Remember the Lost in Space movie? Arrow Video’s just put it out on 4K
Anyone here old enough to remember what the winter of 1998 was like for movies? If not—don’t worry—I’ve got you covered. Throughout the entire first quarter of the year, movies had run into a giant iceberg in the shape of James Cameron’s Titanic. Nothing was able to even come close to defeating it for the top spot at the box office, with notable flops including the big-budget Michael Crichton adaptation Sphere, the sequel to The Fugitive, U.S. Marshals, as well as the now-cult horror flick Deep Rising. In fact, the first movie to dethrone Titanic didn’t come out until April of 1998, and it was Lost in Space, which officially ended the movie’s fifteen-week reign at the box office.
While a success on its opening weekend, Lost in Space was not considered much of a hit for New Line Cinema, who had given the film a massive (for the time) budget in the $80 million range. A remake of the classic 1960s series about a family of astronauts who, as the title suggests, become lost in space, this movie was supposed to launch a huge franchise for the studio, but it wound up barely breaking even when foreign gross and home video were factored in.
Now largely forgotten, it’s gotten itself a new 4K UHD release from Arrow Video, which is quickly becoming the Criterion Collection of genre fare. They recently signed a killer output deal with Warner Home Video and have been re-releasing a lot of eighties and nineties gems, including Cobra, Outland, Deep Blue Sea, Cruising, Spawn, and this one.
Lost in Space is an intriguing movie to revisit, as you can see how cutting-edge it was for the era. It was one of the first studio blockbusters to heavily use CGI for its FX work, but even in the nineties this was controversial. I remember seeing this in theaters and being disappointed by how cartoony it looked, especially with the CGI character, Blarp, which felt like a dry run for Jar Jar Binks. Part of it might be due to the fact that at the time we all knew George Lucas was shooting The Phantom Menace, so we were hard on anything that covered the same territory.
Lost in Space does have a few things going for it. It’s directed by Stephen Hopkins, who made a whole slew of killer nineties genre flicks (all of which bombed), including Predator 2, Judgment Night, Blown Away, and The Ghost and the Darkness. He’s like the patron saint of my Best Movie You Never Saw column, as other than Peter Hyams, I think he’s the director we’ve covered the most.
It also has a really interesting cast. With most of the budget going to CGI, New Line could only afford one bankable star, so they hired Gary Oldman to play the movie’s villain, Doctor Smith. At the time, he was Hollywood’s favorite bad guy thanks to Dracula, The Professional, Air Force One, and The Fifth Element. The second lead, John Robinson, the patriarch of the Robinson clan, was played by the late William Hurt. The most acclaimed leading man of the eighties, his career had cooled considerably following a battle with alcoholism. In hindsight, he was a bad choice for a role that needed a Harrison Ford or Alec Baldwin type, with him eventually rising to new heights as an amazing character actor in movies like A History of Violence.
The nineties was also the heyday of Friends, so Matt LeBlanc ended up playing against type by landing the action hero role of Major Don West, and I always thought he was a cool action hero, although he slips back into Joey mode during his romantic scenes with Heather Graham’s Judy Robinson. Mimi Rogers, as Maureen Robinson, as well as Graham herself, are given next to nothing to do, while Lacey Chabert is grating as Penny. However, Jack Johnson is fun as Will Robinson, thanks mostly to the fact that he shares the most scenes with Oldman, as well as the movie’s famous robot, with voice actor Dick Tufeld the only actor from the series allowed to reprise his role.
The movie is notorious for the fact that it gives Jared Harris (Chernobyl) an early role as the older version of Will Robinson, although he seems to have been looped. Why? Apparently, the reason is that in the first cut, he was supposed to have been raised by Oldman’s British-accented Smith, meaning Harris used his own accent, but then audiences were confused, meaning he was looped with an American accent.
While undoubtedly a flawed movie, the Arrow Video Lost in Space set is a lot of fun, packed with extras. One of the things I got the biggest kick out of upon revisiting it was the nineties soundtrack, with a classic track by Crystal Method, “Busy Child,” prominently featured, along with techno legends Juno Reactor, Apollo 440, and more. The 4K UHD transfer is gorgeous, although it certainly can’t hide the shortcomings of the movie’s VFX, although I’d argue this adds to its charms.
Is anyone going to be buying this 4K disc (get it HERE)? Let us know in the comments!
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