- the Earth is suffering from severe overpopulation and needs to colonize space for its survival -- and the situation with the family being lost in the dangerous, uncharted depths of space has a lot of inherent menace. But the fundamental premise of the series is an optimistic one -- that we have it within us to tackle the unknown and survive it, and that a family standing together can withstand any challenge. So wallowing in dystopia and dysfunction is off the mark. There's no shortage of dark and cynical SF out there; what we could use more of is optimism.

 

[Harvey]

I liked the movie a lot when it came out. Then again, I was ten. I don't think I've seen it in over a decade. I'm sort of afraid to go back, considering the critical reputation.

Despite the alleged pitfalls of the movie and the show (which, honestly, I've only seen the first 3-4 episodes) there's a lot of promise in the program's simple premise. Obviously the John Woo pilot went belly up, but I think there's room for a well-executed, serious version of the program one day. I'm surprised a remake isn't in development.

 

[RJDiogenes]

The TV remake was even darker and stupider than the movie. For example, they created an additional Robinson offspring just so they could kill him off.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

I always saw the Robinson's mission as more of a pathfinder than actual colonization.

It would work something like this: small ship with a small crew is sent to Alpha Centauri. They live there for a year or two to ascertain whether or not the planet is suitable for a major colonization effort.

If it is not, then they radio back a report, pack up everything, except a small automated outpost station, and fly home. Mission completed. .

OK, the trouble here is that you are trying to rationalize something logical, and coming up with something completely illogical.

The trip was at light speed, 98 years. So they report 98 years after liftoff that the planet was uninhabitable. They pack up, and arrive home about 5 minutes after their signal is received.

I loved the show as a kid. As someone wrote earlier, basically because of the hardware. It was a cool ship, cool robot, I related to Will. But let's not kid ourselves. If this was Star Trek, we would be rating this "serious" episode somewhere below "Spock's Brain."