Everything Old is New Again

So yesterday I bit the bullet and watched the entire A&E Andromeda Strain to get it off the DVR. It was in HD and all of a sudden we were up over 90% and the thing literally flashed up a message that said "Delete Something." So I did.

I had already read reviews of the thing that were slowing me down. The most telltale was one that said "It's a scifi movie of the week with an a-list cast." Never having watched any of those Scifi made for TV movies (except for Razor and Ark which I don't think count) but having seen the commercials with the Raptors eating the girls in bikinis this didn't inspire much confidence.

In the end I think I might have developed a need to read the book.

There's enough in the remake to let you know its the same story, but they've really widened the scope. I just don't remember it being a temporal paradox story. Now I grant you that the original, when you watch it on commercial TV, with commercials is very long, and its usually at night; so it is possible I've never actually seen the end of the original last reel. So I guess there could be a temporal paradox scene, or maybe it's something from the book that they scrapped the first time and used this time.

All the outside world stuff is fairly interesting as a choice too. The reporter and the politics and all the soldiers and the double dealing. Part of the strength of the original I think was a sense of claustrophobia they managed to convey. Once you were through in Piedmont you almost never saw the outside world again. Here you would never feel closed in because every other scene was outside. The production design of the original also seemed to be more geared toward the closed in feeling. Wildfire looked like a spaceship inside - or a 60's-70's version of a spaceship. It could have just as well been the Discovery from 2001, gleaming white, no corners, sterile. The new set just looks like a high tech lab. You have to remember they are buried underground, there's little in the visuals to remind you.

All in all the new version isn't a bad movie, but I think the original might just be better even after all this time. I think there was a sense of humor to the first that the new one missed - like during decontamination where the guy turns to the girl and explains she's got one place left to do - that they don't.

Also, and I don't know where this fits in, but the people in the original weren't all hot. Do you have to use actors who are hot to do a movie? Does even the pathology specialist have to be hot? The remake is a cast of models the original decidedly wasn't. I wonder which group actually made a design choice in their casting, the first group to go for people that weren't hot, or the second to use actors that were. Were it not for the contrast between the pieces I don't think I would have even given the appearances of this film's cast a second thought. But in comparison the difference is striking. Very strange.

So, not a complete waste of time. But when the original comes on again I will probably still watch it.