The Andromeda Strain

[SylasGaunt]

So... did anyone else watch the first part of 'The Andromeda Strain' on A&E today?

Pretty high production values for TV it seems and a metric shit-ton of actors I recognize from various roles whos names I don't know.

[Zixinus]

I liked the first part. The story would have been actually good if the writer didn't have the annoying urge to preach about how we should not know things because God does not want to us.

Expect a mayor letdown at the second part.

[dragon]

Is this the the film from a while back where they have this big underground base for the testing yet there's only a few people there. And where they make them take a shower where all their body hair fall off.

[Dahak]

I liked the book and the first movie about it.
How does this miniseries compare?

[Zixinus]

Is this the the film from a while back where they have this big underground base for the testing yet there's only a few people there.

Yes, although I am unsure whether you stated that or asked that. That I did wonder why there are so few people there and how the computer was able to do all the lab work on voice command. Also, why the whole facility was supposed to be completely isolated yet they still had a death-switch.

And where they make them take a shower where all their body hair fall off.

I don't recall their body hair falling off.

[Xon]

Do they keep with a stupid bitch who was photosensitive epilepsy who almost doomed humanity becuase she failed to get over single digits in her IQ test? Working with computers with hyper-limited selection of colors(red,green,blackish basicly), and being sensitive enough that the flashing red color pattern[slow enough not to trigger RL photosensitive epilepsy] to indicate a successfull match by the software for the plot device which solves thier problem), thats all she does watch a fucking screen to see if a match occurs. The sum total of her usefullness in the original movie.

Instead of informing the project she has a crippling liability, she instead endangers the entire planet. And the ending has some meaningless comment about how disabilities shouldnt be discriminated against

[SylasGaunt]

Working with computers with hyper-limited selection of colors(red,green,blackish basically), and being sensitive enough that the flashing red color pattern[slow enough not to trigger RL photosensitive epilepsy] to indicate a successful match by the software for the plot device which solves their problem), thats all she does watch a fucking screen to see if a match occurs. The sum total of her usefulness in the original movie.

Instead of informing the project she has a crippling liability, she instead endangers the entire planet. And the ending has some meaningless comment about how disabilities shouldnt be discriminated against

No idea. There's a guy with light sensitivity that gives him migraines but nobody has mentioned or shown signs of epilepsy. In fact I think almost the entire cast has made at least one discovery or is working on one aspect of Andromeda at the moment.

[SylasGaunt]

Gah, forgot to spoilerize (though the book's kinda past what I consider the usual statute of limitations for such things).

For those interested the first part replays tonight at 7 pm EST. The second part begins right afterwards.

[Jaepheth]

And where they make them take a shower where all their body hair fall off.

I don't recall their body hair falling off.

One of the sterilization procedures involves them standing in a room with a helmet on while a brief flash of radiation burns the outer layer of skin (including all their body hair) they then take a shower to rinse off the ash.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Meh, the first part was okay. The acting was pretty mediocre, and there were WAY too many movie cliches thrown in for its own good. I feel like it would be a LOT better if they had spent the money to get some decent actors involved. Hell, I think it would be better if they made it theatrical as opposed to A&E, but whatever.

It's still worth seeing, though. Hopefully the second half won't be a letdown.

[Ohma]

Yeah, I've only seen the first half-hour of part one so far but who wrote the dialog? Every character just sounds really...fake.

[Maxentius]

According to the description on my Digital Cable; A reporter links a pathogen to a government conspiracy.

What the fuck? Why the fuck does everything need to be about a government conspiracy these days? The original novel was plenty compelling without throwing in extraneous bullshit to make nutters 'fap fap fap' to any vague concept of conspiracy.

[Balrog]

Yeah, the entire side plot with the reporter and "teh ebil govement conspiracy!!!!!!!" was incredibly shitty and annoying. The original was much better focusing solely on the team and their attempts to figure out and defeat the bug, rather then shifting scenes to watch the EVIL Sec. of Homeland Defense rub his hands EVIL-Y as he sends out his EVIL hit teams to take down the spunky reporter who doesn't take shit from nobody.

It was also annoying how they finagled in a way where Andromeda can make you go into ultra-violent crazy mode and start shooting up people or cutting your own head off with a chainsaw or peck people to death (for the birds at least). Completely unnecessary and stupid way to get "zombies" into the movie.

And Xon, they did have an epileptic almost doom humanity, as Daniel Day Kim has a siezure from the flashing lights and just happens to smash apart the failsafe device to deactivate the nuke from going off.

In the end, bad pacing, bad writing and mediocre acting makes this remake a resounding "meh" at best. If you must, read the book or watch the original.

[Yuri2356]

It was also annoying how they finagled in a way where Andromeda can make you go into ultra-violent crazy mode and start shooting up people or cutting your own head off with a chainsaw or peck people to death (for the birds at least). Completely unnecessary and stupid way to get "zombies" into the movie.

...

What?

...

What!?

[18-Till-I-Die]

There were no "zombies" in the movie.

Look, some people instead of dying suffer from psychosis before they die, causing them to become violent before finally going down.


