I actually enjoyed Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, both as the book and the 1971 Robert Wise (very faithful) movie adaptation (which I actually saw in the theater). Though more than a bit cerebral and talky, it’s also tense in stripped-down man-vs-man Fail-Safe sort of way.
When we went to Iron Man, we saw a trailer for the A&E 2-night mini-series, coming up Memorial Day weekend. And my reaction to Margie was, “Hey, it’s like The Andromeda Strain, only with car crashes.” And it seems that was pretty close to the mark.
Andre Braugher, who plays the nefarious Gen. George Mancheck in A&E’s upcoming SF miniseries The Andromeda Strain, told SCI FI Wire that the show goes well beyond the original Michael Crichton book and 1971 movie version.”It’s very anticlimactic, the book and the film,” Braugher (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) said in an interview at the miniseries’ Hollywood premiere on May 7. He added: “You’ve got the Andromeda; it’s suddenly somehow benign, but then you’ve got a reactor thing, you know? … But that movie wouldn’t have held up today, you know what I mean? So it had to be re-imagined.”
The premise remains the same: A satellite falls from the sky, and most of the townspeople of a small Utah hamlet die suddenly. A group of top scientists, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone (Benjamin Bratt), race time in the top-secret underground lab called Wildfire to uncover the mystery of the deaths before the cause–a contagious agent called Andromeda–can spread.
Writer Robert Shenkkan has updated and expanded the story well beyond the parameters of the original 1969 book and Robert Wise’s movie, taking a lot of the story outside Wildfire and boosting the action elements. “I think our screenwriter and [director] Mikael [Salomon] together have done a really wonderful job bringing that together,” Braugher said.
Because, of course, the idea of a mysterious space contagion that might wipe out humanity if not identified and contained is simply too … passé for modern audiences, too conventional. We have to do something to “boost the action elements.” Like car crashes. And we definitely need a “nefarious general,” and all those other “environmental, political and military storylines.”
See, that’s what was missing from Lord of the Rings — a cabal of Elven, Dwarvish, and Human military juntists that were out to take over the One Ring to further their own purposes. Similarly, a remake of Casablanca wouldn’t be complete without an examination of the European-Islamic relationships in Morocco and the imposition of French hegemony over North Africa. And let’s not forget the animal abuse subtext that was woefully under-represented in Gone with the Wind, but will clearly need to be added into the next version filmed. And don’t get me started on Bambi and the need to “punch up” the impact of strip-mining upon the denizens of the forest …
*sigh* I’ll still record it, though …
The original Andromeda scared the crap out of me when I was a kid precisely because it was a taught thriller about an unseen virus and pretty much limited to people stuck inside a small lab trying to fight it. Adding car crashes and other crap is just going to break that tension (probably). I’ll still check it out.
Yes. The isolation of, and in, Wildfire serves as a dramatic crucible for the characters. Which isn’t to say it can’t be extended beyond, but it sounds more like padding for the sake of Action! And! Excitement! than for the sake of what the tale actually needs.
OK, while I agree with you in general, I’d point out that the First Ring-war WAS due to a cabal of Elven, Dwarven and Human juntists who sought to control the One Ring . . .
Oh God, what geekery have I wrought?!?!!
~nods and agrees with Solonor
Yeppers, that movie was the scariest thing until the Omen or Jaws came along.
As with most remakes, this seems to me to be totally unnecessary. Why remake something that still holds up so well?
From talking to young people that I know, it’s because they won’t watch anything that’s “old.” If it was made before they were born, it can’t possibly be good. It needs to be “up to date,” in my roommate’s words. And forget about anything that was filmed in B&W; that’s simply unviewable!
–sigh– There’s so much great stuff that’s never going to be seen by anybody after our generation is gone. 🙁
I think a prime example of that is “The Manchurian Candidate”. The original is almost perfect, and the remake is just “‘cuz the old one’s all black-and-white and stuff”.
((Nods vigorously at Solonor, too.))
I’m so excited about this! My future epidemiologist middle child doesn’t get fiction at all(“You can’t just make stuff up!”)so her recreational reading is limited to things like A Brief History of Time and The Hot Zone. One of the few movies she’s enjoyed was Outbreak. I’ve told her about the old Andromeda Strain, but had no luck locating it for her. We’ll have to watch this together. But heaven help me if they made anything up. 🙂
Well, the original was pretty crackling with Hard Science, or a good semblance thereof (as good as _Outbreak_). Not sure how scientific the car crashes and action-adventure bits will be.
The original movie is still available via DVD from Amazon, including, I expect, some lower-priced used copies (from $7+s/h). The book is almost certainly in a library or used book store near you.
I had a friend who, as a child, believed that The Andromeda Strain was true because they would show the date and locationof the events. In fact, it opens with a acknowledgements screen that makes it look like a documentary. Maybe she’ll believe that it’s all true. It could happen!
The movie, and book, are both framed as an official report to Congress on the incident by Project Wildfire.
Judging by the trailer the virus could not be natural. More like the product of biotech a couple of centuries more advanced than ours, made to kill all animal life on a planet. With it already out and about… maybe two years until the last bugs and earthworms die.
So they need to find a cure within weeks, maybe days. How many virii have we cured so far? Last I heard: zero. Find cure, manufacture cure in volume sufficient to spray a continent or more…
Maybe if the lead researcher is named Reed Richards.
It’s going to be done with an Apple computer hacking into an alien computer system…
Oh, wrong movie. ;P
It’s going to be done with an Apple computer hacking into an alien computer system…
… which causes car crashes! Lots and lots of car crashes!
It could happen!
Ooh! Maybe they mutate the virus into one that makes all women beautiful and destroys all men over 4’6″ tall.