Netflix greenlights new "Lost in Space"

[Starscream2112]

Podcast with Two of the producers of Lost In Space.

https://www.onlinecoffeebreak.com/i...h-executive-producers-kevin-burns-jon-jashni/

 

[Mudd]

(I see your quoted quote doesn't get quoted by the board's quote function, but that's perhaps just as well.)

Annie Hall is a deathless classic, surely one of the finer films ever made about that most timeless of subjects, human relationships. It's insightful, touching, truthful, and, oh yes, utterly hilarious. I mean, the spider scene alone:

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And the performances are marvelous too, even if Allen and Keaton were playing themselves to a degree.

Now granted, Star Wars is also a deathless classic, but the better picture still won.

It's remained about as beloved and ages about as well as the original Star Wars, too.

The Academy members were long behind the curve as regarded the infantilization of their iindustry.

 

[Australis]

In case you haven't seen it:

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[Australis]

And this:

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[JD]

I'm not encouraged by the mentions of the family having more "realistic" problems and conflicts. The worst thing about the LiS movie was that it tried so hard to make the Robinsons "realistic" that they ended up being pathetically, obnoxiously dysfunctional and totally lost the charm and appeal of the original cast. Characters don't have to be broken to be interesting. Even well-adjusted, healthy, loving families can have meaningful and interesting conflicts (see Black Lightning for an example).

I think in a situation like this, it makes sense for there to be some conflict among the family. Being in a situation like the Robinsons end up in is going to force them to confront any issues they have with each other, especially knights and sentient carrots every episode.

I would also argue that the whole "Science fiction is for kids and geeks" trope is a major reason why no science fiction film within my lifetime has received a Best Picture Oscar (nor any fantasy film, prior to LotR 3 and The Shape of Water, nor any film about the history of the Space Program).

I remember the remark I made about the 1977 Best Picture results:
I could understand Gandhi beating ET in 1982 (although I would also say that Gandhi, though certainly more important than ET, wasn't actually better), but I wasn't exactly thrilled about Terms of Endearment beating The Right Stuff, or Braveheart beating Apollo 13 (I'm old enough to remember the real Apollo 13, and even though I knew that Lovell, Haise, and Swigert got home alive, reliving it through the movie was still a nail-biter).

I've seen a fair number of Best Picture nominees, but out of the films that have actually received Best Picture Oscars within my lifetime (I turn 56 in June), I've seen four (and a stage production of the musical a fifrth was based on). Most of the Best Picture winners have been films I wouldn't pay to see, and at least ten of them are films I'd pay to not see.

I think there have been more than enough hard R sci-fi movies at this point, that nobody could possibly believe sci-fi is just for kids. When it comes to things like the Oscars it's more of a general lack of respect, and possibly unawareness that has lead to the lack of artistic nominations.

 

[Christopher]

I think in a situation like this, it makes sense for there to be some conflict among the family. Being in a situation like the Robinsons end up in is going to force them to confront any issues they have with each other, especially knights and sentient carrots every episode.

Yes, exactly. Conflict can arise naturally from the situation, from the challenges they face. Even a healthy, well-adjusted family would have tensions arising from the strenuous situation they face. So it's not necessary to make the characters utterly screwed-up and dysfunctional so that they'd be constantly screaming at each other even if everything in their lives were perfect. That's what the movie did. Too many writers take the lazy approach to generating conflict -- having the characters just be jerks whose toxic behavior and emotional stupidity creates needless complications for straightforward situations. That's not interesting to me. I want to see conflicts that arise for good and meaningful reasons. I want to see characters wrestle with problems that are genuinely difficult to solve, rather than problems any emotionally functional person could cope with easily.

An example of the sort of thing I'd like to see is Black Lightning. There's a family whose members really love and like and respect each other, who are so close that the father and mother are still on friendly terms even though they're divorced, and they only got divorced because of their tensions resulting from Jeff risking his life as a superhero. They come into conflict over legitimately difficult issues, honest differences of opinion and priorities in which no side is really in the wrong. They fight and get on each other's nerves sometimes, but in the way a healthy, real family does, not the way a contrived, melodramatically dysfunctional fictional family does. When people are dealing with really challenging, life-or-death problems with no easy answers, that will generate conflict. So they don't need to be emotionally toxic screwups on top of that. That's just overkill.

Of course, generating unnecessary problems through a toxic, neurotic personality is Dr. Smith's whole deal. But that's just why the Robinsons don't need to be screwed up too.

 

[Mudd]

The conflation of "realistic family conflicts" with "melodramatic dysfunction" is just a staggeringly tone deaf and peculiar misunderstanding of it all.

 

[Trekker4747]

This looks horrendous. I'd rather watch that 1997 movie.

 

[JD]

Yes, exactly. Conflict can arise naturally from the situation, from the challenges they face. Even a healthy, well-adjusted family would have tensions arising from the strenuous situation they face. So it's not necessary to make the characters utterly screwed-up and dysfunctional so that they'd be constantly screaming at each other even if everything in their lives were perfect. That's what the movie did. Too many writers take the lazy approach to generating conflict -- having the characters just be jerks whose toxic behavior and emotional stupidity creates needless complications for straightforward situations. That's not interesting to me. I want to see conflicts that arise for good and meaningful reasons. I want to see characters wrestle with problems that are genuinely difficult to solve, rather than problems any emotionally functional person could cope with easily.

