you're listening to fusion patrol a listener supported podcast each week we take a single episode of a science fiction tv series movie or audio and overanalyze it to within an inch of its life welcome to the discussion hello and welcome to another episode of fusion patrol i'm eugene and i'm ben and it's world beyond movie night tonight and we are looking at the andromeda strain from 1971 1971 yes yes did you say there was a remake of this there was and it's crap it was on it was on the talking about that yeah we're not it was on the sci-fi channel and if i i know if anybody has watched it i feel sorry for you it is so god-awful bad no we're talking about the 1971 movie thank you all right well let's start with the synopsis of this hey yeah we'll start with the synopsis all right Day one.

People get sick, they die.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for the AI summary of the film.

Day one.

Outside the small town of Piedmont, New Mexico, population 68, two soldiers are searching for a downed satellite.

It is nighttime, and the town is unusually quiet.

They enter town to find the satellite.

Listening back at HQ, they hear the soldiers discover bodies.

Then a panicked scream, and contact is lost.

A jet flyover reveals that the town is littered with bodies.

A wildfire alert is called and top scientist Dr.

Jeremy Stone is taken by military escort from a party at his home.

His wife, a senator's daughter, tries to contact her father to find out more, but she is cut off by an operator telling her that she is under surveillance and must not discuss anything about her husband's departure.

Dr.

Charles Dutton is similarly called into duty and makes haste.

Dr.

Ruth Levitt is less kindly inclined to go with the military, but ultimately agrees.

One member of this team, Dr.

Kirk, is undergoing an appendectomy.

So a replacement, Dr.

Mark Hall, is called out of surgery to immediately report for duty at Wildfire.

Day two.

Stone and Hall are suited up in containment suits and are flown over Piedmont.

Bodies are everywhere, and carrion-eating birds are feeding on them.

They drop gas canisters to kill the birds, then to send into the town.

Everyone seems dead, including the two military men Most have dropped dead in their tracks But a few show signs of madness and suicide Their blood has crystallized in their bodies They find the satellite in the local doctor's office where he opened it They make to retrieve the satellite when they hear a baby crying Amongst all the dead, they find one live, hungry, colicky baby They also find one other survivor a disheveled man who thinks they're aliens, but he collapsed before they can learn more.

The satellite, the two patients, along with the scientists, are taken to Project Wildfire, an ultra-top-secret, ultra-advanced biohazard facility in the Nevada desert.

Here, the Project Wildfire team assemble for the first time and go through the 16-hour decontamination process to enter the lowest level of the facility, where they will analyze the possibility of an alien contamination or bioweapon.

Stone's first order of business, letting the president know that Piedmont must be nuked to prevent further infection.

Dr.

Hall is given the job of holding the nuclear destruct key.

The base will automatically destroy itself with a nuclear explosion if there is a containment leak.

This will leave only five minutes for Hall to cancel the auto destruct if, in his opinion, It is not warranted.

Dr.

Stone is the designer of the base.

He proposed it and got it paid for by the U.S.

government.

It is the most advanced facility of its kind in the world.

It is comprised of five underground levels, each progressively more contained than the last.

Every precaution possible has been taken to prevent contamination or escape of a pathogen.

Unbeknownst to the team, the president has delayed the detonation of the nuclear bomb, and Piedmont remains a source of infection.

Day three.

Once they reach level five, they begin a methodical investigation.

Lab animals placed in the proximity of the satellite die instantly.

Autopsies of the bodies reveal that it is airborne and somewhere between one and two microns in size, big enough to be a cell.

The scientists begin to speculate that the satellite, known as Project Scoop, was intended to scoop up alien life in space.

Probably true, but they shouldn't assume the contagion is alien just yet.

Dr.

Hall does tests on his two patients.

The man, Jackson, is barely conscious.

And the baby just cries constantly.

The man is anemic, but the child is not.

Analysis of the satellite interior finds a small piece of space matter caught in the webbing.

A deeper look reveals a green goo, which is growing and alive.

A jet flies over Piedmont, and the pilot reports that his rubber parts are turning to dust.

His jet crashes, and the investigation team finds that the pilot has been eaten down to the bones, and all the rubber parts of the plane have dissolved.

Well, actually, one technical nerd points out while pushing up his glasses, there are no rubber parts, just a synthetic substance called polychron.

That, however, has all dissolved.

Hall is making little progress, but he learns that Jackson has ulcers and treats them with sterno.

This throws off his body chemistry, but the baby doesn't have the same problem and seems perfectly healthy.

Hall is convinced that something in their blood prevented them from being killed, and Dr.

Levitt analyzes hundreds of tests to find out if something might retard the growth of the pathogen.

Unfortunately, Levitt has an undisclosed medical condition.

She is epileptic, and flashing red lights cause her to zone out and lose time.

One such red light is the blinking indicator that one of the tests has found something that prevents growth of the pathogen.

She fails to see it.

Day 4.

Analysis continues on the life form, now codenamed the Andromeda strain.

It is made up of standard elements, but it lacks any form of proteins.

It is a crystalline entity.

It is life from beyond the stars.

Probably exactly the sort of thing that Project Scoop was looking for to turn into a bioweapon.

We now learn that the high-security telegraph to the facility has been malfunctioning, and they have neither been receiving nor sending any messages.

Once unjammed, they learn the president has delayed the nuke and about the crashed jet.

They dismiss the jet and concentrate on the fact that the president delayed the nuke.

They implore their people on the outside to convince the president to nuke it straight away.

They get the president's agreement, and Piedmont is on the chopping block.

Their investigation continues, and they learn that the Andromeda Strain can turn anything into new growth, and also that it is growing and mutating.

They realize that a nuke on Piedmont would give it a massive influx of power to grow.

They call and ask the president not to nuke Piedmont.

And they also need to disable the nuke in Project Wildfire.

Maintenance will get on that first thing tomorrow morning.

There may not be a tomorrow.

The seals on Project Wildfire are made of polychron, and the seals in the autopsy lab are compromised.

Dr.

Dutton is trapped and is going to die.

He doesn't want to die, and he's panicking.

They have pumped the lab full of oxygen, which is the medium that showed the slowest growth, hoping to keep him alive a bit longer.

Hall finally pieces it all together.

