History Film / TheAndromedaStrain

''The Andromeda Strain'' is a 1971 [[ScienceFiction sci-fi]] [[DisasterMovie disaster]] movie based on the [[Literature/TheAndromedaStrain novel of the same name]] by Creator/MichaelCrichton. Directed by Creator/RobertWise, it stars Arthur Hill (Dr. Jeremy Stone), James Olson (Dr. Mark Hall), Kate Reid (Dr. Ruth Leavitt), and Creator/DavidWayne (Dr. Charles Dutton) and follows the book closely (except for the names of the characters Leavitt and Dutton).

''The Andromeda Strain'' is a 1971 [[ScienceFiction sci-fi]][=/=][[DisasterMovie disaster]] movie based on the [[Literature/TheAndromedaStrain novel of the same name]] by Creator/MichaelCrichton. Directed by Creator/RobertWise, it stars Arthur Hill (Dr. Jeremy Stone), James Olson (Dr. Mark Hall), Kate Reid (Dr. Ruth Leavitt), and Creator/DavidWayne (Dr. Charles Dutton) and follows the book closely (except for the names of the characters Leavitt and Dutton).

* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: The Department of Defense's Wildfire laboratory, a five-story underground facility, is located in the (fictional) town of Flatrock, Nevada, below a U.S.Department of Agriculture research station. In the novel, Hall, as the AudienceSurrogate, is told that the research facility is a real station and is developing a strain of corn that would grow well in desert-like conditions. Anyone who visits will even get a tour of the station if they want to allay suspicion. The same goes for the seeming lack of security; none is visible besides a chainlink fence, a guy opening and closing the gate and another older man at the main desk. While it ''looks'' lacking on the surface, it ''is'' there in the form of hidden sensors, radar and silent attack dogs preventing a covert approach or an overt intrusion.

* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: The Department of Defense's Wildfire laboratory, a five-story underground facility, is located in the (fictional) town of Flatrock, Nevada, below a U.S.Department of Agriculture research station. In the novel, Hall, as the AudienceSurrogate, is told that the research facility is a real station and is developing a strain of corn that would grow well in desert-like conditions. Anyone who visits will even get a tour of the station if they want to allay suspicion. The same goes for the seeming lack of security; none is visible besides a guy opening and closing the gate and another older man at the main desk. While it ''looks'' lacking on the surface, it ''is'' there in the form of hidden sensors, radar and silent attack dogs preventing a covert approach or an overt intrusion.

* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: The Department of Defense's Wildfire laboratory, a five-story underground facility, is located in the (fictional) town of Flatrock, Nevada, below a U.S.Department of Agriculture research station. In the novel, Hall, as the AudienceSurrogate, is told that the research facility is a real station and is developing a strain of corn that would grow well in desert-like conditions. Anyone who visits will even get a tour of the station if they want to allay suspicion. The same goes for the seeming lack of security; it is there in the form of hidden sensors, radar and silent attack dogs preventing a covert approach or an overt intrusion.

* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: The Department of Defense's Wildfire laboratory, a five-story underground facility, is located in the (fictional) town of Flatrock, Nevada, below a U.S.Department of Agriculture research station. In the novel, Hall, as the AudienceSurrogate, is told that the research facility is a real station and is developing a strain of corn that would grow well in desert-like conditions. Anyone who visits will even get a tour of the station if they want to allay suspicion.

* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: The Department of Defense's Wildfire laboratory, a five-story underground facility, is located in the (fictional) town of Flatrock, Nevada, below a U.S.Department of Agriculture research station. In the novel, Hall, as the AudienceSurrogate, is told that the research facility is a real station and has developed a strain of corn that would grow well in desert-like conditions. Anyone who visits who doesn't give the correct code phrase will even get a tour of the station to allay suspicion.

'''Dutton''': That's how it's supposed to look. They spent $50,000 on this road.\\

* FanserviceExtra: The topless hippie girl who is amongst the Piedmont casualties, and we get a long shot of her upper body on the montage of said casualties being checked by the Wildfire team.

* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: The Department of Defense's Wildfire laboratory, a five-story underground facility, is located in the (fictional) town of Flatrock, Nevada, below a U.S.Department of Agriculture research station. In the novel, Hall, as the AudienceSurrogate, is told that the research facility is a real station and has developed a strain of corn that would grow well in desert-like conditions.

* HotScientist: Noticeably averted. The lone female is in her fifties and overweight. And, it must be said, one of the most memorable characters in the movie, [[DeadpanSnarker snarking delightfully]] with all her might.

* HauledBeforeASenateSubcommitte: Several scenes of the film are intercut with Dr. Stone speaking to a Senate task force after the crisis and explaining how the whole situation went to hell to their utter disbelief, including [[spoiler:Andromeda adapting to a form that ate through the state-of-the-art plastic the quarantine gaskets were made of and the compound being incommunicado from events outside of it [[ForWantOfANail because of a sliver of paper getting in the way of the striker and bell of the compound's main telex]].]]

* YouCanSeeThatRight: Ruth to Dr. Stone while they're examining the green stain on the meteorite.

** The old man, Peter Jackson, when the doctors are having a problem with gasket failures and alarms are going off, looks at the video and says to Hall and Stone, "Hell of a way to run a hospital!"

** They only installed 3 self-destruct cancellation stations per level, but they need 5, of which the last two aren't yet finished. [[spoiler: Guess where the only person with the key to prevent self destruct is locked into when the self destruct mechanism activates.]]

* {{Mockumentary}}: It was marketed as a drama, but the film presents itself as being a dramatisation of real events -- see ThisIsAWorkOfFiction, below.
* OverflowError: The pathologists analysing the disease run a computer simulation of the casualties that would result if the contagion ever EscapedFromTheLab. After blossoming from population hubs in the United States and Canada, the screen blanked to a single number: 808. The technician informs them that 808 means the computer can't calculate contamination levels that huge.

** It is, however, completely unscientific for the organism to mutate in the wild to eat plastic and, simultaneously, in the bio-lab, to also eat plastic - in a lab which is hermetically sealed from the outside environment.

* FuturisticJetInjector: When the members of the Wildfire team are undergoing sterilization procedures to enter the facility, each of them receives an automatic injection by a futuristic pistol-like jet injector device.

** The old man, Peter Jackson, when the doctors are having a problem with gasket failures and alarms are going off, looks at the video and says to Hall and Stone, "hell of a way to run a hospital!"

* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: The Department of Defense's Wildfire laboratory, a five-story underground facility, is located in the (fictional) town of Flatrock, Nevada, below a U.S.Department of Agriculture research station.
** In the novel, Hall, as the AudienceSurrogate, is told that the research facility is a real station and has developed a strain of corn that would grow well in desert-like conditions.

* ShownTheirWork: An interesting example. When Leavitt has a seizure that's induced by a flashing light, the pattern is actually extremely unlikely to cause a seizure. This wasn't an accident but rather intentionally chosen to prevent triggering them in audiences.

* ItCanThink: seems to be Dutton's reservation about the Wildfire Project. In a flashback he's shown giving a lecture positing that intelligent life in space may actually exist on the microscopic scale, and warns the others that in curing Andromeda they may be destroying "a highly intelligent form of life." It all becomes moot when they determine that, whether Andromeda can consciously think or not, its presence will ultimately wipe out humanity.

* Freaky ElectronicMusic: The film's score is [[https://youtu.be/kEp-ftrmuKU truly unsettling]].

''The Andromeda Strain'' is a 1971 [[ScienceFiction sci-fi]][=/=][[DisasterMovie disaster]] movie based on the [[Literature/TheAndromedaStrain novel of the same name]] by Creator/MichaelCrichton. Directed by Creator/RobertWise, it stars Arthur Hill (Dr. Jeremy Stone), James Olson (Dr. Mark Hall), Kate Reid (Dr. Ruth Leavitt), and David Wayne (Dr. Charles Dutton) and follows the book closely (except for the names of the characters Leavitt and Dutton).