Dr. Robinson states in his opening narrative that the United Global Space Force is searching the galaxy for habitable planets.

A terrorist group called the Global Sedition seeks to destroy the still-under-construction Earth hypergate and prevent the nations of Earth from settling other worlds.

The beginning of the movie states that the story opens on September 30, 2058. The Jupiter mission leaves Earth the following day, October 1. In the original TV series, the mission left Earth on October 16, 1997.

The small ship that sails past the screen at 1:06 on the DVD makes a sound similar to the flying cars on the 1962 animated series The Jetsons. Listen: orbital ship  Jetson's flying car

Major West's fighter craft is called Eagle 1. This may be a reference to the Eagle transporters (in particular, Eagle 1) used in the 1975-77 TV series Space: 1999. 

At 1:30 on the DVD, Don's eyes seem to either be cybernetic or have cybernetics implanted in them for targeting enemy craft. They revert to normal-looking eyes when the battle is over.

The launch tube used to launch Don's fighter bears some similarity to the Viper launch tubes in the hangar bay of the Galactica on the 1978 TV series Battlestar Galactica.

At 1:42 on the DVD, the holoscreen in Jeb's fighter already says "System Overload" for a split second even though he doesn't get hit by a Sedition blast, which is seen to trigger the alert, until 2:44.

Jeb refers to the Sedition raiders as "another mutant suicide squad". Are the members of the Global Sedition mutants? The pilots of the Sedition raiders appear to be bald and may have implants. Is the polluted Earth breeding mutant humans? West refers to the raider pilots as "gentechs", possibly suggesting they are genetically and technologically modified humans.

At 3:06 on the DVD, the holoscreen in West's fighter shows the initials I.T.D.S. in the top left corner as it provides information to him on the opposing fighters. The initials remain unidentified.

As the Sedition fighter chases Jeb's across the panorama of Earth at 3:32 on the DVD, they appear to be passing over the country of Mexico.

Notice that Don's and Jeb's space fighters are each painted with a carnivorous shark teeth image, similar to those seen on some old WWII fighter planes.

When Don decides to try to stop Jeb's collision with the hypergate, he cuts off the base's transmission ordering him not to jeopardize himself and his fighter, saying, "Never liked that station anyway." This may be a reference to a scene in Star Wars: A New Hope in which Han Solo blasts a communications panel in the Death Star when the station authorities transmit a communication asking him to identify himself after a gunfight in the detention center, with Han saying, "Boring conversation anyway."

The visual effects audio commentary on the DVD reveals that the city the Robinsons live in on Earth is Houston, TX. This may be intended to suggest that the Jupiter mission launches from the old NASA Mission Control Center in that city, though in present day there are no launch facilities there, just control and training for space missions.

The TV commercial about the Jupiter Mission that Will watches on his handheld device at 4:39 on the DVD states the mission is made possible by the U.S. Army and Silicon Graphics Corporation. Silicon Graphics was an actual graphics and computer design company at the time the movie was made; the company was bought out by Rackable Systems in 2009 who then adopted the name Silicon Graphics International. Some of the monitor screens on the Jupiter 2 also have the Silicon Graphics logo on them.

Will's school principal is portrayed by June Lockhart, who also played Maureen Robinson in the TV series. Principal Cartwright, as the character is called, gets the Cartwright name from Angela Cartwright, who played Penny Robinson on the TV show. Angela Cartwright also appears in the film as the reporter who speaks to Dr. Robinson at 6:30 on the DVD.

Notice throughout the scenes of the Robinson home from 4:54-7:46 on the DVD that movers are packing and hauling the family's belongings, presumably for storage while they are on their 10+ year trip to Alpha Prime.

The body that Will superimposes onto Principal Cartwright's holographic image during the phone call to his mother is presumably meant to be that of Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo character from the Rambo movies.

At 5:24 on the DVD, an advertisement for the Intel Pentium XX processor is seen on a TV screen in the background at the Robinson home. "Pentium" is a brand of microprocessors manufactured by Intel; a Pentium XX has not yet been produced.

