Lost in Space (film)

Lost in Space
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Stephen Hopkins
Produced by	Mark W. Koch Stephen Hopkins Akiva Goldsman Carla Fry
Written by	Akiva Goldsman
Based on	Lost in Space by Irwin Allen
Starring	Gary Oldman William Hurt Matt LeBlanc Mimi Rogers Heather Graham Lacey Chabert Jack Johnson Jared Harris
Music by	Bruce Broughton
Cinematography	Peter Levy
Edited by	Ray Lovejoy
Production company	New Line Cinema Saltire Entertainment
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	April 3, 1998 (1998-04-03)
Running time	130 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$80 million
Box office	$136.2 million

Lost in Space is a 1998 American science fiction adventure film directed by Stephen Hopkins and starring William Hurt, Matt LeBlanc, and Gary Oldman. The film was shot in London and Shepperton, and produced by New Line Cinema. The plot is adapted from the 1965–1968 CBS television series Lost in Space. The film focuses on the Robinson family, who undertake a voyage to a nearby star system to begin large-scale emigration from a soon-to-be uninhabitable Earth, but are thrown off course by a saboteur and must try to find their way home.

Several of the actors from the original TV series had cameos in the film.

In the year 2058, Earth will soon be uninhabitable due to irreversible effects of pollution. The United Global Space Force prepares the first launch for the colonization of a distant planet much like our own. Meanwhile, a terrorist group called the Global Sedition wants to interrupt the colonization to be able to take over the same planet themselves. Professor John Robinson, lead scientist of the Jupiter Mission, prepares to take his wife Maureen, daughters Judy and Penny and son Will on a 10-year mission in suspended animation to the nearby planet Alpha Prime, where they will build a companion "hypergate" to the one orbiting Earth. The project is accelerated after Sedition terrorists attack Earth's hypergate, but are stopped by fighter pilots, one of whom is Major Don West. When the pilot for the Jupiter Mission is murdered, West is assigned as his replacement.

Dr. Zachary Smith, a spy employed by the Sedition, reprograms the mission's robot to destroy the ship. He is betrayed, though, by his employers and left as an unwilling stowaway when the Jupiter II blasts off. A few hours after launch, the robot activates and starts destroying vital ship and navigation controls. The Robinsons, awakened from their cryosleep by Dr. Smith, stop the robot, but not before it causes the ship to become trapped in the gravitational pull of the Sun. Their only option to escape the gravity well would be to use the hyperdrive and end up anywhere in the galaxy. Now lost, the ship eventually comes across a "hole in space" and, after entering, finds a planet with two abandoned ships in orbit; the Proteus, an Earth ship somehow from decades in the future, and another ship that is clearly not human. When they investigate the Proteus they find navigational data that can be used to get to Alpha Prime (suggesting that humanity has managed to settle on Alpha Prime without the Robinsons) and a young alien primate that they adopt as a pet. They also find the aging ship is infested with carnivorous spider-like lifeforms, with the leg of one accidentally scratching Dr. Smith during an attack. To escape the spiders' attack, Don reactivates and overloads the Proteus's engine, with the shock wave from the resulting explosion damaging the Jupiter II and forcing it to crash on the planet below.