Andromeda only exists in a narrow band of pH.

The anemic man and the colicky baby are at opposite ends of the pH scale.

The baby's constant crying keeps his blood chemistry out of whack.

Dutton should do the same.

Continue to hyperventilate.

And then they see that the rat is still alive.

Andromeda has mutated into something non-lethal.

And now they know how to kill it.

Pity all the seals on the base or polychron and they begin to fail, triggering the countdown to the nuke.

doors begin to close, locking Hall away from a nuclear disarming station.

He desperately climbs the central core, attacked by automated lasers designed to kill animals attempting to escape the lab.

But he finally reaches level three, which is not yet sealed off, and disarms the nuke.

Days later, the cloud of Andromeda is blowing out to sea, and by seeding the clouds, they cause it to rain, precipitating Andromeda into the sea, where the ocean pH will kill it.

Crisis averted.

this time.

All right.

The Andromeda strain.

So I hear you don't like the remake.

Do you like the old one?

I love this movie.

Should point out, directed by Robert Wise, who, while not exactly...

Day the Earth Stood Still?

Day the Earth Stood Still, Star Trek The Motion Picture, I mean...

Sound of music?

Well, not exactly sci-fi.

I was going to say that three of my favorite science fiction movies of all time are all directed by him.

I absolutely love this movie.

Now, one of the things that I'm absolutely crazy about for this movie is that when I hear the phrase hard science fiction, this is the movie that comes to mind because this one feels about as grounded as it could possibly be and tell a science fiction or speculative fiction type story.

And I, I, I, I need to get the book.

Yeah.

That was written by Michael Crichton, because I'd like to see if there are any differences.

I mean, I have no idea.

I've never read the book, but what I will say about this movie is that it is a very neat, tight science fiction thriller.

And I, I just love the entire world that we, the viewer are thrust into it.

Like I said, it's entirely grounded.

I believe I can believe in everything that they're showing us because it's all technologically feasible.

And that helps to make the movie yet even that more terrifying because what if something like this did happen?

So I think the movie is absolutely brilliant.

I love the cast.

I love the production values.

I cannot find a flaw.

Oh, that sounds like a challenge.

No.

Well, I haven't been able to find a flaw.

I'm sure that I have during past viewings, but right now I cannot think of any.

Okay.

I'm sure it must have.

I can't come up with one.

I know I must have come up with a few during previous watchings with Keith, But in all transparency, I did not do a rewatch of this film because I have seen it like dozens and dozens of times.

So I did not do a rewatch.

I'm kind of playing off of memory.

And I'm fairly certain that there are one or two story points that were questionable to me as I saw the movie.

I just cannot recall them right now.

And if anything, that is a strength to all of the good things that this movie has to offer.

that any nitpicky or issues that I had to call into question are kind of drowned out by everything great that I thought about this movie.

It is an excellent film, and I've probably seen it five times in my life.

The first, definitely being on World Beyond Theater.

I was going to ask.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Definitely, that was the first time I saw it.

And it is an excellent film.

I agree with your assessment that it is, you know, we're talking in the range of it feels like hard science fiction.

And knowing how Michael Crichton works, he's really good at making even things that may be not hard science fiction, sound like hard science fiction.

So, you know, not being a virologist and whatnot, I'll reserve judgment on whether or not people think this is like, but it does absolutely feels like it.

And Robert Weiss's direction and structure of this definitely add to that.

But, and, you know, not knowing, also not having read the book and having watched this film probably less than a, I don't know, less than a year ago.

And then having watched it again for this and when you're writing up the synopsis, I realized it's like we spend a lot of time just showing off tech in this film.

The whole decontamination process, the medical doctor, the computer scanners, the computer medical analysis, the light pen, there is an awful lot of stuff that you could argue does not advance the plot, but it does advance the atmosphere.

Yes.

The seriousness of it.

And this could be deathly, deathly dull.

and somehow weiss managed to translate that into workable movie but i i yeah like this book would if the book is like this i would have read this book and go cool book but i don't think that would ever make a good movie you make a very good point there and and i agree with you it is very techie 1970s techie you know i and but what's so good about it for me and i remember thinking this the last time i watched it is that in spite of the fact that this 1971s tech and and i think maybe this maybe it helps because i was alive back then i mean i was 10 years old so i don't you know i wasn't into that kind of technology you know and the kind of computers and and medical equipment that they had at that time, at least in Project Wildfire, still by giving us this, it almost feels like world building.

Yeah.

And by doing that, it helps build an even greater sense of reality to the situation as they go through all of this.

And I'm sure some people might think, oh, this is just dull and boring spin on.

I don't feel that way.

I'm completely compelled with everything that all these people have to go through before they can finally get down to the lowest level of wildfire and do their actual work.

and that helps build the tension the suspense all of that it it's it's it's all part and parcel to the world building that we're seeing here as they go through all these these i'm not going to call them roadblocks but these are technological speed bumps that they all have to go over and go through just so they can finally start doing their work.

And like I said, it is the best case of world building for 1971 that I have ever seen.

And I have to tip my hat to Robert Wise on that one.

Maybe it was his production crew.

I don't know.

But I think- He gets credit.

Yeah.

He's going to get the credit because he's the director of the movie.

And it doesn't slow down the story for me at all.

And I think one of the ways that also works is the cast.

especially with let me see who uh dr levitt i mean that woman is snarky yeah and she helps to deliver a rather peculiar uh sense and and yet not ill-placed levity do you see what i just did yeah levity yeah right yeah i'll be here all week yeah yeah yeah make sure to tip you know try the steak tip your waiter she provides this great bit of humor it's dark humor yeah but it's there and it it it helps to keep the story energy moving forward okay maybe you're not exactly advanced some people can say you're not advancing the plot i don't agree because i think going through all of this stuff is part of the plot You know, it obviously shows how serious they take it, and that's good.

And I think, you know, knowing what I know about Michael Crichton, right, he does write based on technology, right?

He gets ideas in his head that he wants to use, and then he is very good, or was, I should say, at taking those things and injecting them into his stories, but at the same time, weaving an interesting story around them.

And you can imagine, for example, again, not having read the book, but there is an awful lot of time, assuming that it's the same, of them going through the the decontamination process.

