Andromeda Strain: Part Two Review
I am in the minority, or maybe the silent majority but certainly not with the vocal bunch of naysayers who disliked A&E’s Andromeda Strain with a passion usually reserved for love interests on Supernatural.
Perhaps this comes from the fact that I’m from the Irwin Allen school of scifi — rubber monsters, overly dramatic plotting, ‘if 5 is good then 50 is better’ mentality. I’d rather watch Lost in Space than Forbidden Planet, so my tolerance for science fiction that is more fiction than science is higher than most.
I enjoyed the exciting race to the finish in the second part with some notable exceptions: (SPOILERS)
1. The “smart” virus. I can buy an organism that mutates for survival, but one that has the intelligence to organize the destruction of a plane in order to activate the nuclear bomb that’s on board? Alien origins or not, that’s more far fetched than the guy who grows Army men out of plastic toys on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
2. The bird attack on the soldiers. Leave that stuff to Hitchcock, it just didn’t work here.
3. The reporter - a chance for a great storyline that never came together. Eric McCormick looks like a guy with Britney’s manager on his speed dial, not the top scientist from the Wildfire lab. And hello. . . drug addict with no drugs for how long? I was expecting his drug habit to be the reason he wasn’t infected while wandering around the contaminated zone for so long. Alas, not.
4. What was up with the siege on the drilling platform. I expected it to be a complication to the story when we found out that the cure was down there under the platform. But we can’t get to it because of the protestors! That would have been a good twist. It’s like they had more story about the rig but cut it for time. What was the point?
5. The race to shut down the self-destruct. This is a big one. We all knew the self-destruct was going to go off from the moment it was described in part one. (And ONLY Ricky Schroeder can shut it down!) Fine by me, and the whole race up the ventilation shaft was so very Poseidon Adventure that I was along for the ride. But killed two of the team members that late in the game just annoyed the heck out of me. Especially Daniel Dae Kim. His death was worthless and can we talk about tossing the thumb up with tons of debris falling down and still Bratt catches it on the first try? Yeah, right.
Hmm, so taking a look at what I just wrote, it appears I didn’t like this movie as much as I thought I did!
On the positive side, it did keep me entertained throughout the four hours and there was only a small bit on day two where the story started to drag. I liked the special effects (with the exception of the birds). I like the government conspiracy behind the conspiracy and I love the idea that we kept a sample of the virus thus creating one of those loops where we are the engineers of our own destruction. I thought all of the actors were well cast, except for McCormick and I particularly enjoyed the actor playing the president.
When it comes right down to it, Andromeda Strain left me thinking and worrying about how something like this could happen for real. Forget virus from space, how about a bio-terrorist attack? Andromeda Strain points out how easy it would be for a virus to spread with animals and weather conditions and plain old human curiosity. I can only hope that there’s a real-life Wildfire lab somewhere here in the US ready for activation in case of emergency only without a thumbprint fail-safe on the auto-destruct.
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8 opinions for Andromeda Strain: Part Two Review
Kahlessa
May 29, 2008 at 6:51 pm
The siege on the drilling platform connected to the ecoterrorism in State of Fear, but the whole “This is from the future to tell us not to screw up the planet” bit was just lame. The president and his administration seemed to be based on Bush, and Piedmont was moved from Arizona in the novel and first film to Utah in this version. There was the statement that if the president nuked any part of Utah, he could kiss his reelection goodbye. Utah is perceived as far more of a red state than Arizona. The impression was that this was a corporate-controlled, environmentally destructive administration that is guilty of much more than secret bio-warfare research.
I wonder if the creators of this version of The Andromeda Strain wanted to twist Crichton’s story into an environmental cautionary tale in part to get back at him for his skeptical views on climate change.
Kahlessa
May 30, 2008 at 10:23 am
The more I think about it, the more I realize that wanting to like it isn’t the same as liking it. Now that I’m reading the novel again, I’m reminded how good the 1971 film was. I think this was a missed opportunity. The original film had a focus that this version lacked. They could have dug deeper with what we know about science now, but instead they opted for numerous distracting storylines and blowing things up.
Cynthia
May 30, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Good insight all around, Kath. The president was totally channeling Bush in a couple of scenes! And my husband wondered aloud about why they changed the setting from one state to another. Your thoughts on that could be right.
I do agree that they could have done more as a scifi movie goes - but not sure they could as an A&E SciFi movie. They have to appeal to a mass audience, thus the throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. Hard scifi doesn’t get ratings on mainstream TV which forced A&E to go with something a bit more “24″ meets “X-Files” than a classic scifi flick.
