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This Memorial Day (tomorrow night) on A&E channel, Ridley and Tony Scott’s version of Michael Chrichton’s seminal techno-thriller, The Andromeda Strain is premiering. I will see it and report back (there will probably be spoilers). Before I do, I want to deal with the reviews that are coming out and some big picture issues about the state of filmed science fiction of late.

It looks like the reviews are mixed, most of them saying, “If you have any knowledge of Mr. Chrichton’s book or Robert Wise’s 1971 big screen adaptation, stay away.” This has never stopped me from watching a remake before, however, I am concerned that it in trying to modernize Andromeda for a new, more hip audience, that the makers of this new version will dumb it down as to make it unbearable. As Joanne Ostrow of the Denver Post opines:

Unfortunately, the story is now inflated to include a government conspiracy, a Clintonesque president, a nasty Army general, a dogged reporter and references to Saddam, Iraq and homeland security to pad the medical mystery.

With bioterrorism a timely topic, and with plague an enduring AIDS metaphor, you’d think the plot would engage on a visceral level. Instead, eminent producing brothers Ridley and Tony Scott have prolonged the flick to miniseries length. Truly awful acting and often silly dialogue botch any tension.

Here’s another point from Ain’t It Cool News that only sends me into a spasmodic laughing jag:

The satellite in the novel and original was designed to find upper atmosphere microorganisms for germ warfare. All fine and dandy right? It ties is nicely with the modern world of WMD’s and biowarfare. For some reason however the writer has decided that this isn’t good enough and in an incredible stretch of the imagination the probe has apparently been sent through a WORMHOLE from the FUTURE! What? I couldn’t believe the sheer stupidity of it. Why drop a perfectly decent plot device that WORKS and makes sense for one that you don’t even get in crap sci-fi?

For those of you that have never read the novel, or seen the original movie, The Andromeda Strain is about a small community coming into contact with a downed satellite, Scoop 1. Scoop’s task, as explained in the last paragraph, was to find microorganisms that the US government could use in biological warfare. As it’s name implies, Scoop scoops up a dandy; a weird alien organism that is capable of making anyone inhaling it, suicidal. Once the human host is dead, all the blood in the body coagulates to powder in a matter of minutes. A team of scientists, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone, is sent to a secret facility in the Nevada desert, set up for just such an emergency.

The original film is very literal, but it’s riveting and the science is dead on. At its core, Andromeda’s about the procedure of isolating a disease organism, the mistakes that can be made, and how common sense can often give way to blind panic. Apparently, this is the part the makers of the new version seem to have missed out on. Science fiction movies, for the most part, have become an action-adventure genre, almost devoid of any true science fictional ideas. Whatever drives the story forward, however dumb or peripheral to the plot a point may be, just get on with it.

This is really distressing when you realize that the Scott brothers produce the series Numb3rs on CBS, a police procedural that entertainingly mixes the art and science of mathematics with finding the bad guys. I was kind of hoping for that here, but, no such luck. If you see the new Andromeda Strain, let me know what you think.

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