But in a book, you could spend a lot of time in the characters' heads or giving them more time to talk and discuss or whatever it is so that you could keep the story interesting while still doing the process.

Whereas in a visual medium, that does get a bit minimized, And yet Weiss does a really, really good job of holding it.

And it's still kind of like, you know, now we look back on it and some of the tech seems a little dated, perhaps.

Seems a little?

Well, I don't know.

It's quite dated.

I don't know.

Do they burn off flesh layers with xenon lamps or, you know, things like that?

I genuinely don't know.

I was just thinking about the computers that they were using.

Oh yeah, the computers, absolutely.

Absolutely they are.

But I'm thinking in terms of we still don't have a full diagnostic medical doc computer.

Palm scanners exist, but they're not as advanced as what we saw on that.

You know, so there's still stuff there that that holds up and you go, yeah, this is still a high tech base, even if the computers are clunky and they have a teletype that can be jammed up by a piece of paper.

But we will come back.

We will come back to that.

So I did do watch this.

And as always, I now make excuse for my notes.

But this today's worse than usual because I allocate time in my calendar for doing my notes, which I did this morning.

Watched the film yesterday, did typed up my notes, was going to type up my notes this morning, and I got called away on two unexpected errands.

So I had to vastly compress my note taking and organizing time.

So in no particular order, let's see what I've got to discuss.

Why didn't the carrion eating birds die?

I mean, they killed them with gas, but what's the next batch of carrying and eating birds coming over there and eating the flesh, right?

They would have to just keep killing.

I know they were supposed to nuke the place, but nonetheless, it's like, why didn't those birds die when it's clear that the town is still infected?

Because a plane flying over gets wiped out.

we'll come back to the plane but and apparently people i mean people were dying rapidly yeah the rats or the lab mice they were dying yeah it was instantaneous death so regardless of the size of the person or or living organism that was infected by andromeda death was virtually instantaneous for most people.

Yeah.

So you think it would have happened really fast with the carrion eaters as well.

I wonder if carrion eaters have a different pH in their blood.

Maybe.

Just enough to slow it down or...

But okay, so then that brings the next question.

Why didn't they die right away?

That should have been a question that was asked.

If they...

Yeah, it should have been asked.

That's right.

That's my point.

The characters should have asked why didn't they die.

The scientists should have asked that question.

Why didn't they ask it?

Instead, they just assumed.

They just made some assumption.

Now, granted, we're all in a panic situation.

We're all reacting.

We're all trying to put a stop to this so we're not thinking like scientists, or at least not in a purely empirical sort of way where everything is all about the data.

You're just reacting.

And the reflex action would be, kill the birds.

But at some point, somebody should have asked, why weren't they in effect?

Well, they didn't know how fast people died either at the point when they gassed the birds, but then they should have come back to it.

They should have looped back to it.

So there is a theme that runs through Michael Crichton's works.

And I think that it's used a little bit poorly in some of his later works, like Westworld and Jurassic Park about science goes wrong.

I know you're going to say that, but in this film, science doesn't go wrong.

Well, mistakes have been made.

That could be the subtitle of this film.

Mistakes have been made.

And I think that's a brilliant aspect of this film because humans make mistakes.

And in this case, they get through it without a major, you know, theme park being wiped out.

But as far as we know, Disneyland might have been downwind.

I don't know.

Hey, Dad, can we go to Andromeda Strainland?

Yeah.

I hear that the base is an eight-ticket ride.

Yeah.

So the...

But, you know, this is what happens.

The best laid plans of mice and men.

And we see mistakes.

We see them not ask the question about the birds.

We see them go, wait a minute, to never mind about the plane.

Never mind about that.

That's probably nothing.

Let's go find out why the president didn't nuke the town like told him to do.

Right.

There are, you know, there are personal mistakes.

Dr.

Levitt having epilepsy and not telling it.

And I, and I love the scene where the doctor, not Dr.

Levitt, but Dr.

Stone is saying, I think it's Dr.

Hall says, why didn't you tell us?

And Dr.

Stone is like, well, you know, prejudice, prejudice.

insurance problems.

She couldn't get a job.

And, you know, that's, you know, it's, it's really, it kind of sounds like, you know, it's really a shame that this happens, but actually, damn it.

She caused, it was her, there is a reason why insurance would have a problem with her having epilepsy on a job like this.

And, and it manifests itself in this episode or this, in this movie.

So it's like, well, you know, it sounds harsh, but maybe there was an accurate reason for it.

It's not just, you know, she had to hide it because she couldn't get a job.

It's like, oh, maybe she couldn't get a job that she shouldn't have.

But on the other hand, perform a specific task that might trigger a moment.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, OK, we can argue that the world should be changed so we don't have flashing red lights in case someone is epileptic.

And I don't know if that's part of the ADA or not.

Right.

Which didn't exist in 1971.

But, you know, do we make does the world make allowances like that in the same way that we make allowances for for access ramps and things like that?

I honestly don't know, but it is, you know, it feels like something that Crichton wanted to bring out is this, this unfairness of that.

But at the same time, it's like, it's a good reason for it in this film.

It proves there was a good reason for it.

And despite the fact that she's that, that she's actually quite brilliant.

Yeah.

I mean, she's an excellent scientist.

She, she knows her stuff.

She's really good.

She just has this one, ailment, which unfortunately does her lab assistant know?

I think her lab assistant that we see the beginning of the movie, I believe the lab assistant does know.

I think she was covering for her.

I do too.

Are you alright, Dr.

Levitt?

There's nothing wrong with her that a little sleep won't cure.

She just needs some rest.

That felt like a very quick jump to defense.

It did.

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

I thought another, and this I'm going to assume this is down to Crichton.

Not this is not right.

It is absolutely a brilliant, brilliant technique of having their doctor have an appendicitis because it allows them to bring in the second string doctor, Dr.

Hall, who is supposed to, you know, he's in the string.

He's these number two man.

But it gives us the opportunity to, as you should know, you know, oh, you didn't read the manuals.

Well, as you should know.

So they can give us they can give us explanatory exposition to the audience by giving it to him.

And not making it feel like it's padding, because there's one thing that just really bugs me is when there is unnecessary exposition.

Right.

Just because you feel you have to explain it to the audience.

