Cobb: Lost in Space: Dot Com Personified

December 19, 2003

Lost in Space: Dot Com Personified

A little early archeology. What did the dot com revolution feel like culturally? Lost in Space is a very good example, bordering on great.

One of the first DVDs I purchased was 'Lost In Space', the remake-movification of the old Irwin Allen TV series. Aside from the fact that it's got a ponderous father-fixation and a really awful script I think in many ways that it stands up as an extraordinary testament to the Dot Com Style. The DVD itself was one of the first to get all themey with the menus.

I want to say something briefly about the awful script. I viewed the film this evening with English subtitles on and I think I understand something about acting. Actors, at least these kind, work very hard at adding life to very dumb sentences. It must try one's patience to make 'Really. No kidding' into the best laugh of a movie.

Aside from all that, there are countless visuals in this film that mark it directly at the turn of the century. It is noticeable for its lack of product placements which we have almost come to expect in cheesy sci-fi action, but the big fat self-referential one in this is for Silicon Graphics. At the time, few things could be hipper. Today Silicon Graphics itself is an anachronism. (This afternoon in the test lab, I found a pathetic looking hunk of a purple Indigo2 SGI computer sitting in the corner of a stock room, under a Quadra 700)

Classic within the DVD is the Apollo 440 music video in the features. Everything about it is perfectly reminesent of the turn of the century, rivalling the Propellerheads' singlular album. The sountrack, even the script, is all about downloadable soundbiteyness. Sampled repitition, and pre-blogging video diaries are rampant throughout.

What characterizes the Dot Com style best to my mind is its metallic circularity and its organic electronic integration. The best of the technology was bent on human augmentation - away from the austere minimalist angularity of the 80s and the evolving past the organic funky retro of the early 90s. Lost in Space captures that moment when the electronic was still distinct enough to be large but trying to be small and human factored. The moment when cellphones became pocket-sized and rounded, when circles and swoops were in vogue and when it began to be ok to move past matte black everything.

Accellerated, snarkily self-mocking yet digging the coolness, Lost in Space is such a y2k flick it's embarassingly revealing of the times. Check the moment.

Posted by mbowen at December 19, 2003 12:03 AM

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