Andromeda Strain

The other day I happened be waltzing through the house and saw that the 1970s movie The Andromeda Strain was on. So I sat and watched it for a while. It was made in 1971 and was full of mainframe computers, decidedly low-rez graphical effects, and the cheesiest plane crash I've ever seen (I guess they couldn't even afford stock footage of one of those missile live-fires, or a NASA controlled impact demonstration or anything; they just showed a guy in an oxygen mask rolling his eyes and slumping over, and then showed us a bunch of junk from the prop department scattered around to simulate a crashed plane, including the tail section from an F-100 and a cockpit section from what I guess to be an F-86D).

But I kid the movie. It isn't bad. It's probably the best of Michael Crichton's novels, and probably the best movie version of any of his novels too, with the exception of the fabulous The 13th Warrior.

But here's where the movie is at its best: any time some young punk asks "Gee, pops, what was life like before the Internet," you just point them at that movie.