One Michael Crichton Classic Created One Of The Best Alien Invasion Stories Ever
No spaceships. No ray guns. No battles. Just pure science.
In a small New Mexico town called Piedmont, 66 of its 68 residents lay dead, their bodies seeming to fall right where they stood or sat — in their homes, at the store, in the street. Only two inhabitants survive: the town drunk and a bawling newborn baby. What kept them alive? And what killed the rest of the town in the first place, so swiftly and unexpectedly that they barely had time to realize what was happening?
That is the riddle facing scientists Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill), Mark Hall (James Olson), Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid), and Charles Dutton (David Wayne), all of whom are pulled from their own homes or jobs and transported to an underground facility in Nevada, codenamed Wildfire. It is there that their worst nightmare is confirmed: a small satellite that landed in the town has brought back with it an alien microbe so virulent that it is capable of wiping out all life on Earth.
No spaceships. No ray guns. No battles. The 1971 film The Andromeda Strain, based on Michael Crichton's novel, posited that this tiny organism could fall to Earth and, given the right circumstances, potentially destroy human civilization. Instead of armies battling monsters, The Andromeda Strain focuses on these four exhausted, rather nondescript scientists as they race against time to stop Andromeda from spreading beyond Piedmont and their compound.
Directed by Robert Wise (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) with an emphasis on realism and accuracy, The Andromeda Strain is one of the most frightening "pure" sci-fi films of its time. Crichton — a medical student turned author and filmmaker, best known for writing Jurassic Park — strove for a feeling of verisimilitude in his novel, using charts and illustrations throughout and citing non-existent books and studies penned by his fictional characters. Largely faithful to the text, Wise and screenwriter Nelson Giddings retain some of that flavor in the film: it begins with a disclaimer that makes it seem like a true story, while the first half of the story is devoted to the extensive quarantine procedures the scientists must endure.
The result is a measured, steadily-paced thriller that concentrates on science yet manages to be one of the most suspenseful sci-fi outings of the early ‘70s. The quartet of scientists, each of whom is prickly or quirky in their own way (Dr. Leavitt was a man in the novel; Giddings and Wise decided to switch the character’s gender, opening the door for an excellent performance from Kate Reid), must identify the microbe then find a way to neutralize it, even as it begins to constantly mutate. Should it escape containment on the deepest level of Wildfire, the facility is automatically programmed to detonate a nuclear device — only for the team to realize that such an explosion would inadvertently feed Andromeda enough energy to reproduce exponentially.
Unlike other bombastic alien invasion movies, The Andromeda Strain is a race to find and destroy an alien microbe.
While the emphasis is on the characters and their quest to stop Andromeda, there are still visual effects in the film. 2001: A Space Odyssey effects wizard Douglas Trumbull created some of the most advanced computerized visuals seen on film to that date, including photographic displays and images of the microbe. Scenes shot at real-life facilities like Cal Tech and a Pasadena hospital were woven into the movie as well. Wildfire, a silo-like structure that extends five levels below the Nevada desert, is a marvelous creation all built on a soundstage; it becomes an enemy during the film’s climax, as an injured Hall must evade security measures — including real lasers — as he must make his way up the structure to stop the nuclear detonation.
In fact, while Crichton respects science and The Andromeda Strain is ostensibly a pro-science movie, the story puts technology on the hot seat more than a few times. The equivalent of a sheet of paper caught in a fax machine almost leads to disastrous consequences at one point, while it’s revealed late in the game that the government was interested in finding organisms like Andromeda for potential use as biological weapons. The idea that the misuse or failure of technology can result in catastrophe is one that Crichton would often return to, most notably in his 1973 film Westworld and, of course, Jurassic Park.
But at the heart of The Andromeda Strain (which was loosely “reimagined” as a miniseries in 2008 — avoid it) is an even more terrifying notion than that of dinosaurs or robots running rampant: that a tiny, invisible alien lifeform could be capable of obliterating everything on the planet. It’s one of the most insidious alien invasion stories ever conceived — and the intruder almost takes us down without firing a single blaster.