Dr. Robinson states to the assembled reporters that Alpha Prime is the only other habitable planet discovered to date.

At 6:24 on the DVD, we see an image of Alpha Prime, looking rather like Earth with a ring around it.

The reporter at 6:58 on the DVD is played by Marta Kristen, who played Judy Robinson in the TV series.

The unnamed general in charge of the Jupiter Mission introduced at 7:11 on the DVD is played by Mark Goddard, who portrayed Major Don West in the TV series. (Later, Dr. Robinson refers to the general as Ben.)

It is suggested by one of the reporters at the Jupiter Mission press briefing that the ship's pilot, Captain Mike Daniels, has the flu and may not be able to make the next morning's liftoff. The General later informs Don that Daniels was actually murdered by the Sedition the night before.

At 7:42 on the DVD, a stack of books that seem to be mostly about the Moon are seen stacked on a mantle in the Robinson home. The top book in the stack is A Man on the Moon (1994) by Andrew Chaikin. The fourth book down appears to be Lost Moon (1994) by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger. These are real books about the NASA Apollo program.

At 7:49 on the DVD, Penny flips open a klatch on her bracelet which reveals an O-Vid video recorder on which she makes video entries into her PennyVision diary. O-Vid appears to be a fictional company.

The Penny Robinson in this version of Lost of Space seems much less innocent than the one in the TV series; she's also about 4 years older, 15 as opposed to 11.

When Penny arrives in Will's room at 8:19 on the DVD, she is holding a package (the collapsible ladder) she wasn't just a moment before.

At 8:21 on the DVD, a number of toys and other paraphernalia are seen in Will's room. Notably, a baseball glove and ball, foreshadowing a remark by the Robot later in the film. Also, a toy Parasaurolophus.

The photograph of an astronaut space walking above Earth in Will's room at 8:26 on the DVD is that of Space Shuttle Challenger astronaut Bruce McCandless on the first untethered space walk in 1984.

Penny is holding the collapsible ladder package in her left hand as she speaks to her brother. But the package has suddenly vanished when she needs to clap her hands together to demonstrate the popping sound of Will's skin expanding and exploding in space. Then the package immediately reappears in her hand again.

At 8:50 on the DVD, Penny uses Will's First Place Award to slice open the packaging of the collapsible ladder which she uses to escape the house for the evening. This helps to set up a scene near the end of the movie where John uses Will's First Place Award to slash Spider-Smith.

After Penny slices open the package, it suddenly changes from being in Penny's left hand to her right from one shot to the next.

Don reveals that Dr. Robinson's father was a military man whose battle strategies were required reading at the Academy.

The general states that the Sedition is building its own hypergate and hopes to colonize Alpha Prime before the people of the United Global Space Force.

The scene starting at 12:08 on the DVD reveals that Dr. Smith was responsible for providing the Sedition with access to Captain Daniels' apartment, which allowed them to murder him.

The flying-saucer-like Jupiter 1 outer shell launch stage of the Jupiter 2 is similar in shape to the design of the TV series' Jupiter 2.

At 15:46 on the DVD, notice that a piece of artwork made up of multiple chevron shapes is sitting on the mantle in the background at the Robinsons' home. Possibly a bit of an in-joke to Star Trek, with which the Lost in Space TV series competed for two of its three seasons.

At 17:08 on the DVD, notice that the rocketship decoration on the dinner table after the going-away dinner has USA printed on it, suggesting there is still a United States at this time.

At 18:04 on the DVD, notice that, ironically, the crate carrying Dr. Smith onto the Jupiter 2 is labeled "BIOLOGICAL HAZARD".

After Dr. Smith activates the Robot, the small screen on the Robot's front panel reads "ROBOT ON-LINE", followed by "KINEMATIC EMULATOR". Kinematics is the geometry of motion of objects or groups of objects. Not sure what this really has to do with the activation of the Robot. Sure, the Robot is designed to be mobile, but is it really necessary to display a message about it?

