I’m a little brainless today. It’s been quite a week, huh. New president, California taking rights away from its citizens, my birthday (what, wasn’t that a major event to the world?)…lots of stuff going on.

At least it’s the weekend. And strangely enough – I have a new Michael Crichton book to read!! After I published the entry about Michael Crichton on Wednesday, I received an email telling me about a ‘favorite book of his called Binary.’ I’d never heard of a Michael Crichton book called Ninary…

Now, I have read a book published by Michael Crichton under another name called “A Case of Need.” I loved the book, but it was very clearly not “typical” Michael Crichton.  Turns out Binary is written under yet another pseudonym, one I’d never heard of. I dug around online (the book is long out of print), found a used copy for sale, ordered, and have it now.

So much to my surprise, I get to spend the weekend curled up with a new Michael Crichton book (considered new under the “it’s new to me” rule). Not a bad weekend at all.

Hope everyone has a good weekend, you all probably need one after this week!

Michael Crichton passed away yesterday, after a battle with cancer. I’ve written about Michael Crichton books and movies more times in this blog than probably any other author, most recently my rants about the terrible disaster that was the Andromeda Strain miniseries. His writing always managed to perfectly hit the things I adore reading about, medicine and law mixed in with science fiction. Others have come close, but he’s always been the absolute best at that.

While I’m saddened that such a wonderful mind is gone, I am at least brightened by the fact that these are books that stand up to re-reads, and movies that stand up to deeper analysis. Even though I hated the miniseries, I still watched the commentary from the DVD’s (I had to know WHY they went so far away from the book. Now I know.). My favorite way to spend a weekend is still to curl up with one of his books, and read it cover to cover. It doesn’t matter if I’ve read it before. The story’s still there and still solid.

If you haven’t ever read any Michael Crichton, now is a great time to start. Check out a full list of his stuff at Wikipedia.

Ok, this is long, I admit. But once I opened the flood gates on this, I kept going on and on and on. What can I say – mess with a story I ADORE, and this is what happens.

I love Michael Crichton books. I don’t think there’s a single one that I haven’t flown through, and then reread multiple times.

My favorite book and movie of his has always been the Andromeda Strain. It’s one of those rare book to movie adaptations that held pretty strictly to the original script. The result is not the most exciting movie in the world, after all, over half the story takes place in a dreary lab, but I love it.

The original movie was low budget, but still had some really memorable images, including a very graphic scene of a monkey dying from the virus. The scene looks horribly real, but the directors and producers still swear to this day that although they did knock the monkey unconsious, they did not hurt it. Don’t ask me how, it sure looks like a dead monkey to me.

…Spoilers follow…

To describe the plot of the original story:

A satellite lands in Piedmont, Utah. The entire town is killed, save for a baby and a drunk. The Wildfire team is called to determine what the virus is, and how to destroy it. The president tries to nuke Piedmont, but the team stops him first. They figure out what Andromeda is, but the virus renders itself inert due to its ability to continually mutate, so they just let it dissipate in the air. End of story. Epilogue: pilot burns up on reentry.

The plot of the miniseries:

A satellite lands in Piedmont, Utah. The entire town is killed, save for a baby and a drunk. The Wildfire team is called to determine what the virus is, and how to destroy it. Add in lots of backstories involving the various members of the Wildfire team, which now has five members (not four), two women, three men. A big conspiracy is going on involving the army, the department of homeland security, and the president. A reporter dude is following the story – he later becomes a target of an evil military plot to kill him. The virus keeps spreading, partially because a nuclear bomb is set off on Piedmont (hints of an additional conspiracy here – I was almost expecting to be told that an alien did it). Turns out the virus was sent from the future back to the past so it could be stopped, underwater mining was killing the natural bacteria that fought andromeda. There was a message coded into the virus container with a number and a logo (I still haven’t wrapped my head around how a virus replicates within a container – does it replicate the container? What’s a container, for that matter.). Wildfire replicates lots of the bacteria, the army drops it over the virus, virus is destroyed. End of story. Epilogue: Astronaut on the space station storing andromeda in a satellite.

First off – the miniseries just wasn’t a good movie. There were an insane number of dropped or unnecessary plot points, padding for time, I assume.

This may be science fiction, but there normally is at least some “reality” to the story. this? Grass would turn brown as Andromeda moved through it like a wildfire, with a computer screen updating in real time. The big action sequence came when the military dropped bacteria on the virus to kill it “right before it spread to LA.” Wouldn’t it be neat if you could SEE a virus in the air? And track it? “We have an outbreak of flu in the Arlington area today, winds suggest it could be over Georgetown by noon.” That’s just comical.

There are so many things that I had wanted to see redone in this movie that weren’t even in the miniseries, it’s sad. Andromeda replicating is an amazingly memorable image from the original film. The killing of the monkey, Dr. Leavitt having her seizure, THAT’s what I wanted to see in this movie.

I think I would have been ok with this miniseries had it been “Based on The Andromeda Strain.” But it wasn’t, it was billed as a remake. If something is going to be “remade,” it should be REMADE. Not changed beyond all recognition.

I’m just disappointed. I had a feeling this was going to be a mess – I mean, Ridley Scott doing a movie with no action? I never expected what I got, though. It was just awful.

So in case you were going to see the Andromeda Strain miniseries? Don’t. Rent the movie from 1971 instead.