Plot: Fifteen years after his daring raid turned the tide of an extraterrestrial invasion of the Earth, Col. John Robinson is retired from active service with grand ceremony. Hoping to repair damaged relationships with his estranged family, he volunteers them to take part in a multi-family colonization project bound for a newly-discovered star system. En route, the massive mothership is attacked by the same aliens he defeated so many years before. As alien forces board the ship, John and pilot Major Don West detach the Robinsons’ landing pod and escape with the family through a nearby wormhole, becoming lost in space.
Here is a blast from the past way back to 2004 where the maestro himself, John Woo directed a pilot for television called The Robinsons: Lost in Space. Sadly, it was never aired but it’s on YouTube which I have posted below.
First of all, please note this wasn’t completed with some special effects work still to be done; one scene has Will and David hanging on trying not to be sucked out into space and they are still attached to wires. The music was also not complete as I’m sure I heard the music to Predator in there at one point amongst others.
This is just a 42-minute pilot episode which was meant to set up a new Lost in Space reboot, but it wasn’t picked up. The performances were decent with the late Brad Johnson well cast as tough as nails, but still appealing John Robinson. He struggles to show his emotions to his children, especially David (Gil McKinney) who resents his father for being away so much. Adrianne Palicki plays Judy Robinson who spends most of the episode trying to get together with Don West (Mike Erwin), but when he discovers who her father is he backs off.
This manages to pack a lot into the runtime and despite it being a sci-fi television series it still feels like John Woo. It has lots of slow motion to amplify the dramatic moments but also manages to bring plenty of action in the second half with a few fights with aliens and a space battle. This seemed like it had potential to be far more interesting than the forgettable, but somewhat entertaining Netflix show we got a few years ago.
Overall, The Robinson’s is a fun look at what could have been a sci-fi action series from John Woo. The action looked well done and I think it’s a shame we never got to see it to its full potential.