the andromeda strain is the greatest science fiction film ever made
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i know that is very sweeping statement , so i 'll qualify it by adding that the andromeda strain is one of the few films made that genuinely deserve the label of " science fiction , " stories in which speculative science is at the core of the plot .
2001 : a space odyssey is probably a better film , but it really only qualifies as science fiction if you consider metaphysics to be a science .
most all other films we normally classify as science fiction , or sf , are really just fantasy , action or horror stories set in a futuristic setting .
the andromeda strain starts out with two soldiers in a high - tech ( for 1970 ) van looking for a crashed satellite in a tiny new mexico town .
something bad happens to them .
pictures from a reconnaissance plane show a shocking sight .
apparently everyone in the town is dead .
the authorities call a " wildfire alert , " summoning four scientists , all but one of them somewhat reluctant , to a super - secret underground germ warfare laboratory in nevada .
two of scientists , stone and hall , fly directly to the town in space suits and find a town where almost every single resident literally dropped in their tracks , their blood turned to powder in their veins .
some went insane before they died and two of them , a baby and an old wino , are miraculously still alive .
they take the survivors and the satellite back to the lab , where stone pressures the white house to call up a " directive 712 , " an executive order to cauterize the area around the town with a nuclear bomb .
what they find on the satellite when they get back to the lab is andromeda , an organism that defies all the normal rules of earth - like life and mutates as it grows .
their only hope to cure it is to find out what a perfectly healthy baby boy has in common with an old derelict .
what they find out is that organism feeds directly on energy and that detonating the a - bomb over the town would only spread it across the entire planet .
they barely call off the bombing in time .
but then the organism mutates into something that threatens to eat through the labs defenses and break out .
this triggers the lab 's last - ditch defense mechanism , an atomic bomb .
to those raised on the brainless action fare that pollutes movie theaters these days , the andromeda strain will probably seem interminably slow .
much of the film is a lot of people standing around looking at video screens and computer readouts .
but what the characters see on those screens ratchets up the tension with every turn of the screw .
the performances are universally fine , with the actors keeping things low - key and restrained , just like scientists .
to me , the real appeal of this film is the fact that it shows scientists acting like scientists and
makes it seem exciting .
we follow the logic of their deduction step by methodical step , puzzling like they do every time andromeda behaves in a way we do n't expect .
this film is only available on wide screen on dvd and that is the way to see it .
it was originally rated g when first released but it now carries the pg rating , mostly for very mild nudity and one scene in which a body 's wrist is slashed , spilling its powdered blood .
the greatest science fiction film ever made makes it seem exciting the performances are universally fine , with the actors keeping things low - key and restrained