Well, and it's also, you know, I'm making the joke there.

You know, as you know, this is so commonly used.

Two experts on a topic do not need to one person say to the other.

Well, as you know, the amino acids cause the blood.

It's like, you don't need that because it insults the two characters, but you need it to give it.

Somehow you have to give it to the audience.

doing it this way, absolutely pitch perfect way of doing it.

And the fact that Hall was a little bit dismissive of this whole thing, like I don't buy into science fiction.

So it was good.

He knows enough to do the job, so we don't have to bring him up to speed.

But anything that needs explaining the suits for working in or the computers or anything, we can use Dr.

Hall to, it's perfect.

And he's the one who ends up realizing the key to Andromeda about how it exists within the narrow pH range.

Right.

And it's also really cool that, and I'm thinking this is probably a bit wise.

I mean, it may be in the book, but the way it's done, I feel like it's a bit wise.

So you bring Dr.

Stone, you bring Dr.

Dutton, you bring Dr.

Levitt.

And then we saw that Dr.

Kirk is having an emergency appendectomy.

And then we cut to a scene where a man is about to have an appendectomy.

They're about to cut into a guy and the military show up and stop the procedure.

You're like, are they going to pull that guy off the flipping table?

Is that Dr.

Kirk that they're operating on?

No, it's not.

It's the doctor.

It's a nice little bait and switch.

But you feel like, wow, this is super serious if they're going to get the guy and not let him have his appendectomy.

Because they need him for this project.

The needs of the many.

Yes.

It's like, don't worry.

We've got a better doc in the truck that will give you the appendectomy on the way to Project Wildfire.

You know, or something like that.

But I did.

I really did.

When they exposed the guy's area there and they're about to cut in, I'm like, that's dr kirk nope well who knows maybe it was dr kirk but probably not we know yeah so i thought that was that was fantastic i also really like the flash forward where there we're in a closed door congressional hearing senate hearing and only the general is there none of the people from wildfire are there they could be dead the world could there could have been a big problem and And, you know, the Senate is like, mistakes have been made.

And the general is like, OK, well, you know, this, that and the other.

And you're like, oh, I still don't know the outcome of this film, but I know it didn't go to plan.

And I think that technique works really well.

That's a really good storytelling technique.

And it's certainly one to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat wondering, where did it all go wrong?

Did we lose anybody?

don't usually like that.

I don't usually like a story where they start off at the end and then you're like, Oh, look how this bad thing is happening.

And it's, Oh, it looks terrible.

And then we flash back to the entire story.

I really generally find those to be devoid of imagination and creating a cheap sense of suspense that, that I don't think very rarely works, but in this film doing it the way they did it worked it worked it gives us just enough to know that things we don't know what's going to happen this could be a catastrophe clearly the senate's not happy about the money they spent because of this catastrophe or whatever and that none of the doctors are there so we don't know if any of them are going to survive and yeah no it worked I thought Dr.

Stone was there.

No, not in the closed door session.

It's just the general.

And so you're saying Dr.

Stone misled us.

And the general's like, I wouldn't go as far as to say that.

Not intentionally anyway.

Stone is not there.

There is another scene with the Senate and Dr.

Stone.

But that is actually, I think that's meant to be a flashback.

Same room and everything.

Well, there's one that happens at the very end of the movie.

Yes, he's there for that one.

Right.

But I think there might have been another one when he's pitching the project when they flashback to 1969.

That one feels like a flashback.

Yeah.

It's marked as 1969 in the credits or the lower thirds.

So they are playing around a little bit with time.

But for the most part, we are fixed on the four-day crisis with just a couple of asides here and there.

Also, here's another Crichton hallmark, right?

If you think about Jurassic Park as an example, what flashes out as the idea that Crichton wants to convey?

Science without morality is a dangerous thing.

Exactly.

That's the bigger theme.

and and drama the drama strain has a bigger theme but there's another piece in jurassic park that is very highly quoted but it's just because of jeff goldblum it's really kind of a it's really kind of a thing but clearly creighton had read something on chaos theory ah and here it's the odd man out theory it's like he probably read that in a book and he goes gotta work that in Got to work the odd man out theory.

And okay, let's do that.

Which is the theory that a single unmarried man is the most likely person to allow a nuclear explosion or to correctly deduce when to do a nuclear explosion.

And I think it's kind of neat that in that very scene, when they're explaining it to him, and we don't know about Dr.

Levitt is obviously not a man.

So does not fall into that category.

1971.

I mean, I think there's, I think the reason the lab assistant might know about Dr.

Levitt's condition, maybe they're a little closer than perhaps they should be.

But that's pure speculation.

In the book, I do know that Dr.

Levitt was a man.

Ah, that's right.

I did read that.

So, but Dr.

Dutton and Dr.

Stone both have families.

And when they're explaining the odd man out theory and they're explaining the way to work, the key works.

And they say to Hall, they say, so you have five minutes to decide and get to a station and turn, turn the key.

And Dr.

Dutton, a married man said, and you have five minutes to make the decision to not let it go.

right please god don't blow us up right showing that he can't make the right decision he's gonna go with now don't don't nuke it even if it's right he's good he he's he's he's kind of laying his his prejudice there of not doing it but they built this thing in because we really need to and i and i'm i'm i'm on board with the concept it's like okay you gotta nuke this thing from orbit, literally a quote from aliens, but yeah, you got the only way to be sure you've, you've got to burn it.

You've got to burn it an intense 10.

That's what you would do with any, any earthly thing.

Right.

So it is, it is the logical precaution.

Despite the fact that I checked that map and it's basically sitting in bullhead city population, 43,000 today.

It's 122 miles from anything.

No, it isn't.

Not anymore.

that must be like 30 kilometers 30 kilometers from Bullhead City if I got that map pinpointing correct because it was a little bit hard to line it up but it's close that's where that is also very close to the Colorado River which feeds a lot of water to you know Arizona and California used to anyway before it started to run dry but yeah let's see we can talk a little bit about the body contamination.

Let's see.

What did we have?

We had the medical body analyzers, which they, you know, it's for NASA, but it, it's going to take care of the problem with doctors.

They make a joke, you know, doctors are going to have to start doing house calls again.

Why didn't it catch epilepsy?

