Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

A team of scientists is assembled to deal with a killer super-virus that has been discovered, or that has leaked, or that it is for some reason in danger of leaking. Lots of walking around in space suits, somebody is climbing in an air duct (although I'm picturing a really wide space, like Cloud City wide), and I think there's a clock ominously counting down—maybe because if they can't contain this thing, everybody's getting nuked, as a precaution? And then, War of the Worlds–style, the problem is solved by the virus's simply mutating into something more benign (thus essentially neutralizing both the epidemic and the entire plot: thanks for nothing, Andromeda Strain*).

Good advice for any kind of suit, really.

* Actually, I think I liked this movie. (Or maybe it's that I liked the book and didn't like the movie...?)

2 comments:

  1. The book was pure genius. And I was eight or nine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Crichton couldn't end a story to save his life (I should note here that I never read Jurassic Park, but I've read many many of his other novels)

    ReplyDelete