ChiggyvonRichthofen wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 10:22 pm
I acknowledge that Chuck wasn't too tough on the film, but I'm still going to nitpick a point he made at the end of his review.
It's true enough that after a decade of sci-fi/high concept blockbusters including Jaws, Star Wars, and Alien, Andromeda Strain ended up being the odd man out. But the fact that there's so little else like Andromeda Strain in the current sci-fi landscape works just as well as a criticism of the current state of sci-fi in film as it does the other way around. What passes for hard sci-fi is movies like The Martian, which I like well enough, but I also wish there was more room for stories that really do stay relatively grounded and modest in its depiction of both science and scientists and avoid injecting artificial tension through action scenes that are barely related to the story that's actually being told. Even AS isn't immune to this.
Instead there's this widespread assumption that you absolutely must have those things to keep audiences invested, which I don't think is necessarily true. 12 Angry Men is one of the greatest films of all time, and outside about two minutes total at the beginning and end, the film consists entirely of people sitting in a room and arguing.
Again, if I were ranking Jaws, Star Wars, Alien, and Andromeda Strain, Andromeda Strain would come in fourth. I'm not even saying I'd disagree that this particular film can come across as a bit stilted and uneven compared to later films. My point is that there's room for more than one strain of sci-fi film, and to me it's a shame that almost everything else in the genre has gone in the other direction.
The sad thing is there probably is a decent market for a GOOD Andromeda Strain remake. There is desire for good well paced tight procedural movies. Note unquestionably the parts people like best in Iron Man is Stark building the armor. The procedural elements. Apollo 13? Even the more recent Toho Shin Godzilla are pure procedural films and thrive for it. The only thing that dates the Andromeda Strain movie is the Star Trek style sets.
Oddly your comment makes me think along these lines. Andromeda strain now. The team arrives and walks into Wildfire complete with the entry room. They look around like WTF? And it explains the facility was begun in the 70's then mothballed. The laptops with them are probably better than the old computers housed beneath them. But this is the containment facility, etc.
Nealithi wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 5:12 pm
Oddly your comment makes me think along these lines. Andromeda strain now. The team arrives and walks into Wildfire complete with the entry room. They look around like WTF? And it explains the facility was begun in the 70's then mothballed. The laptops with them are probably better than the old computers housed beneath them. But this is the containment facility, etc.
But, but, but why do that when you could have Benjamin Bratt being Benjamin Bratt on a space station!?