If it's so good?

Not good enough.

Let's put it that way.

Not good enough.

No, I don't.

Because that's a neurological ailment.

You'd think they would have flashed some lights at their face for a little bit to see if they have any response.

Because it did do something like that to Dr.

Hall to distract him from getting his injections.

True.

You know, that is a really good point.

So what happened to Hall?

I don't remember that happening to Levitt.

No, they didn't show.

they showed each person having different parts of the process, which good, because you don't need to show two people having the same part of the process.

We know it's all the same for all of them.

But yes, I think he deliberately didn't show Levitt having the part where they're flashing, none of which were really red.

It was multicolored lights, but I couldn't tell what it was doing to Hall.

Was it trying to bewilder him or trigger a reaction, or is it just trying to distract him while it snuck up with a needle and gave him a shot.

And, you know, would he really have needed distracting?

It's like, now we're going to give you a shot.

Fine.

Give me the shot.

Give it to me.

Yeah.

Walking through the mud.

I know that's a thing that they have to do with decontamination process because you pick up stuff on your feet.

And so they make you go through a special foot walk, like walking over coals, except you're walking through goo.

They had the xenon lamp thing, which burned off their hair and the top layer of their skin, except for their face and facial hair.

It was like, well, how did they clean up the face and the facial hair?

Or is it just like, yeah, we got 90 percent.

Good enough.

And suppositories to clean up their GI tract.

Yay.

Yeah.

But again, it really does lend itself to the completeness of what they're doing and how serious Dr.

Stone has planned this out.

We're getting all those spots and then you're going to have to eat lousy food and liquids and whatnot.

Sexy voice, 67-year-old lady in Omaha.

That was quite funny.

It was quite funny.

That was Dr.

Hall's funny moment during the entire examination bit.

which yeah i thought that was most amusing yeah so and you know we know that that was true there it's probably i'm sure there still are but you know there are people who are employed to record messages and subway announcements and you know the woman who does the japanese subway is quite famous oh or the tokyo subway in fact i think they they hired her back to do some sort of anniversary special or something for it.

It's such a, so well known of a voice and you know, some people have fantastic voices well into their sixties and they just, I assume that this is a thing that happened to Crichton.

He found out about this and goes, okay, I'm going to work that one in.

I would really love to find out who actually did the voice.

Was it a 67 year old lady?

because I don't think it sounded like one.

I don't think there's a credit for it.

I don't think so either.

Light pens.

Woohoo.

The technology that everybody wanted to make happen and didn't.

Right.

I remember when they were trying to, I had a light pen for one of my old PCs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember being at a, oh gosh, this was back in the 80s.

I remember being at a big, weekend long computer festival in San Francisco and someone was demonstrating light pens, you know, as something, you know, for the regular consumer.

And I thought, that is just the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Yeah.

I, I, I had one, you had to have a special interface.

This was like an IBM PC AT era, very early 80, 80s kind of stuff.

And I had, I got one and it worked if you had any software.

I mean, it came with something to show you that it worked, but then find something else that actually worked with it was not, uh, not actually a practical system.

Okay.

Project scoop out there looking for stuff, doing a space material collection mission.

Yes.

The material is different.

I mean, obviously, they've got some sort of, you can see the inside of that satellite that it's just basically lined with material, a net, basically, a webbing to catch it.

That's what they do now, except they use aerogel because it's even lighter and softer and whatnot.

But it is exactly how it's done.

So obviously, Crichton looked into that and that they probably were people doing research on how to do sample return missions.

And that's what you do.

Pity the satellite came down in the wrong place.

No kidding.

Mistakes have been made.

Yes.

And the crazy old town doctor decides to open it up.

What do we got here?

It's like, oh God, no.

Well, clearly he hadn't seen the Andromeda strain, so he had no idea what he was dealing with.

I don't know if I would do that, but somebody found a container out and I don't know if I would open it.

I sure as hell wouldn't.

No, but I've seen the Andromeda strains.

So yeah, exactly.

I'm a little, I'm a little better educated.

Here's the thing that here's the thing.

If in a doctor, here's the thing that's a little weird in the film that never gets explored.

When stone and, and Leavitt are looking at the, the, the, the meteoric rock or whatever we want to call it.

At points, he says it looks more like artificially made material.

And then they get distracted by the life form on it and they drop that line of reasoning entirely.

And if you'll recall, one of Dutton's big things is that he thinks that this could be the way that an alien race would send you a message.

Yeah.

That they're out there.

Which, you know, if the if the piece of meteor is artificially created, then that probably is what this is.

It is it is an attempt to what could be just spaceflight.

But I mean, it it could be a sign of intelligence, not just a stray bacteria or whatever we want to call this traveling through through space.

So, yeah.

Okay.

Now, here is one of the things that I think is a flaw in the film.

We see that the, well, first off, we saw that the birds weren't killed in the town.

Then we see that a plane strays over the area and that the polycron, which the nerd scientist says is a polymer sort of with a texture of or the properties of human skin.

He says that doesn't make much sense in context when he says it.

It's like, well, that's an awfully odd thing to tell your superior about the properties of Polychron, but all right.

It's like just all he needs to know is it's a synthetic rubber replacement that we use on jets for varieties.

You don't care that it's fleshy, but the pilot was eaten to the bone.

Yeah.

So in Piedmont, the virus that was there mutated to eat flesh and polychrome.

That is the cloud that's flying over the southwestern United States.

Yeah.

The one that eats flesh.

Mm-hmm.

Then a completely separate population of Andromeda in the lab, because the mutation hasn't happened yet, mutates to eat Polychron.

Weird coincidence.

Yeah.

Not flesh.

But not flesh.

This one does the Polychron thing, but not the flesh thing.

So it's a different mutation, but it's awfully.

Very close.

It's, yeah, it's awfully coincidental.

I get why you say, oh, this is Polychron.

So that when later on, Dr.

Dr.

Stone says, well, you know, they've all got Polychron seals and you go, oh, slap forehead.

But actually they are two separate mutations and that should not, that is not how mutations should work.

Okay.

It's an alien life form, but if it's going to follow the same pattern, then it should be eating flesh too.

So I, I do see that as a, not just a nitpick.

