The Andromeda Strain (film)

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Not to be confused with The Andromeda Strain (miniseries).

The Andromeda Strain
AStrainposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRobert Wise
Screenplay byNelson Gidding
Story byNelson Gidding
Robert Wise
Based onThe Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton
Produced byRobert Wise
Starring
CinematographyRichard H. Kline
Edited by
Music byGil Mellé
Production
company
Universal Pictures
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • March 12, 1971 (1971-03-12) (United States)
Running time
130 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$6.5 million[2][3]
Box office$12.4 million[4]

The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 American science fiction thriller film produced and directed by Robert Wise. Based on Michael Crichton's 1969 novel of the same name and adapted by Nelson Gidding, the film stars Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, and David Wayne as a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin. With a few exceptions, the film follows the book closely. The special effects were designed by Douglas Trumbull. The film is notable for its use of split screen in certain scenes.

Plot[]

The story unfolds in flashback, told by Dr. Jeremy Stone as he testifies before a congressional committee:

After a U.S. government satellite crashes near the small rural town of Piedmont, New Mexico, almost all of the town's residents die. A military recovery team tries to recover the satellite but is unsuccessful. Suspecting that the satellite has brought back an alien organism, the military activates an elite team of scientists.

Wearing protective suits, Dr. Stone, the team leader, and Dr. Mark Hall, a surgeon, are dropped in Piedmont by helicopter. They find that the town's doctor had opened the satellite in his office and that all of his blood has crystallized into a powder. They soon discover that almost all of the victims' blood has crystallized, causing rapid death. Two other townspeople have committed suicide after going insane. Stone and Hall retrieve the satellite and find two survivors, a 69-year-old alcoholic man named Peter Jackson and a six-month-old infant, Manuel Rios.

In addition to Stone and Hall, the elite team also includes Dr. Charles Dutton and Dr. Ruth Leavitt, who are summoned to a top-secret underground facility, code named Wildfire, located in Nevada. Upon arrival, they undergo extreme decontamination procedures, descending through four disinfection levels to a fifth level where laboratories are located. If the organism threatens to escape, the Wildfire facility includes an automatic nuclear self-destruct mechanism to incinerate all infectious agents. Under the "odd man hypothesis", Dr. Hall is entrusted with the only key that can deactivate the device, the theory being that an unmarried male is the most dispassionate person within a group to make critical decisions in a crisis.

By examining the satellite with powerful cameras, the team discovers the microscopic alien organism responsible for the deaths in New Mexico. The greenish, throbbing life form is assigned the code name "Andromeda." Inhaled through the lungs Andromeda kills animal life almost instantly via a blood clot in the brain and blood clotting causing asphyxiation and appears to be highly virulent. The team studies the organism using animal subjects, an electron microscope, and culturing in various growth media in an attempt to learn how it behaves. The microbe contains chemical elements required for terrestrial life (hydrogen and carbon) and appears to have a crystalline structure, but lacks the DNA, RNA, proteins, and amino acids present in all forms of terrestrial life, and directly transforms energy to matter with no discernible byproducts.Hall tries to determine why the elderly man and the baby survived.

A military jet crashes near Piedmont after the pilot radioes that his plastic oxygen mask is dissolving. Meanwhile, Dr. Stone, who created the Wildfire laboratory, is accused by Dutton and Leavitt of designing the lab for biological warfare research. Unknown to other team members, Leavitt's research on the germ is impaired by her undisclosed epilepsy.

Hall realizes that the alcoholic Jackson survived because his blood was acidic from drinking Sterno, and that the baby lived due to his blood being too alkaline from constant crying, suggesting that the organism, Andromeda, can survive only within a narrow range of blood pH. Just as he has this insight, the organism mutates into a non-lethal form that degrades synthetic rubber and plastics. Andromeda escapes the containment room into the lab where Dutton is working. Once all the laboratory's seals start decaying due to Andromeda's escape, a five-minute countdown to nuclear destruction is initiated.

Hall rescues Leavitt from an epileptic seizure, triggered by the flashing red lights of Wildfire's alarm system. Meanwhile, the team realizes that the alien microbe would thrive on the energy of a nuclear explosion and would consequently be transformed into a super-colony that could destroy all life on Earth. Hall races against the laboratory's automated defenses to reach a station where he can disable the nuclear bomb with his key. He endures an attack by automated lasers as he climbs through the laboratory's central core until he finds a working station, disables the bomb, and then collapses.

Hall awakens in a hospital bed. His colleagues reveal that clouds are being seeded over the Pacific Ocean, which will cause rain to sweep Andromeda from the atmosphere and into alkaline seawater, rendering it harmless. The movie ends with Stone testifying to a U.S. senator that, while they were able to defeat the alien pathogen, they may be unable to do so in the future. The film ends with a computer screen showing Andromeda dissolving in seawater, but then the feed stops and the computer flashes the number 601, the Wildfire computer signal for information coming in too fast for the computer to analyze.

