Trapped in Space (1994)

Very Cool!!!

one of my absolute favorites!

Excellent adaptation.

Absolutely brilliant

This is one of those adaptations that should never have been made. Some spoilers here-The original story by Arthur C. Clarke concerned a freighter en route to Venus when a meteor strike left the vessel with only enough oxygen for one crewmember to survive the trip -a variation on the "Lifeboat" theme. Like all good such stories it centered around the psychological strains as they struggle with the up coming decision. Here is where the movie breaks down. One of the endearing traits of a properly handled SF story such as this is that the authors treat physics seriously. There is no deux ex machina rescues. There are consequences to accidents in space and the better writers do not attempt to evade them. In fact -the basic thrust is that there may not be any solution (See "The Cold Equations" for an example.) The scriptwriters here violated every tenet of good SF writing. This particular spacecraft had a lifeboat- an utterly absurd concept on a spacecraft limited to Hohman Transfer orbits. Trust me on this- All the captain did in leaving on that lifeboat was to guarantee himself a slow agonizing death- I hope he had no children so we could give him a Darwin Award for "Too Dumb To Live." The actions of a crewman in bungling repairs was about as pointless as it gets. -i.e. yeah big deal he repaired the damage but where do we get the oxygen to replace that lost? Oh- he lost even more oxygen. He is a qualified astronaut- how? The interactions of the crew with each other was such that I really wanted them ALL to die.- and the little dog too. Not very good storytelling. And the ending with a hibernation chamber was the very epitome of a deux ex machina by a writer that doesn't want to actually follow a story to the proper ending. This film ranks as a big missed opportunity. Because Television has done some decent shows. The remake of the "Twilight Zone" did a very good job with the Tom Godwin story "The Cold Equations", William Lee's "A Message From Charity" and Arthur Clarke's "The Star." The key to doing these adaptations is to stay true to the story as written even though some things simply have to be changed for the nature of the TV medium. Contrast this one with "Gravity" -one I thoroughly enjoyed and willingly let them use their "artistic license" to violate some orbital physics for the sake of the story. Tell a good yarn and I will let you get away with a lot. Tell a bad one and I won't. This was a bad one.

This is much better than I expected it to be. I mean it stars Jack Wagner fer crying out loud! That it's as entertaining as this is amazes me. And you know Wagner is actually pretty good here as his character was given the most depth and personality...and I actually liked him in this!? That's never happened to me before. Jack Coleman's Grant stands out as well even if his character is never fully developed. Coleman still manages to add something mysterious to the character with his mannerisms and expression. The best thing I like about this film though is the ending which raises it above the norm in terms of 90s Science Fiction television films.

When a cargo vessel is struck by a small meteorite the captain escapes, leaving the rest of the crew with a greatly depleted oxygen supply. With time running out it becomes apparent that there will only be enough air for one person to survive to safety. The crew react in different ways to this news.Based on a short by Arthur C Clarke the set-up for this premise was never going to be totally lacking in intelligence. Unfortunately the cheap TVM delivery of the idea is so lacking in merit that it loses whatever intelligence the short may have had. The effects are poor (with one exception being the decompressing space suit) and the characters are poorly scripted. The end result is that the story is one that has been done much better in plenty of other films (from Hitchcock's excellent Lifeboat to the iffy Lifepod) and should have been left, rather than wheeling it out again to fill 90 minutes of network time.The cast are poor - made up of daytime soap actors. In fairness they don't really have anything to work with. All the characters are stereotypes like in disaster movies - we have the coward, the nutter, the kind one, the quiet plotting one, the nervous rookie, even a dog to make up the check list! None of them are ever developed beyond the first scene and to be honest it's hard to care who lives or dies.Overall this has some good moments, but the poor script, poor effects, poor characters and poor actors manage to almost ruin any merit this may have once had.

A nifty little sci-fi that made me think "Lifeboat" meets "Alien." No monsters in this movie and just a little blood (no gore). Thought provoking as it makes you wonder who will survive and, moreover, makes you pull for certain characters to survive. Not for those who are looking for mind boggling special effects. A good story with a very satisfying ending.