That's a little bit, we, we, you know, because they totally dismissed the whole plane bit.

Yeah.

Don't worry about the plane.

It's like, no, worry about the plane.

Worry about the guy who was eaten to the bones.

Worry about that.

I wish they had left that part out.

I wish they had left out the, the, the pilot's bone.

He's just, he fell apart.

He died.

It adds nothing to the rest of the film.

It doesn't change anything.

No.

To the audience.

Maybe we're a little more worried, but.

Yeah.

But you're right.

At the same time, it's adding a false red flag in a sense.

That's what it is.

It's a false red flag.

And of course, actually is.

I said it was the cloud over Piedmont.

And I think that they said that as well in the synopsis.

What about the cloud that escaped Wildfire?

Do those two clouds merge?

Because Wildfire will have compromised and it will have gotten out.

And I think that's inevitable.

just like the cloud over Piedmont.

So there is actually two populations of Andromeda at two different mutation levels traveling around.

I, as has someone who has worked on teletypes long ago or terminals that are teletype-ish like.

Yeah, I have too.

The fact that the paper jammed the bell is not impossible.

No, but highly remote.

Highly unlikely, kind of hella amusing.

Looking back on it, it's like, yeah, yeah, those, yeah.

But on the control station at the top, when the, when the sergeant's getting a little bit salty, when, when Stone is like, got any messages for me?

No, sir.

You sure you haven't got any message for you?

No, sir.

I mean, we should really have some messages.

No, look, sir.

I got one job.

I'll listen for that bell.

When the bell comes in, I push that button.

then i get the message it's sent automatically to all your consoles downstairs bell hasn't rung sir no messages how then are those messages on the teletypes down below he didn't push the button no he didn't well he didn't hear the bell therefore he didn't push the button therefore those messages shouldn't have gotten through and if they had been going through surely somebody's job it is downstairs to look at the teletype and go maybe we should let dr stone know i mean there's a lot of people in that base.

And also they make a, they make a deal out of the fact that they haven't heard from project wildfire.

And I was calling, you kind of get the impression.

Well, yeah, we're going to get to that.

You kind of get the impression that when they're sending messages, they're not going either because of the broken communication, but that wouldn't make any sense at all because it's only the bell that's broken.

So if they did send anything, so actually stone hasn't sent them any messages and they're all like, Hey, shouldn't we be getting an update here from you?

And so it does it again.

It fakes out.

We as the audience are aware that there is a problem with communications before we are told what it is.

Once we are told what it is, it's like, wait, that wouldn't have actually worked both ways, but okay.

And then, and this is the, this is the kicker.

Once they find out that the president hasn't ordered it, they just pick up the phone and call on their video phone.

Yeah.

Couldn't exactly.

Couldn't they have just picked up the phone and called Dr.

Stone?

It's like, we haven't gotten it.

We've been sending you this stuff about the jet when we think that's probably important and that you, that you, we didn't nuke Piedmont.

We think that's probably important.

And then you're just ignoring us.

So we thought, we'll just give you a call.

That be my thought.

And that's the one.

Okay.

I remember how top of the show, I kept thinking, I know there was something that I'd always complained about.

And I couldn't remember what it was.

That was the one.

That's the one.

It's a lack of communication for even just, I mean, especially with something this sensitive, There should be some really regular communication going on in some form or another.

And the fact that there wasn't any, even if, okay, so let's assume that, I mean, okay, so Stone sends the message, nuke Piedmont.

The White House messages back, president's waiting, and they don't get a confirmation.

He didn't message them.

He didn't message them.

Well, my point is, is that there should have been a, some kind of confirmation in one form or another, that message was received and there wasn't any of that.

Well, that was the point where he was pesting the, the Sergeant, right?

Cause he, he asked for the, he asked for the 712 when he was in the helicopter on the radio and the, this is a secure line, cut it out.

It says, order the 712, I'll tell the president or whatever.

And then he goes to the base.

And the first thing he's doing is like, have I gotten any messages?

Have I gotten any messages?

Like no bell, sir.

Well, then at that point I'd be going over him.

That's when I go over him to say.

He should have.

Yeah.

That's the big mistake.

Mistakes have been made.

That's the big mistake.

And yet it wasn't.

Because if they nuked the town.

Oh boy.

That would have been a huge mistake.

The deadly version would have gone at that point.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Also, you know, another thing about this and another thing about Michael Crichton films, it's like, OK, right, we could bring dinosaurs back.

Well, your scientists were so concerned about deciding whether you should do something.

You know, you should do it.

It's like, no, no, I hate that.

I dislike Dr.

Malcolm in Jurassic Park.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be some ethics involved in in what you do in science.

But his sort of wishy-washy, oh my gosh, anything could go wrong, therefore do nothing, irritates the hell out of me.

And there's a line in this when he says, oh, you got to do this thing because we could extinguish all life on Earth.

And the guy says, it's rash statements like that, that the president doesn't trust scientists.

Right?

It's like scientists raising alarms.

Oh, you're always raising alarms about something.

You're always complaining about something so you can get more grants or so you can get more money so you can do more research.

You scientists and we that's why we've had trouble with you scientists.

And we even come back to that with Dr.

What's his name?

Knapp Karp, Dr.

Rudolph Karp, the seemingly mentor to Dr.

Levitt, who is convinced that microbes could come in on meteorites.

hey, how about that Martian meteorite that we found in, I think, the Arctic that has what looks to be fossils of microbes on it, the meteor from Mars.

We kind of abandoned research in that because they've gone to a dead end on it and other avenues of Martian life have manifested themselves that are more promising.

But, you know, it's right on point.

Microbes could come in on meteorites.

And he's like, oh, I told them the proof and they would not listen to me.

And then later in the film, we learn that he went behind the iron curtain.

He defected to the Soviets because we wouldn't give him any money.

So you can kind of see there is a there's another line with one of the senators.

We've had problems with scientists like that before.

There is that whole, hey, we don't fund them.

They're going to go over to the bad guys.

scientists aren't trustworthy.

They're only in it for the money or for the, the, I, for somebody who is so fascinated by the tech and the, the, the, the technology and the science as Crichton seems to be, he also, and yes, I know things have to go wrong to make an interesting story, but.

Is he forcing Mary Shelley to apologize yet again?