As in the TV series, Dr. Smith is fond of using alliterative descriptions of others, especially the Robot (e.g. "steely centurion", "platinum-plated pal", "mechanical moron"). 

At 20:00 on the DVD, notice that the nodules next to the Robot's storage compartment have a trinary design under the glass that is the same as the glass bubble seen on top of the Robot's head after it's rebuilt by Will later in the movie. At 40:07, we see Will has salvaged one of these nodules for use on the Robot.

The Jupiter 2 crewmembers all wear a Jupiter 2 patch on their uniforms and another blue-and-white patch with a yellow border on their right sleeve or chest. There appears to be an acronym on the patch, but it's never clear enough in any shot to make out exactly what it is. It appears to be something like USOMOC. The USO portion probably stands for United Space Organization; at 42:04 on the DVD, we can see that the Jupiter 2 has the words "United Space Organization" on the hull.

Notice at 30:03 on the DVD that Dr. Smith deliberately bashes the side of his head against a piece of debris and then smears the blood further around his face, presumably to elicit more sympathy from the Robinsons when they find him aboard after the Robot's attack.

Somehow, Don is able to recognize the burn imprint on Dr. Smith's hand as being from a piece of Sedition technology. How does he know?

After the Robot's attack on the Jupiter 2, Don tells Dr. Robinson he's going to try to pilot the ship to the Mercury mines, implying Earth has some kind of mining colony on Mercury.

Upon discovering that Dr. Smith is responsible for sabotaging the mission and attempting to kill her family, Maureen calls him a monster after he attempts to explain his philosophy of life. The monster reference is a foreshadowing of what he is seen to have become in the future on the unnamed planet later in the movie. 

At 42:47 on the DVD, strange scales can be seen on portions of the Proteus' hull. These are later revealed to be space spiders in hibernation, awaiting prey.

At 43:56 on the DVD, an alien ship is seen docked to the Proteus. It's not actually explained what the ship is, but Proteus records indicate they brought in something attached to the alien ship's hull (which turns out to be the spiders now infesting Proteus). The director's commentary on the DVD reveals the alien ship belonged to Blarp's parents, who had decided to investigate the Proteus, an explanation that wound up on the cutting room floor.

At 44:27 on the DVD, we can see that Penny's shirt has writing all over it. The words are generally not legible on screen, but one word on her sleeve clearly reads "recipe".

In the scene mentioned above, Penny seems as if she's trying to get away with something she shouldn't, using her "dazzling technical expertise". But it's not explained what she's doing. Possibly, she is gaining remote entry to the Proteus' computer, as a schematic of the ship appears on the large wall screen behind her just as Don approaches, so she may be acting under orders from her father to attempt to access the computer's files.

When Don tells Dr. Smith that he is to accompany the rest of the adults to check out the Proteus, Smith replies, "I am a doctor, not a space explorer." This is a reference to Star Trek's Dr. McCoy, who is known to frequently use phrases beginning with "I'm a doctor, not a..." Smith's statement also allows Don to later remark sarcastically to him, "You, of course, being the expert on space exploration," when Smith has misgivings about what the crew finds aboard the Proteus.

Forced to don a black environment suit to investigate the Proteus, Dr. Smith remarks, "Black was always my color." This is probably intended to reflect the character's evil nature and the Hollywood trope of dressing the bad guy in black.

At 46:36 on the DVD, Will appears to have a space-suited action figure (or some other kind of figure) dangling from a chain on his vest jacket.

Dr. Robinson refers to the Robot and other similar automatons as Rambler-Krey series robots.

The degraded captain's log of now-Major Jeb on the Proteus reveals that the ship was sent to search for the missing Jupiter 2.

Notice at 52:45 on the DVD that Dr. Smith surreptitiously removes and pockets a control device from one of the advanced model robots on the Proteus. He is later seen tinkering with it and then uses it on the future-Robot in the time bubble to get it to do his bidding.

