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Two questions about "The Andromeda Strain"...(SPOILER ALERT!)

posted 10 years ago by cwoolfork
1 reply | jump to latest

SPOILER ALERT! :...

Just watched this movie for the umpteenth time and a few things don't make sense to me:

1. Near the end of the movie (at approx. the 1 hour, 58 min mark) when Andromeda eats through the seals in the autopsy lab where Dr. Dutton is working, Dr. Hall refuses to let nurse Ansen feed Baby Manuel because he wants the baby to cry, which will make his blood PH go crazy and keep Andromeda from killing him. But that makes no sense, because nurse Anson AND Dr. Hall are both seen feeding Baby Manuel earlier in the film! Besides, Manuel survived Andromeda's attack on Piedmont (by crying incessantly), so he should have been ok and out danger from Andromeda once he arrived at the Wildfire facility, right?... Or am I missing something?

2. When the crash investigating team are examining the wreckage of the F-4 Phantom fighter jet, they discover all of the synthetic rubber on the jet has been eaten away and consumed (apparently, by Andromeda). Why did Andromeda also consume the pilot's remains, yet it did not consume the remains of the other victims? Was that scene just another example of how Andromeda's behavior was changing every time it "mutated"?....

"The Andromeda Strain" is one of my all time favorite sci fi movies from the 70s! Great job Michael Crichton and Robert Wise!

[–] Kumagoro 10 years ago

1. Hall was studying cry baby's alkaline status at that point: he didn't know how it worked yet, but Andromeda was already dead inside the baby (and, for opposite reasons, inside the old man). He couldn't know, though, so didn't take risks once he had the intuition about the crying.

2. Yes, probably a mutation in that particular strain.