He is kind of her.

He is kind of her, her torchbearer in the future.

Although I like his, I like his work better, but, uh, and here we are in 2025 living in a world where scientists and scientific knowledge about, Oh, I don't know.

Medicine is being completely just ignored because scientists, you know, put scientists telling us what we want.

I am.

All right.

I'm not going down that hole.

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't, we don't need to do that.

But also, so, you know, that shows a prejudice against scientists.

It's rash statements like that.

The president doesn't trust scientists.

Fine.

It irritates me and annoys the heck out of me, but it's a real thing, particularly from stupid senators because they're elected morons.

They're not elected smart people.

Okay.

We won't go any further down there.

But then, and then what?

Two minutes later, they call the president up and go, no, no, no, no.

Don't do the nuke.

Don't do the nuke.

Sorry, we were wrong five minutes ago.

Don't do the nuke.

But the president's going to do the nuke.

Don like the planet's going to be destroyed by global warming if we don't do something and nobody does anything.

It's very seldom that, you know, it's five minutes, five minutes between, you know, we get everybody to agree to go ahead with it and they go, whoops, sorry, we were wrong.

Because as you may recall, there are people who now say that, you know, oh, back in the 70s, scientists were protecting global cooling.

Oh, yeah, that was a thing.

No, it wasn't.

Not really.

That was not the consensus.

Not at any point.

That was not the consensus.

There was an In Search of episode on it, and they got all the quacks.

Well, I remember hearing about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, there were people saying it, but unlike now, where there is consensus.

Back then, they were definitely outliers, and they were not right.

Right?

The process proved them wrong.

But now, 50 years later, people are looking back, say, remember when you guys said it was going to be global cooling and now it's global warming?

Make up your minds.

Like, we did make up our minds.

We had never made up our minds that it was going to be global cooling.

That was some people who were shouting loudly, but not who you should have been listening to or not the consensus you should have been listening to anyway.

But that's, you know, decades.

People love to say, oh, science used to say that the Earth was flat.

Oh, science now says the earth is round.

Oh, you guys don't know anything.

Oh, it kind of annoys me that they do that in this film too.

Kinda?

Well, you know, I have to have something to be outraged about.

And there it is.

Here's another one that's a little bit weird.

There are three turn off the detonation stations on each level.

And Stone says to Hall, after we did some practice runs, We decided that we needed to have five, but those haven't been installed.

Not installed yet.

I feel like that they've got the wires hanging out the thing and they've got a crisis going that maybe they should have an electrical team working on that.

But, you know, it's just like we'll disable the nuke tomorrow morning.

Yeah, it's pretty large.

Is it to just, you know, get a team down there and just plug that, you know, that interface in and you're done?

Yes.

But consider the original design of the station had three.

So they are on the original design of the base.

And when there's a contamination leak, they seal off doors, physical doors, that there are sections where you cannot reach the anti-nuke thing.

That doesn't feel like the kind of problem you discover.

Yeah, that doesn't feel like the kind of problem you go, yeah, in our test runs.

In our test runs, we've decided we needed five.

That feels more like we turned out five minutes wasn't long enough.

So we decided to make more of them.

Not, oh, it turns out you could actually have gotten locked in some of these sections.

Oops.

And can't get to the denuke-a-fire.

Yeah.

So yes, that didn't quite work.

I've always kind of wondered if five minutes was maybe just too short.

Yeah.

It kind of depends on how fast the seals are breaking down too.

Yeah.

Right?

I mean, you got five layers.

It's like, yeah, with a smart computer.

But yeah, I think you'd have one of those in every room.

Every room that could get sealed off should have one of those panels.

I mean, there's only one guy that's got the thing.

That added some expense.

We couldn't afford the $50,000 to make the goat track look like a goat track.

Whoops.

Yeah.

Okay.

So here's another one.

We are working on the assumption that evolution is involved here, that somehow these mutations, the evolution is a process that is not, even if a series of, even a completely alien life form like the Andromeda strain that mutates, right?

Mutations, you don't have to be caught up in earthly evolution to be affected by the the nature of evolution, which is those that don't die pass on their traits to their future offspring.

So these things are mutating.

You know what pushes along mass, what lethal mutations?

Well, you're in medical facility.

You know what causes it?

Not using antibiotics correctly or creating antibiotic resistant germs because you kill 99% of them but the 1% that lives are nasty.

Well, they dump that cloud of all the Andromeda strain in the ocean where the pH will kill them.

Will it or will it kill 98% of them?

And if it kills 98% of them and they live in the water we have a problem.

a big problem there's your sequel the let's see what would it be called what's a what's a good space name that starts with a b borealis the borealis strain the borealis strain and not andromeda strain too wrath of the andromeda or the fact that it's underwater you could call it the Poseidon strain or the Neptune strain something yeah so let's see let's let's talk about the characters so we've got Dr.

Stone who just seems to be a very boring dedicated thorough professional who does make mistakes I like the fact that when he is in his sleep time between levels four and five or whichever it was that he's he's playing back the scenes of the dead people in his mind in the town yeah and one of them is his wife she's lying dead in their living room he's imagining he's imagining it that's right he's projecting it but it shows you know it shows that character and i'll say that that scene and many other instances robert wise uses a weird technique of superimposing squares of two scenes simultaneously.

It works, but it adds an air of distinctness to the film, so I'm not busting on it exactly.

I particularly like it most in the scene where we see them going from window to door to door in Piedmont and looking in.

Yeah, that works for the best.

It works very well in Piedmont because it helps to advance the narrative in a much faster sort of way without losing time.

That way, you're now seeing everything that they're observing, and yet we're not kind of just trodging along at the same time.

But when he's doing it for what they're thinking, it's not quite as effective.

I mean, you know, there are conventions about how people, how we convey on film what people are dreaming or imagining or whatnot.

And it's not that here's a split screen kind of thing.

It still works because it's already been established as a technique, but it is a little bit, it's being used differently, right?

It's not being used as a two view of what's going on.

It's now being used as a window into their mind.

And it's so that he's using the technique in two different ways during the course of the film.

And it's, I like it better in Piedmont than I do later on.

So we got, uh, we got, uh, Dr.

Charles Dutton.