Personally i dont know what people are talking about "bad acting" and shit. The acting in this movie was just fine, as was the pacing. I really enjoyed it. To be honest, i liked it better than the original movie. The original was so dry and slow, at least this one had something interesting happen.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Also, yay for the use of an ontological paradox.

You rarely see those ever. Every time travel story is either a time loop, a predestination paradox, or the like.

An ontological paradox is more...complicated, to say the least, and raises more interesting questions than the usual "TARDIS falls, everyone dies" kind of stuff you see in most time travel stories.

[KhyronTheBackstabber]

For the most part, I thought it was good. The lab self-destruct was fucking stupid.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I like how the last strain of Andromeda Strain mutated so you could see it with the naked eye.

Very helpful when you're trying to tell if your countermeasures are working on it.

[Maxentius]

Yeah, the entire side plot with the reporter and "teh ebil govement conspiracy!!!!!!!" was incredibly shitty and annoying. The original was much better focusing solely on the team and their attempts to figure out and defeat the bug, rather then shifting scenes to watch the EVIL Sec. of Homeland Defense rub his hands EVIL-Y as he sends out his EVIL hit teams to take down the spunky reporter who doesn't take shit from nobody.

It was also annoying how they finagled in a way where Andromeda can make you go into ultra-violent crazy mode and start shooting up people or cutting your own head off with a chainsaw or peck people to death (for the birds at least). Completely unnecessary and stupid way to get "zombies" into the movie.

And Xon, they did have an epileptic almost doom humanity, as Daniel Day Kim has a siezure from the flashing lights and just happens to smash apart the failsafe device to deactivate the nuke from going off.

In the end, bad pacing, bad writing and mediocre acting makes this remake a resounding "meh" at best. If you must, read the book or watch the original.

I honestly changed the channel when the cop shot the guy on the bike. By that point, I knew I was not watching a vaguely promising adaptation of The Andromeda Strain, starring that one guy from Law and Order that nobody really liked, the older broad from Scrubs, Matthew Broderick's genteel black friend from Glory, and Daniel Dae Kim, but The Andromeda Files or some equally vapid load of bland shit.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Yeah, cause, the government would never do anything wrong. Or lie to us.

I mean...when have they EVER lied about anything?

[Maxentius]

Which means it's totally reasonable to pollute a story with conspiratorial bullshit when it's perfectly capable of standing on its own legs without the need to throw in contrived side-strings and overarching machinations that pander to the current 'Rar the guberment is evil and covering up rar!' trend, right?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Oh please.

You act like that was the whole movie, in the end the government WASNT EVEN THE BAD GUY...it was some alien race (in the future). The Government wasnt evil, Aristotle, it was, at worst, stupid and short sighted.

What rubs you the wrong way about this: the fact they added a subplot about the (perfectly reasonable, and frankly, realistic) government CYA response, or the fact they made the government look "mean" instead of pure as the wind driven snow?

No seriously this is precious. The government wasnt even shown to be EVIL in the movie. It wasnt even their fault the virus was unleashed, if the people in that town hadnt opened the probe then the army would have contained the virus and it would have been over before it started. At worst they're shown as being willing to kill to cover up a mistake that wasnt even their fault, but that they'd be blamed for, and you think they're being shown in a BAD light? They're just covering their asses like any government would IRL, and if you think they wouldnt you're an idiot.

Besides the government has been fucking around with bioweapons for generations. Google the words "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" and see what i mean.

[Ziggy Stardust]

What rubs you the wrong way about this: the fact they added a subplot about the (perfectly reasonable, and frankly, realistic) government CYA response, or the fact they made the government look "mean" instead of pure as the wind driven snow?

No, what rubbed me the wrong was was the fact that the subplot was both out of place and poorly written. It literally made no sense with the context of the rest of the plot, and in some parts felt like an entirely different movie.

Please stop taking criticism of a TV-movie and trying to blow it into some bizarre analysis of real-world geopolitical trends and our opinions thereof.

[Ohma]

You act like that was the whole movie, in the end the government WASNT EVEN THE BAD GUY...it was some alien race (in the future).

Bolding mine.

Uh...wha? Why the hell did that get put in there?

[18-Till-I-Die]

You act like that was the whole movie, in the end the government WASNT EVEN THE BAD GUY...it was some alien race (in the future).

Bolding mine.

Uh...wha? Why the hell did that get put in there?

Tthe aliens sent it to Earth in the futue and because of the Vent Mining thingy the future humans couldnt stop it. So they sent it back in time to when the Infernus bacteria was still around so that humans in the past would know it would happen and not destroy the bacteria needed to fight it.

Or at least thats what appears to have happened. The ending casts some doubt on that and implies the virus was some kind of ontological paradox, that the tiny bit saved by the government at the end was the same tiny bit that nearly destroyed the future humans, causing them to send it back through a wormhole in the first place. This makes Andromeda an ontological paradox...a thing or bit of information with no known origin, passed back into the past via time travel, even though it's existence in the future is only possible because it existed in the past.