After Don captures and begins speaking to the baby monkey-like creature, Dr. Smith sarcastically refers to the major as "the Dr. Doolittle of space." Dr. Doolittle is a character who can talk to the animals, featured in a series of children's books by Hugh Lofting published from 1920-1952.

The monkey-like creature becomes Penny's pet, which she names Blarp for the sound it makes. The film's credit sequences can't seem to decide whether the creature is named Blarp or Blawp. And the original film script has Penny calling her Blip! In the original TV series, Penny acquired a space-chimp creature often known among fans as Bloop, for the sound it made (though Penny actually named the creature Debbie).

Blarp, as she appears in the film, is a computer-animated effect, and not a particularly believable one. The director's commentary on the DVD reveals that the creature was originally designed as a puppet by the Jim Henson Company, but director Stephen Hopkins ultimately decided the puppet was not working out and CGI was substituted at the last minute, so the time needed to create a more realistic creature was not available.

At 56:13 on the DVD, Dr. Robinson discovers the Proteus' computer is able to calculate a route to Alpha Prime and he uploads it to the Jupiter 2. This becomes important at the end of the movie.

Notice that Blarp's skin changes color to match its surroundings when frightened.

While assembling a laser rifle to hold off the space spiders, Don remarks he'd trade the weapon back for "a lousy can of Raid." Raid is a family of insecticide products for use in and around the home.

As Don pilots the Jupiter 2 away from the infested Proteus, he suggests that Dr. Smith go out and talk to the space spiders, "bug-to-bug". Besides the obvious insult, this is also another foreshadowing of the transformation Smith will make in the future timeline.

The computer scan of the severed spider leg reveals it has an admantium shell. "Admantium" appears to be a fictional metal alloy (the Latin suffix -ium stands for "metal-like"). The use of the word "admantium" here may be a play on the similar word "adamantium", a nearly indestructible metal alloy in the Marvel Universe comic books published by Marvel.

Maureen remarks that the tiny front brain of the space spiders implies communal relationships among them and Dr. Smith responds, "Like beetles." A few beetle species are known for their communal breeding practices, but I've been unable to find any published evidence that a tiny front brain is indicative of the practice.

When Don decides to overload the Proteus' fusion drive to destroy the ship and the spiders along with it, the overload seems to happen almost instantaneously to his remote command. That sure doesn't seem like a safe way to run a ship's engine! Shouldn't there be some leeway/safeties/backups in the design to prevent instant catastrophic failure?

When the Jupiter 2 escapes the explosion of the Proteus, they crash land on the planet below, still several years in the future because they did not pass through the portal again.

After the crash, Don checks out the damage to the ship and reports, among other things, that the Pod and the Chariot are pretty much scrap metal. The Pod and Chariot were both used in the TV series, the Pod being a small lunar-module-type spaceship for taking shorter jaunts in space away from the Jupiter 2 and the Chariot being a tracked vehicle capable of traversing land and water. (In Robotworld, the Chariot is depicted as somehow still completely intact and usable, as is the Pod in The Perils of Quadrant X.)

At 1:11:25 on the DVD, Penny's face can be seen reflected in Blarp's (CG) eyes.

Dr. Smith tells Don that he fought in the Millennial Wars (Warriors reveals that Smith spent seven years in the wars). It's not revealed what the Millennial Wars were, but "millennial" normally means the turning of 1,000 years. The most recent official millennial to the story would be the year 2000, but Smith hardly seems old enough to have participated in a war that far back considering the Jupiter 2 leaves Earth in 2058. Perhaps the Millennial Wars refer to a millennial on a different calendar than the western Gregorian?

Dr. Smith disgustedly tells Don that sarcasm is the recourse of a weak mind. But, Smith himself uses sarcasm constantly throughout the adventure!