He is an older man and he's obviously been giving a lot of thought to alien life contact.

So that's like his, his thing.

Dr.

Levitt obviously has some vested interest.

She's clearly has some respect.

Dr.

Karp for Dr.

Karp.

Karp.

Yeah.

Karp.

And they are, both of them get a little uppity about this whole project scoop thing.

Looking for looking for.

It's interesting that it's never quite confirmed that project scoop is looking for alien bioweapons.

It's looking for alien lights.

Definitely looking for alien life, but it's not, it's not a, yeah, It's never quite confirmed that it's a facility designed for biological warfare.

But, you know, you're thinking the military is involved.

So they're thinking, well, we'll, you know how the military funds stuff when they think they might be able to turn it into a weapon.

So I can see how you would leap to that conclusion.

And, of course, bio warfare has was was an issue.

The concern at that time.

So still is not saying it isn't now.

But, you know, it was a concern that had already come up.

So you could see how that would work its way into Crichton's work.

And then Dr.

Hall, uh, he's got nothing cause he's the odd man out.

He's got no character, no background, no nothing.

Except he likes the sexy voice of the, of the, um, of the computer lady.

And of course, Dr.

Dutton is like, you know, we don't want to kill it.

Cause it could be, you know, this could be, could be intelligent.

It could be.

Also just could be his life from space.

You know what I do?

Yeah.

On the flip side, But for a film that is the way the film is, for what it projects and how it's not coarse, it's not vulgar, it's just a matter-of-factual, day-to-day kind of operation, I do think it's interesting that not only did they have the naked woman, or let's go topless, but it looks like she's probably naked.

they not only do they show her topless corpse full on which would have true thrown the rating off probably on that alone might have bumped the rating on this film up and it's a i don't know yeah is it well did they have them in 71 yes this movie was rated g because they rated they post post rating system went back and rated old films but i think i don't know but anyway they not only do they have her, but that is the square where they stop using the square technique.

So they actually literally kind of zoom in on her.

So we get more breasts than we would have just in the little box.

It's like, huh, interesting decision, director.

Why that particular one did you want to focus on?

Are you saying Robert Wise is a dirty old man?

No, not necessarily.

I'm just saying choice.

Maybe it was to appeal to the purian interest of teenage audiences.

I don't know.

Let's see.

Dr.

Karp talked about that.

We've talked about epilepsy, and we've mentioned that this was Robert Weiss, the brilliant Robert Weiss.

Also, music from this, Gil Millet, which podcast listeners should know, Cole Jack the Night Stalker.

Of course.

Might not know, although podcast listeners to this podcast should know, that the music for Night Stalker was actually, much of it was lifted from the Quester tapes, also by Gil Millay.

Okay.

So, since we've done both those shows on this podcast, it's like, you know, some listeners may have heard Gil Millay.

I don't know that I have anything else, though, on this show.

I really don't have much anything else, except, again, to say that, you know, we've covered the shortcomings of this film.

But everything else...

They're minor.

These are relatively minor.

The strengths of this movie clearly outweigh any of the movie's deficiencies.

And I'd be fascinated to show this to somebody who is just...

Okay, so let me ask this.

Have you ever shown this to your kids?

No.

I'd be fascinated to know what they think of it.

I don't think...

Not even my wife has seen it.

So typically speaking, when I start watching any kind of a movie, the kids leave.

Hmm.

Doesn't matter what it is.

It's very rare.

Occasionally, James will wander in and he'll see something on and he'll watch it and then he'll sit down for 10 or 15 minutes and then he'll get up and leave.

I'd be fascinated to see what a young person who's just developing their interest into science fiction, be it books or especially in this case, movies.

what they would think of this movie.

Well, obviously somebody thought that it needed to be remade to tap into a whole new audience.

Do you want to give me a little...

Very, very brief.

What is it that they did wrong?

I mean, did they change the story?

Did they...

They pretty much changed the story.

I mean, Andromeda finally does make its way and it starts killing life everywhere.

And then they seed the clouds so it does rain if i remember right it does rain as it's traveling over the country and then it sort of stops it in its tracks but not after it does a whole lot of damage to the u.s and there is i i think the man i can't remember the movie is really awful so bad that i i think i i'm trying to forget it but i think there is a nuclear explosion at the facility where they were designing it and there's a lot of very needless needless character development that i i just couldn't figure out why the heck they wanted to do it i mean one of the one of the leading characters is played by rick schroeder and all of a sudden whoever made this this remake decided that it was necessary to uh talk about don't ask don't tell by making his character gay even No, it doesn't get explored any further.

It's just a dropped reference.

And he's got a feud going on.

Did that replace epilepsy?

Epilepsy is the don't ask, don't tell.

Maybe, but we never see.

But in the case of Levitt, we see how the epilepsy actually plays a part in the plot.

We don't see that here.

Instead, we see there's this longstanding feud going on between him and I think, I can't remember the name of the character, but it's played by Edward James Olmos.

No, not Edward James Olmos.

Oh, shoot.

man, I can't remember who played that.

It's not worth it.

Don't worry about it.

It's really not worth it.

It sucks.

This remake just sucks so badly.

I mean, if you've never seen the original, then maybe you might find this enjoyable.

But to me and Keith, we thought the original was so powerfully strong that this paled horribly.

So I am looking at a summary of differences between not the two films, but from the book and the original movie.

Apparently, Dr.

Levitt's epilepsy plays a more significant role in the novel, but people generally rated about 98% accurate.

So there was more about the epilepsy, which in a way, it just has that one spot.

And then later on, when she collapses, it causes people to panic, which didn't actually seem to do anything.

All the people running away made no difference.

to the final story.

So, yeah.

Not really, no.

So it does feel like it was, makes the film feel a little bit more like somebody just wanted to say, and epilepsy, people are not fair to people with epilepsy, except when they're about to get us all killed because they do inadequate work.

Yeah, it's, yeah.

Anyway.

All right.

Well, I think we can wrap this one up and with Andromeda Strain 1971.

Good.

Andromeda Strain 2000 and whatever.

Bad.

Very, very bad.

And say we do both recommend this film to you.

Ben, thank you for joining me.

It was a pleasure.

Listeners, I hope you'll join us all again next time on Fusion Patrol.

Cheers.

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