MovieChat Forums > The Andromeda Strain (1971) Discussion > An explanation for why the buzzards didn...

An explanation for why the buzzards didn't die

posted 13 years ago by carlsez_1
10 replies | jump to latest

I've read the portion cited in the book that addresses this issue. The "fast breathing" seems to reference the belief that rapid respiration screws up your blood chemistry and kills Andromeda, as discovered later. But that's only plausible if rapid breathing is unnatural for an organism. So if the buzzards are breathing normally, and normal for them is rapid relative to us, then they shouldn't have been immune. Also, rats breath fairly rapidly, and they didn't do too well against Andromeda.

I have a simpler explanation: Buzzards are not rats or people. Maybe their natural metabolism makes them immune. This would make sense; perhaps Andromeda only affects mammals like rats, monkeys, and unfortunately humans. I'm also guessing that buzzards are even more immune than other birds because they eat carrion and can tolerate a certain amount of rotting food and conceivably other odd pathogens.

Anyway, it didn't affect my suspension of disbelief. When I saw this as a young lad I thought it was a recreation of real events.

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[–] bill3-1 13 years ago

Maybe they just died slowly, they did drop gas canisters on them to be safe. What you wrote makes sense though.

[–] carlsez_1 13 years ago

Right, different animals could mean different rates of infection. That makes sense too.

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[–] toolkien 12 years ago

The only way to know the efficacy of it not affecting buzzards is know the pH balance of buzzard blood. If it's outside the strain's pH zone, like the baby or the old man, they wouldn't die. From what little I've read, the CO2 in birds in flight might put their blood pH outside the strain's parameters. So they're "immune" while they are in flight through landing until their blood pH adjusts to within the strain's range.

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[–] will7370 11 years ago

They did die once they dropped the Chlorazine from the helicopter.

[–] J-Star 11 years ago

Discussing "immune system" in terms of Andromeda is pretty pointless since the darned thing was entirely crystalline and shared essentially no characteristics with living/quasi-living infectious pathogens as life on Earth knows them. It'd be like the immune system was trying to fight off salt poisoning.... it's just not the same thing.

The film gives a plausible explanation: Andromeda can exist only in s very narrow blood pH range. It can also be assumed Andromeda is sensitive to other more factors that are more chemical rather than biological, factors that differ between humans and birds.

/J-Star

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[–] rogueforte 11 years ago

The buzzards are another big suspension of disbelief in the movie and are actually hard to explain being there, since everyone's blood has been crystalized and might not make the human remains all that tasty. You'd think that would be enough to simply avoid having them in the movie, at all.

It's then made even worse when the rat and monkey die when exposed, making it seem that animals (of any sort) are not immune. You'd think a highly acclaimed scientist like Stone would have had a bird in the lab for an exposure test, too.

I guess the reason the live buzzards have to be there is a plot point to quickly convince Stone that the site must be immediately nuked to avoid the spread of whatever killed the townspeople. But, then, the whole plot device of the debate over having the town nuked seemed unnecessary, anyway.

[–] TexasBEAST 10 years ago

Decomposition of the body still occurs even when there is no more blood.

Just ask any mortician who has drained the blood out of a cadaver.

The circle of life keeps on turning.

So the corpses would still have plenty of stinky stuff to attract the buzzards' attention down in that town.

Besides their crazy-low stomach pH, buzzards are also known to have one of the strongest immune systems on Earth. Scientists are still working out exactly what it is that protects them so.

So maybe the movie's buzzards' blood had something that rendered them invulnerable to the AS?

[–] rogueforte 10 years ago

Those are all excellent observations and, frankly, should have gotten into the movie, somewhere. At the very least, an effort to capture one of the buzzards should have been made and been included with the old man and baby as to why none of them had died while every other living creature in Piedmont had. IOW, what do an old man who drinks sterno, a squalling baby, and a buzzard have in common?

[–] srinath_r_htanirs 10 years ago

Now, now. You're just expecting the film to spoon-feed.

[–] Soujurn 10 years ago

The life and death of the buzzard's or lack thereof, I suspect has more to do with Michael Chrichton and Nelson Gidding not thinking of it than anything else.

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