During their first night on the ship, Don and Judy draw pictures on the fogged-up windows of the ship's bridge of Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny. Later, Judy shoots a torpedo rigged as a directional marker from the ship such that it forms an image of Daffy Duck in the sky. All three of these characters are part of Warner Brothers' stable of Looney Toons cartoon characters.

As the family goes to bed on their first night on the planet, each member says goodnight to the others and a harmonica musical queue plays at the end. This is a nod to the 1972-81 TV series The Waltons, about a family during the Great Depression and WWII; most episodes ended with the large (11-member) Walton family saying goodnight to each other, followed by the ubiquitous harmonica queue.

It's kind of hard to make out, but when John says goodbye to Penny and Blarp before heading off into the time bubble with Don, notice that Blarp mimics back the words Penny said to her the day before, "Nice girl, pretty girl. Nice." And at the end of the movie, Penny calls her "a little creep", which she also repeats. Listen: nice girl, pretty girl  little creep

At 1:25:57 on the DVD, the hologram of a baseball that appears has "League 200" printed on it. As far as I can tell this is a fictitious brand or model. 

When they hear Dr. Smith tapping Morse code on the wall of his makeshift cell, Will asks the Robot what it says, to which the Robot responds, "Danger, Will Robinson, danger." This was an oft-repeated phrase by the Robot in the TV series (and is used a number of times in the following novels of the current chronology).

In the time bubble at 1:32:36 on the DVD, how is it that Penny's PennyVision wristband diary is still playing non-stop after decades? I guess they really make things to last in the future!

The Robinson graveyard discovered by Dr. Smith in the time bubble appears to have graves only for Maureen, Judy, and Penny. This implies that John and Don never returned from their search for radioactive material to power the ship's core in the alternate past created by the time bubble (and we soon learn that Will and Smith were ultimately the only survivors). When John meets the older Will, his son confirms that John never returned from that excursion.

At 1:35:40 on the DVD, Will and Dr. Smith see the future Jupiter 2. Notice in the background that a volcano is erupting as the planet's death-throws from the time distortion are beginning.

The older Will in the time bubble indicates they are 20 years in the future from when the ship crashed on the planet.

When Dr. Smith enters the future Jupiter 2, he announces to the others, "Never fear, Smith is here." Spider-Smith also uses the line when he enters moments later. This was an oft-repeated line by the Smith in the TV series.

After John slashes him with the sharp point of Will's First Place Award, Spider-Smith retorts, "The pain, the pain." This was a common line used by Dr. Smith in the TV series.

At 1:53:40 on the DVD, John and future-Will are able to see the past-Jupiter 2 take off into the sky. But the time bubble has already collapsed at this point, so how are they able to see the ship taking off 20 years in the past??

The flight of the Jupiter 2 through the breaking up core of the planet is reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon's flight through the asteroid belt in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

At 2:01:14 on the DVD, Penny runs to pick up Blarp, who has just raced onto the bridge after the ship safely escapes the exploding planet. After picking her up, Penny looks up and into the distance at something before turning away to return to her post, but it's not explained what she was looking at. The director's commentary on the DVD reveals that a major subplot was cut from the film due to audience confusion at test screenings. Originally, there were multiple time bubbles encountered on the planet, not just one. In one of these bubbles, Maureen, Judy, and Penny meet the gigantic adult version of Blarp and she also joins the crew on the ship, so both child and adult Blarp are supposed to be present in this scene at the end of the movie and the adult was what Penny was looking at. The loss of this subplot also makes the addition of Blarp to the story as it stands pointless, since the creature doesn't do anything to advance the story!

When the exploded planet's gravity collapses and starts pulling in the debris and the Jupiter 2, Blarp says, "Uh-oh."

Notice that, by the end of the movie, the Jupiter 2 has never returned to its own time period! It is still in the time period of the derelict Proteus, which John had guessed earlier was about 10 years after the family left Earth. So they are now not only lost in space, but lost in time as well!

