Plot synopsis
The Robinson family are travelling to Alpha Prime, the only other habitable planet, to set up a ‘hypergate’. For the ten-year duration of this journey, they are to remain cryogenically frozen in tubes.
A companion hypergate will be finished by then and will be orbiting Earth. Vessels will then be able to pass instantaneously between the two of them to colonise Alpha Prime. Hyperspace exists beneath normal space, and if entered without an exiting gate, the exit point will be random.
16 hours into their mission, a robot has been programmed by the traitor, Dr Smith to destroy the Robinson family, all operating systems, and then the vessel Jupiter II.
They survive, but the Sun’s gravitational pull is drawing them to their death. Their only hope is to activate the hyperdrive without an exit gate to send them to an unknown part of the galaxy; hence they become ‘Lost In Space’.
They find a rescue ship that was looking for them many years ago and realise that they have not only travelled across space but through time to the future.
They end up crash-landing on a planet, which has a large bubble around an area of it. On entering it, they discover two scientists, who turn out to be an older Dr Smith and Will, their boy, who is now a grown man.
They have been on the planet all this time and have invented a time machine, which Will is about to use to travel back and abort their original mission.
My comments
If this film was using just cryogenic freezing for time travel, it would have a model of time with a closed past and open future. However, the time machine at the end creates a different past meaning it is open.
Summary of time travel
They were using cryogenic freezing at the start of the movie, and then their spaceship travelled forward in time using the hyperdrive. The first diagram below describes both of these types of travel. The second diagram represents Will using his time machine to travel back and abort his family’s original mission.
Note: all three trips fit within the same model of time.
Category of time travel
Science fiction: creating wormholes.
Model of time
Open past, open future with a diverging timeline.
