I ran across this pilot maybe 10 years too late, but I'm here to say how happy I am that Warner Brothers did not pick this garbage up. And by "garbage", I mean the kind you see on the side of a highway; Trash so bad that it goes ignored without ANY attempt to pick it up.
The first thing I disliked was the older brother David. I thought to myself how does Will get to be that lonely kid I identified with from the original series? If Will has always had an older brother then it misses the dynamics of what molds a young child's imagination ... A loneliness that allows such a child to live in their own heads or find surrogate friends through robots. David was completely unnecessary and it became more evident when he was left behind surrounded by aliens. David was just a future plot device.
Judy & Penny ... They immediately focused on Judy and I was a little thankful for this. The original series Judy was a background character for Don West to play with. Here she was granted a larger role, but she was still just the love interest. The Judy & Don relationship I remember was built up over time rather than the late-night fling these two began with. I actually preferred Heather Graham's Judy from the 1998 movie; She was a central character not thrown into the cliché "girl meets boy" BS of Hollywood.
Penny was reduced to an infant ... maybe to make Maureen Robinson appear more motherly. It irritated me to no end. Penny was my first television crush. She also had the plain tomboyish look that allowed young girls to identify with ... frak knows there's no way to identify with her Barbie doll older sister played by (boob distraction) Adrianne Palicki.
Will was the main focus of the original series. Here (much like Jayne Brook's Maureen Robinson with baby Penny) he's a background staple to make Brad Johnson's John Robinson look like a father. Sure Johnson reminded me a great deal of Guy Williams, the original John Robinson. I found myself enjoying him because of that. But the dynamic of father & son are left to one moment of a baseball glove being handed down to a boy that doesn't even know what a baseball glove is. This John Robinson at least tried to be there for his son, the original John Robinson constantly overlooked Will adding to the loneliness of the character.
There wasn't really any character here to identify with.
Don West. Why bother talking about this guy? I won't even waste your time. He was that dull.
John & Maureen Robinson? Nope not interesting enough to discuss. Although perhaps to look at the star of the show which was John Robinson. Why make him the focal point? He became an action hero because that's basically all John Woo can do. The original father of the family was a professor. Here he was updated as some retired Marine or some crap apparently to justify the lame slow-mo action scenes.
I suspect Woo grew up with a house full of action heroes that he acted out fight scenes with with no more dialog than "booosh" and "guhhhh". Sure in the original series both John & Don handled the fight sequences ... but Lost In Space was always about the science-fiction NOT some choreographed drop kicking shoot 'em up. It's a Swiss Family Robinson revision that happens in outer-space. The fight/action scenes here were used as FILLER, designed to stretch the story to complete an hour long time period. It made no sense.
THE ROBOT. Anytime anyone remembers 'Lost In Space' ... whether it's the old television series or the failed 1998 film ... the biggest attraction has always been the damn ROBOT. What do we get in it's place? A legless C3PO reject. Seriously WTF? Go to the Lost In Space Wikia and see the image of it. Try not to laugh, I dare you ...
The face is a bent piece of metal with two holes drilled in it for eyes. It was a metal Muppet. A bad joke. Especially considering they blew 2 million on this pilot. 2 freaking mill and we get a glowing 3D Operation game Dr Zachary Smith was not in this pilot. Not sure why. But on the single interesting note that could have worked here - that someone evidently overlooked ... While the protagonists were generic alien rubber suits rather than a terrorist doctor ... it left an opportunity for the Dr. Smith role to actually be an alien. Would have been the only interesting thing about this series if they had seen fit to use such a twist.
All in all, I would hope that any future endeavor teaches the idiot executives hired in family that THIS IS NOT HOW IT'S DONE!!! I say Hell Yeah" reboot the show but put (maybe) someone like Ronald D. Moore in charge. Someone that knows character development & a thing or two about science fiction.
The first thing I disliked was the older brother David. I thought to myself how does Will get to be that lonely kid I identified with from the original series? If Will has always had an older brother then it misses the dynamics of what molds a young child's imagination ... A loneliness that allows such a child to live in their own heads or find surrogate friends through robots. David was completely unnecessary and it became more evident when he was left behind surrounded by aliens. David was just a future plot device.
Judy & Penny ... They immediately focused on Judy and I was a little thankful for this. The original series Judy was a background character for Don West to play with. Here she was granted a larger role, but she was still just the love interest. The Judy & Don relationship I remember was built up over time rather than the late-night fling these two began with. I actually preferred Heather Graham's Judy from the 1998 movie; She was a central character not thrown into the cliché "girl meets boy" BS of Hollywood.
Penny was reduced to an infant ... maybe to make Maureen Robinson appear more motherly. It irritated me to no end. Penny was my first television crush. She also had the plain tomboyish look that allowed young girls to identify with ... frak knows there's no way to identify with her Barbie doll older sister played by (boob distraction) Adrianne Palicki.
Will was the main focus of the original series. Here (much like Jayne Brook's Maureen Robinson with baby Penny) he's a background staple to make Brad Johnson's John Robinson look like a father. Sure Johnson reminded me a great deal of Guy Williams, the original John Robinson. I found myself enjoying him because of that. But the dynamic of father & son are left to one moment of a baseball glove being handed down to a boy that doesn't even know what a baseball glove is. This John Robinson at least tried to be there for his son, the original John Robinson constantly overlooked Will adding to the loneliness of the character.
There wasn't really any character here to identify with.
Don West. Why bother talking about this guy? I won't even waste your time. He was that dull.
John & Maureen Robinson? Nope not interesting enough to discuss. Although perhaps to look at the star of the show which was John Robinson. Why make him the focal point? He became an action hero because that's basically all John Woo can do. The original father of the family was a professor. Here he was updated as some retired Marine or some crap apparently to justify the lame slow-mo action scenes.
I suspect Woo grew up with a house full of action heroes that he acted out fight scenes with with no more dialog than "booosh" and "guhhhh". Sure in the original series both John & Don handled the fight sequences ... but Lost In Space was always about the science-fiction NOT some choreographed drop kicking shoot 'em up. It's a Swiss Family Robinson revision that happens in outer-space. The fight/action scenes here were used as FILLER, designed to stretch the story to complete an hour long time period. It made no sense.
THE ROBOT. Anytime anyone remembers 'Lost In Space' ... whether it's the old television series or the failed 1998 film ... the biggest attraction has always been the damn ROBOT. What do we get in it's place? A legless C3PO reject. Seriously WTF? Go to the Lost In Space Wikia and see the image of it. Try not to laugh, I dare you ...
The face is a bent piece of metal with two holes drilled in it for eyes. It was a metal Muppet. A bad joke. Especially considering they blew 2 million on this pilot. 2 freaking mill and we get a glowing 3D Operation game Dr Zachary Smith was not in this pilot. Not sure why. But on the single interesting note that could have worked here - that someone evidently overlooked ... While the protagonists were generic alien rubber suits rather than a terrorist doctor ... it left an opportunity for the Dr. Smith role to actually be an alien. Would have been the only interesting thing about this series if they had seen fit to use such a twist.
All in all, I would hope that any future endeavor teaches the idiot executives hired in family that THIS IS NOT HOW IT'S DONE!!! I say Hell Yeah" reboot the show but put (maybe) someone like Ronald D. Moore in charge. Someone that knows character development & a thing or two about science fiction.