At the end of the movie, the Robot from future-Will's time has joined the "present-day" family. This means there are now two versions of the Robot on the ship because young Will was seen to be building a new body for the present-day one earlier!

Also note that at the end of the movie Dr. Smith is still infected from the spider scratch. Will he still transform into Spider-Smith? Now that they know the outcome of the infection, it's possible that Smith and Judy may be able to come up with a cure.

At the end of the movie, John uses the star maps downloaded from the Proteus to plot a hyperspace jump to Alpha Prime, leaving the viewer to assume that was their next arrival point as they make the jump to escape the collapsing gravity field of the destroyed planet. But the later comic book story and novels in the series never address what happened when they completed the jump. They are simply still lost in space and still trying to find a course to either Alpha Prime or back to Earth.

The end credits of the film feature several different sets of music. The first is a modern version of the main theme of season three of the TV series, originally composed by John Williams, here performed by Apollo 440. 

Unanswered Questions

Why does the Jupiter 2 even need the Jupiter 1 outer shell/booster for its takeoff from Earth? We see later in the movie (and later stories) that the Jupiter 2 is quite capable of lifting off from a planetary surface without it.

What happened to Jeb and the crew of the Proteus? We see Jeb and at least some of the crew on the surface of a planet in the captain's log. Was the planet the same one the ship was found orbiting and which the Robinson's later crash onto? Did Jeb and the crew get lost in time as well? Are they still alive somewhere in time? Or did they die when the planet exploded? Or were they already dead?

Notes from the Audio Commentary by director Stephen Hopkins on the DVD

Hopkins confirms that the Jupiter 2 and her crew are still in the future, not their own time, at the end of the movie.

Hopkins states that screenwriter Akiva Goldsman already had some general ideas of where a sequel film would go from here. They would reach Alpha Prime but, since they are still trapped in the future, they would find that it has already been colonized by the Sedition and the people of Earth are lost. Also, Smith would begin a transformation into the Spider-Smith creature and Penny catches a chameleon virus from Blarp, allowing her skin to blend in with her environment as does Blarp's.

Notes from the Deleted Scenes bonus feature on the DVD 

We get glimpses of the adult Blarp and the puppet-version (as opposed to the CG version substituted into the film) of baby Blarp.
Adult Blarp	Blarp puppet

Memorable Dialog

last one to kill a bad guy.wav

a little kiss.wav

there's a lot of space out there to get lost in.wav

this mission sucks.wav

jettison your body into deep space.wav

do they have a name for what's wrong with you?.wav

any monkey in a flight suit.wav

in two decades the Earth will be unable to support human life.wav

he'll do.wav

you're the new pilot of the Jupiter Mission.wav

my price has just become astronomical.wav

those who can't think, fight.wav

it's gonna be a long flight.wav

Robot is online.wav

destroy Robinson family.wav

I'm going to turn this spaceship right around.wav

is there room in these tubes for two?.wav

the Robinsons are all tucked in.wav

you're a monster.wav

anywhere but here.wav

we're lost.wav

what are we saving the planet for?.wav

have you met our parents?.wav

the opposite position.wav

why can't there be more girls?.wav

breathe, Penny, breathe.wav

I am a doctor, not a space explorer.wav

give me an excuse.wav

nothing good will come of this.wav

evil knows evil.wav

looks like you made a friend.wav

the Dr. Doolittle of outer space.wav

banana-beef.wav

I highly recommend you never breed.wav

a lousy can of Raid.wav

bug to bug.wav

pissing contest.wav

blarp.wav

sarcasm is the recourse of a weak mind.wav

really are lost aren't we.wav

why don't you just hang onto your joystick?.wav

under one roof.wav

goodnight.wav

time travel is impossible.wav

kiss for luck.wav

try to make new friends.wav

why did the robot cross the road?.wav

danger, Will Robinson.wav

a boy of your intelligence should never swear.wav

never trust anyone.wav

never fear, Smith is here.wav

the pain, the pain.wav