The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 American science-fiction thriller film directed and produced by Robert Wise, adapted by Nelson Gidding from Michael Crichton's 1969 novel. It stars Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, and David Wayne as a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin. The film closely follows the original book's plot, with only a few changes. The special effects were designed by Douglas Trumbull, and are notable for their use of advanced computerized photography. Real laboratory scenes using a spectrograph were shot at Caltech. Composer Gil Mellé recorded actual laboratory sounds for the film at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for authenticity while doing research for the film score. The film was released by Universal Pictures on March 12, 1971. It received mixed-to-positive reviews, and was a moderate commercial success. At the 44th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Film Editing and Best Art Direction. Mellé's score was nominated for a Golden Globe. Microbiologist Abigail A. Salyers noted that The Andromeda Strain raised real concerns with the larger public about the risks of interplanetary contamination. Environmental scientist Michael Paul Meltzer referred to the larger story as a "touchstone for planetary protection specialists in discussing matters of back contamination and the dangers that they present".
Plot Dr. Jeremy Stone recounts the events before the United States Senate Committee on Space Sciences in 1971: After a U.S. government satellite crashes near the small rural town of Piedmont, New Mexico, on February 5, nearly all the residents are dead. A military recovery team from Vandenberg Air Force Base sent to recover the satellite dies while trying to do so. Suspecting that the satellite has brought back an alien organism, the military activates an elite team of scientists. Dr. Stone, the team leader, and Dr. Mark Hall, a surgeon, are dropped in by helicopter. They discover the town's doctor opened the satellite in his office and that all of his blood has crystallized into a powder, the same death befalling nearly all of the town. Stone and Hall retrieve the satellite and find two survivors, 69-year-old alcoholic Peter Jackson and six-month-old crying infant Manuel Rios. The elite team also includes Dr. Charles Dutton and Dr. Ruth Leavitt, who join them at a top-secret Nevada underground facility, code named Wildfire. They go through four sub-levels of decontamination procedures, arriving at the fifth sub-level laboratories. If the organism threatens to escape, the Wildfire facility includes an automatic nuclear self-destruct mechanism to incinerate all infectious agents. Under the "odd-man hypothesis", Dr. Hall is entrusted with the only key that can deactivate the device, the theory being that an unmarried male is the most dispassionate person within a group to make critical decisions in a crisis. Examining the satellite, the team discovers the microscopic alien organism that caused the deaths. The greenish, throbbing life form is assigned the code name "Andromeda." Infecting through the lungs, Andromeda kills biological life almost instantly via a blood clot in the brain and asphyxiation. It appears to be highly virulent. The team studies the organism using animal subjects, an electron microscope, and culturing in various growth media to learn how it behaves. The microbe contains the hydrogen and carbon required for terrestrial life and appears to have a crystalline structure, but lacks the DNA, RNA, proteins, and amino acids present in all forms of terrestrial life, and directly transforms energy to matter with no discernible byproducts. Hall tries to determine why the two Piedmont residents survived. Unknown to the others, Leavitt's research on the germ is impaired by her undisclosed epilepsy. A military jet crashes near Piedmont after the pilot radios that his plastic oxygen mask is dissolving. Hall realizes that the alcoholic Jackson survived because his blood was too acidic from drinking Sterno, and that the baby lived due to his blood being too alkaline from constant crying, suggesting that Andromeda can survive only within a narrow range of blood pH. Just as he has this insight, the organism mutates into a non-lethal form that degrades synthetic rubber and plastic. Andromeda escapes the biocontainment room into the laboratory where Dutton is working. When Andromeda causes all the laboratory's seals to start decaying, a five-minute countdown to nuclear destruction is initiated. Hall rescues Leavitt from an epileptic seizure, triggered by the flashing red lights of Wildfire's alarm system. The team discover that the microbe would thrive on the energy of a nuclear explosion and would consequently be transformed into a super-colony that could destroy all life on Earth. Hall races to reach a functioning station where he can disable the nuclear bomb with his key. He endures multiple attacks by automated lasers as he climbs through the laboratory's central core. He finds a working station, disables the bomb with seconds to spare, and collapses. Hall awakens in a hospital. His colleagues reveal that clouds are being seeded over the Pacific Ocean, which will cause rain to sweep Andromeda from the atmosphere and into alkaline seawater, rendering it harmless. Stone finishes testifying by saying that while they were able to defeat the alien pathogen, they may be unable to do so in the future. The film ends with a computer feed suddenly stopping and the computer flashing the number "601", the Wildfire code for information coming in too fast to analyze.
Cast
In addition, source author Michael Crichton makes a cameo appearance as a physician in the scene in which Dr. Hall is pulled from surgery to report to Wildfire.
Production
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