An example of the sort of thing I'd like to see is Black Lightning. There's a family whose members really love and like and respect each other, who are so close that the father and mother are still on friendly terms even though they're divorced, and they only got divorced because of their tensions resulting from Jeff risking his life as a superhero. They come into conflict over legitimately difficult issues, honest differences of opinion and priorities in which no side is really in the wrong. They fight and get on each other's nerves sometimes, but in the way a healthy, real family does, not the way a contrived, melodramatically dysfunctional fictional family does. When people are dealing with really challenging, life-or-death problems with no easy answers, that will generate conflict. So they don't need to be emotionally toxic screwups on top of that. That's just overkill.

Of course, generating unnecessary problems through a toxic, neurotic personality is Dr. Smith's whole deal. But that's just why the Robinsons don't need to be screwed up too.

You seem to be jumping to a lot of over the top assumptions here, with very little evidence.
I couldn't find the quote about realistic conflict so I'm not sure what exactly you're responding to, but just because one attempt to update the family might have gone to far with the conflict doesn't mean this one will. As far as I know no one from the movie is involved in this one, so I don't really see how you can use that to judge this version.
The video posted a earlier on this page makes it pretty clear that the show will mainly focus on the family coming together and working together to survive, so what you're talking about seem even more unlikely to happen.

 

[Starscream2112]

This looks horrendous. I'd rather watch that 1997 movie.

I beg to disagree. As I fan of the original I look forward to seeing this.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I beg to disagree. As I fan of the original I look forward to seeing this.

The original was campy, trashy fun that I enjoyed when I was young - not so much when I viewed a lot later in my life - a similar experience to BSG.

It remains to be seen if the dramatic pathway avoids the most often quoted perceived failings of the original TV series and the movie. I expect that the family's initial struggles to survive will occupy a few episodes before they start to explore and uncover the latent mysteries of their new home.

A longer-term arc is perhaps planned - such a small group of protagonists has limited scope for drama without outside interaction - not to mention if they are intended to form the nucleus of human survival and expansion beyond a possibly doomed Earth. An injection of a substantial number of additional colonists would be required to avoid a shallow gene pool.

In the original Swiss Family Robinson novel by J D Wyss (IIRC), the family effectively splits with some returning to Switzerland and some staying to found a new colony. Jules Verne wrote a direct sequel "Second Fatherland" aka "The Castaways of the Flag".

There is no Dr Smith equivalent in the novels but I guess an antagonist is always handy for drama, provided they don't grow to dominate the whole thing as happened in the TV show.

 

[fireproof78]

In the original Swiss Family Robinson novel by J D Wyss (IIRC), the family effectively splits with some returning to Switzerland and some staying to found a new colony. Jules Verne wrote a direct sequel "Second Fatherland" aka "The Castaways of the Flag".

I did not know this. Now I need to find it.

 

[Christopher]

You seem to be jumping to a lot of over the top assumptions here, with very little evidence.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. I was talking more about the movie than the show. I was explaining what I disliked about the movie's approach to the characters, in order to provide context for why the publicity statements about the family's conflicts in the show rub me the wrong way. Obviously I hope the show doesn't make the same mistakes as the movie. That's what I'm actually trying to say. I want the show to do better. I really hope it does. (Although it's an academic question for me until my finances improve enough that I can subscribe to Netflix again.)

 

[JD]

Oh, OK then.

 

[Australis]

This looks horrendous. I'd rather watch that 1997 movie.

Amazing. Every word of what you just said... was wrong.

 

[Q2UnME]

A review up at EW by two of their critics just bashes the shit out of this. D+ rating is unexpected.

Not that I usually give critic's opinions much weight, but it is worrisome.

Q2

 

[BillJ]

A review up at EW by two of their critics just bashes the shit out of this. D+ rating is unexpected.

Not that I usually give critic's opinions much weight, but it is worrisome.

It can't be any worse than Discovery, and I made it through twelve episodes of that.

 

[Mudd]

Meh, their complaints make it sound more interesting. I'll watch it and decide whether I like it or not; I give nae fucks what advance reviews say about things - they never "worry me."

I notice that a lot of it is going on about the way the new thing diverges from the old thing, which is never very important to me. This looks like a cool space show that's not stupid, and I'd like to see another one of those - personal taste.

 

[Christopher]

A review up at EW by two of their critics just bashes the shit out of this. D+ rating is unexpected.

Not that I usually give critic's opinions much weight, but it is worrisome.

Whereas the reviews I've seen have been consistently positive:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/03...-pilot-review?abthid=5ab5964905e140570c00072b
https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-new-lost-in-space-has-a-lot-of-potential-but-needs-1823915406
https://www.cbr.com/lost-in-space-2018-review/

It's rare for anything to be liked by every critic. Heck, Star Trek got a lot of critical drubbing back in 1966, and it turned out okay.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

It can't be any worse than Discovery, and I made it through twelve episodes of that.

I sat through Iron Fist so I hope it’s better than that at least. IO9 also says it could be better going by the headline but I’m not going to read reviews until I watch it.