Movies - The Andromeda Strain

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	Movies - The Andromeda Strain

The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 science-fiction film, based on the novel published in 1969 by Michael Crichton about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly disease of extraterrestrial origin which causes rapid, fatal clotting of the blood.

The film was directed by Robert Wise and starred Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, and David Wayne. The film follows the book very closely. There is a strong feel for technology and government procedures and formalism. The main set, in bright primary colors, becomes increasingly claustrophobic as the four scientists work in isolation, interrupted only by disembodied voices of the computer or PA system.

Synopsis

After a US government satellite crashes near the village of Piedmont in New Mexico (Arizona in the book), the disease kills all but two of the town's inhabitants. An elite scientific team takes the satellite into a secret underground laboratory in Nevada, known as the Wildfire Complex, in order to study it. The vector mutates into a form that degrades rubber gaskets. This engages an automatic mechanism designed to set off a nuclear weapon beneath the complex, eradicating all traces of the disease before it can reach the surface. However, the alien disease is able to thrive on the enormous energy source and would be able to mutate into an untold numbers of forms. To stop the explosion, one scientist races to shut down the bomb before it can detonate.

Trivia

In the novel, the character of Ruth was actually Peter.

When making the scene in the movie where one of the doctors has an epileptic seizure due to watching a blinking red light, care had to be taken when choosing the frequency of the blinking, so it was the less likely frequency to trigger seizures among the theater audience.

The alien "virus" turns out to be crystal based, and although it contains the same atoms as "normal" life, it lacks DNA/RNA, proteins and amino acid. It is able to transfer energy to mass directly. Crystal-based life has also appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it has also been given some serious thoughts from A-life scientists.

The film was recast as an art-house movie in Anne McGuire's 1992 Strain Andromeda The. With permission, McGuire reversed the original film shot by shot so that everything unfolded in reverse order, although with each scene running in normal time with comprehensible dialogue. "Every action is followed by its stimulus, every comment by its query, you find yourself in a dizzying spin, grasping desperately for causal certainty, yet firmly held by the reversibility of suspense." (Steve Seid)

A young Michael Crichton makes a cameo appearance in a non-speaking role during the scene where Dr. Hall is told to break scrub because he has to report to Wildfire.

In creating their song "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Dub", Apollo Four Forty sampled the line "...Let's go back to the rock and see it at four-forty" (referring to 440x microscope magnification).

Cast

Arthur Hill
— Dr. Jeremy Stone
David Wayne — Dr. Charles Dutton
James Olson — Dr. Mark Hall
Kate Reid — Dr. Ruth Leavitt
Paula Kelly — Karen Anson
George Mitchell — Jackson
Ramon Bieri — Maj. Manchek
Eric Christmas — Senator Phillips (Vermont)
Ken Swofford — Toby
John Carter — MP Capt. Morton
James W. Gavin — Dempsey
Reuben Singer — Dr. Rudolph Karp

Referemces and external links

The Andromeda Strain (1971), DVD ISBN 6305077487.
(includes a discussion of the apparent killing of the monkey)

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[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Andromeda Strain (film) ]

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