History Film / TheAndromedaStrain

* InfectionScene: Dr. Stone shows what happens to a monkey as it's exposed to Andromeda: the doctors and the viewers are shown the exposure and death as all the money's blood coagulates ''in seconds''.
* ItCanThink: Seems to be Dutton's reservation about the Wildfire Project. In a flashback he's shown giving a lecture positing that intelligent life in space may actually exist on the microscopic scale, and warns the others that in curing Andromeda they may be destroying "a highly intelligent form of life." It all becomes moot when they determine that, whether Andromeda can consciously think or not, its presence will ultimately wipe out humanity.

''The Andromeda Strain'' is a 1971 American [[ScienceFiction sci-fi]] {{thriller}} film, based on the [[Literature/TheAndromedaStrain novel of the same name]] by Creator/MichaelCrichton. Directed by Creator/RobertWise, it stars Arthur Hill (Dr. Jeremy Stone), James Olson (Dr. Mark Hall), Kate Reid (Dr. Ruth Leavitt), and Creator/DavidWayne (Dr. Charles Dutton) and follows the book closely (except for the names of the characters Leavitt and Dutton).

* ForWantOfANail
** A simple piece of paper prevented the notification bell from ringing.
** They only installed 3 self-destruct cancellation stations per level, but they need 5, of which the last two aren't yet finished. [[spoiler: Guess where the only person with the key to prevent self-destruct is locked into when the self-destruct mechanism activates.]]
** As mentioned before on ConvulsiveSeizures, the Wildfire team would have found a potential cure for Andromeda earlier in the story if Leavitt hadn't been alone in the lab and the computer wasn't set to show the results with massive, blinking red letters.

* HazmatSut: Hall and Stone wear one when exploring the town of Peidmont. Later, Hall and Nurse Karen Anson wear these when examining and treating Jackson and the baby.

* TheVirus: Andromeda, which concevably could kill milions in its infectious form if it was released in a metropolitan area.

** Dr Leavitt often doesn't take a lot of things happening in the Wildfire complex or what is expected seriously. On noticing the crops at the isolated U.S. Departmemt of Agriculture research station which conceals wildfire, she says "Great place to grow pot."

'''Dutton''': That's how it's supposed to look. They spent $50,000 on it.\\

* FreezeFrameBonus: The opening credits showcase close-ups of a variety of government documents and forms that make sense as the plot goes on, including requisition forms for the construction of the Wildfire compund, [[spoiler:projection schematics of the spread of Andromeda made by bio-warfare researchers]] and [[spoiler:the Odd Man Hypothesis research documents, showing how Hall fits in it.]]

* OverflowError: The pathologists analyzing the disease run a computer simulation of the casualties that would result if the contagion ever EscapedFromTheLab. After blossoming from population hubs in the United States and Canada, the screen blanked to a single number: 808. The technician informs them that 808 means the computer can't calculate contamination levels that huge.