Have you seen the promos for Fringe. Andromeda Strain could have been a pilot movie for that new show.
Kahlessa
Jun 6, 2008 at 11:54 am
So far the only people who seem to have really liked this version are those who have not read the book or seen the 1971 film. I think when you’ve had steak, it’s very tough to settle for hamburger. At least this will inspire people to read Crichton’s novel and hopefully, discover his other books as well.
Many times a mini-series can be better than the original, because it has the time to explore more details from the book. The mini-series of Stephen King’s The Shining was better and truer to the book than the Stanley Kubrick film. The same can also be said of the mini-series of East of Eden starring Jane Seymour, and the one of Jane Eyre starring Timothy Dalton. The Andromeda Strain could have been a very intelligent and exciting exploration of the novel. Instead they went for special effects, strange and irrational tangents, and an obvious political agenda. What were they thinking? I really have to wonder.
Rhyno
Jun 9, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Yeah, I was dissappointed w/A_Strain because of part 2. Like you listed, for those reasons and the political/environmental overtone mixed w/X-Files’ govt conspiracies w/in secret projects–it was just too much.
Speaking of reading more M_Crichton books, has anyone read “Airframe”?. It was one of the best airline industry thrillers I’ve read. I couldn’t put it down, the pace was that steady. The hero was a lady for a change. I thought it would make a great movie or mini-series when I finished it.
BTW, is “State of Fear” a great read or should I wait 4 the movie?
–Godspeed–
Kahlessa
Jun 12, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Rhyno,
Yes, I’ve read Airframe. (I’ve read all of Michael Crichton’s fiction except for his very first book Odds On, which he wrote under the pseudonym John Lange.) Airframe is great, and Casey Singleton, the heroine, is one of my favorite Crichton characters. Michael Crichton sold the film rights to Airframe but it turned out to be too expensive to make the film. After a while, Crichton bought the rights back. With the special effects that can be done with computers today, it should be possible to make the film now. We can watch and hope.
What many people don’t realize is that Airframe is not so much about the airline industry as it is about the media. The mishap with the airplane is a vehicle to explore how the media reacted and reported on it.
State of Fear is worth reading. I wouldn’t wait for the film as I very much doubt there will be one. Aside from the fact we’re still waiting for a film version of Prey, Crichton’s skeptical views on global warming have not be well-received in Hollywood. That’s one of the reasons I strongly suspect that the creators of this version of The Andromeda Strain turned his novel into an environmental morality tale in part to take a jab at him. Much of the dialogue about mining the ocean vents is very similar to what is being said about global warming.
I don’t know if we should be getting off the topic here. If you would like to discuss this or any other Michael Crichton topic, please email me at kahlessa@yahoo.com
Rhyno
Jun 13, 2008 at 10:53 am
Thanks Kahlessa for the great insight on those Crichton novels. I’ll have 2 read “State of Fear” when my wife gets done w/it. “Prey”, if I remember, has to do w/nanotech.
Which leads me to your defense by saying, do not worry that we have gotten off-topic. Crichton’s subject matter often delves into the world of SciFi, like nanotech. And, after all, this is a topic about a TV mini-series that was “loosely” based on a Crichton SciFi novel w/in a SciFi website.
So, take heart & don’t worry–be happy. Go & join the rest of us this wkd by psychologically releasing our frustration w/”the Man” by seeing the “Incredible Hulk” this wkd.
–Godspeed–
Gailann
Aug 1, 2008 at 10:23 am
I know I’m terribly lat to the fray, but you can count me with Cynthia as one who liked this version better than the first.
When I first heard “The Andromeda Strain” was being remade, I checked the book out of the library. While I found it interesting reading, in retrospect, I think that was because of the way it was written, focusing on the mistakes that were made. And the ending was downright awful. Mutating into something innocuous? What a cop-out.
Then I watched the original movie and I was bored out of my mind. I can’t tell you how many scenes I fast-forwarded through.
I did like many of the elements they added here, that Andromeda was from the future, that it was intelligent. And for the most part I thought the special effects were excellent (the birds perhaps being the exception). I did not like that 2 members of the team died. None of the team died in the original. Why did they think they needed to die here? Oh, perhaps to make Stone the hero?
Anyway, I’m with you, Cynthia, all the way. And I love your analogy to a love Supernatural love interest!
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