Set on Jupiter's moon Io, it has been described as a space Western[5] and bears narrative and thematic resemblances to the 1952 film High Noon.

Federal Marshal William O'Niel is assigned to a tour of duty at the titanium ore mining outpost Con-Am 27, operated by the company Con-Amalgamated on the Jovian moon of Io.

Carol, O'Niel's wife, feels she cannot raise their son Paul on Io and leaves with their child to the Jupiter space station to await a shuttle back to Earth.

Tarlow, a miner, suffers an attack of stimulant psychosis – he sees spiders and rips open his spacesuit – resulting in death by explosive decompression.

O'Niel attempts to calm the man while Montone, his sergeant, sneaks in via the air duct and kills Sagan with a shotgun.

O'Niel and Lazarus discover that Sagan had traces of polydichloric euthimal, a powerful amphetamine-type drug in his bloodstream, which would allow a miner to work continuously for days at a time until they burn out and turn psychotic after approximately ten months of use.

The second is killed in a glass greenhouse structure of the outpost when O'Niel tricks him into shooting a window, causing it to break open and blow him out to his death.

The two fight outside the outpost near the satellite structure until O'Niel pulls Ballard's oxygen hose, suffocating him as he pushes him into an electrical generation station, vaporizing him on impact.

O'Niel, however, has already contacted his superiors about Sheppard's associates, some of whom are Con-Am executives, and shortly before his departure receives a communication that warrants have been issued for their arrests.

[10] Outland was pioneering as the first motion picture to use Introvision,[11] a variation on front projection that allows foreground, mid-ground and background elements to be combined in the camera, as opposed to using optical processes such as bluescreen matting.

[12] The expanded release also includes the John Williams music for the Ladd Company logo, the material composed by Morton Stevens for the fight between O'Niel and Ballard and the source cues for the rec room by Michael Boddicker.

Outland was one of four films released by Warner Bros. to officially make use of their Megasound movie theater sound system, in the early 1980s.

By platforming Outland – opening it in less than 350 theaters to allow it to build an audience rather slowly – the company gambled that the movie would appeal to ticketbuyers; the picture will be in trouble if it drops off at the box office this weekend.

[16] Gary Arnold at The Washington Post had this to say: "In Outland, writer-director Peter Hyams has adapted the plot of High Noon to an intriguing sci-fi environment—a huge titanium mine located on Io, a volcanic moon of Jupiter.

[6] In The Boston Globe, Michael Blowen was more favorable: "The parallels between Outland and Fred Zinneman's 1952 Western High Noon are apparent.

Io is an outpost for exploitation, and [...] whether the miners are digging gold in the Colorado hills or titanium on Jupiter's moon, the greed of the corporate class will prevail.

It was presented in both letterbox widescreen and full screen on a double sided disc with the soundtrack remastered in Dolby 5.1 surround sound.

The Region 1 DVD received harsh criticism for its poor quality transfer, and absence of enhancement for widescreen televisions.

A "making of" featurette, cast and credit notes, plus a theatrical trailer are included as special features on the disc.

The inclusion of left-over footage (if made available) was common practice during the 1970s to 1980s, for network film premieres and subsequently licensed broadcasts.