Cast[]

Background[]

Film rights were bought by Universal for $250,000.[5] The cast of characters in the novel was modified for the film, including by replacing the male Dr. Peter Leavitt in the novel with the female Dr. Ruth Leavitt. Screenwriter Nelson Gidding suggested the change to Wise, who at first was not enthusiastic, as he initially pictured the female Dr. Leavitt as a largely decorative character reminiscent of Raquel Welch's character in the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage. When Gidding explained his take on Leavitt, Wise resolved the question by asking the opinion of a number of scientists, who were unanimously enthusiastic about the idea. Eventually Wise came to be very happy with the decision to make Leavitt female, feeling that Kate Reid's Dr. Leavitt was "the most interesting character" in the film.[6] Another minor change was the character of Burton in the novel, who became Charles Dutton in the film; no reason was given for this name change.[citation needed]

The Andromeda Strain was one of the first films to use advanced computerized photographic visual effects, with work by Douglas Trumbull, who had pioneered effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, along with James Shourt and Albert Whitlock who worked on The Birds.[2] Reportedly $250,000 of the film's budget of $6.5 million was used to create the special effects, including Trumbull's simulation of an electron microscope.[7]

The film contained a faux computer rendering, created with conventional film-making processes, of a mapped 3-D view of the rotating structure of the five-story cylindrical underground laboratory in the Nevada desert named Project Wildfire.[2] The filming in the fictional town of Piedmont took place in Shafter, Texas.

Reception[]

Box office[]

The Andromeda Strain was a box office success. Produced on a relatively high budget of $6.5 million,[2][8] the film grossed $12,376,563 in North America,[4] earning $8.2 million in United States theatrical rentals.[9] It was the 16th highest-grossing film of 1971.[10]

Critical response[]

The opinion of critics is generally mixed, with some critics enjoying the film for its dedication to the original novel and with others disliking it for its drawn-out plot. At review aggregator Website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 67% approval rating based on 39 reviews, with an average score of 6.24/10.[11] Roger Greenspun of The New York Times panned the film in the 22 March 1971 issue, calling the novel "dreadful."[12] John Simon called The Andromeda Strain "a tidy film, yet it completely fades from memory after its 130 minutes are over."[13]

Scientific response[]

A 2003 publication by the Infectious Diseases Society of America noted that The Andromeda Strain is the "most significant, scientifically accurate, and prototypic of all films of this [killer virus] genre ... it accurately details the appearance of a deadly agent, its impact, and the efforts at containing it, and, finally, the work-up on its identification and clarification on why certain persons are immune to it."[14]

Awards and honors[]

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards:

The film was nominated for science fiction's 1972 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (for works appearing in calendar year 1971)

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (AA)". British Board of Film Classification. March 12, 1971. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved February 27, 2015.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Greatest Visual and Special Effects — Milestones in Film. Archived April 25, 2012, at WebCite AMC's FilmSite. Retrieved May 17, 2014.
  3. ^ Browning, Norma Lee (August 30, 1970). "Hollywood Today: Mike Crichton, a Skyscraper in Any Form". Chicago Tribune. pp. 10–2. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020. Retrieved February 21, 2020 – via Newspapers.com. The picture, budgeted at $6 million...
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Box Office Information for The Andromeda Strain. Archived May 17, 2014, at the Wayback Machine The Numbers. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  5. ^ Shenker, Israel (June 8, 1969). "Michael Crichton (rhymes with frighten)". The New York Times. p. BR5. Archived from the original on August 19, 2020. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
  6. ^ The Making of The Andromeda Strain, DVD documentary.
  7. ^ DOUGLAS TRUMBULL, VES: Advancing New Technologies for the Future of Film Archived June 26, 2018, at the Wayback Machine VFXVoice.com. Retrieved June 25, 2018.
  8. ^ "The Andromeda Strain, Overview". Science Fiction Movies. National Taiwan University. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015.
  9. ^ Box Office Information for The Andromeda Strain. Archived March 16, 2016, at the Wayback Machine IMDb. Retrieved May 17, 2014.
  10. ^ Top Grossing Films of 1971. Archived September 21, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Listal.com
  11. ^ The Andromeda Strain at Rotten Tomatoes
  12. ^ Greenspun, Roger (March 22, 1971). "Screen: Wise's 'Andromeda Strain'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2020. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
  13. ^ Simon, John (1982). Reverse Angle: A Decade of American Films. Crown Publishers Inc. p. 35. ISBN 9780517544716.
  14. ^ Pappas, G.; Seitaridis, S.; Akritidis, N.; Tsianos, E. (2003). "Infectious Diseases in Cinema: Virus Hunters and Killer Microbes". Clinical Infectious Diseases. 37 (7): 939–942. doi:10.1086/377740. PMID 13130406.

Further reading[]

  • Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels into Film (2nd ed. 2005) pp 17–18.

External links[]

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