Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

JRmf A small group of scientists contracted to develop a super electronic eavesdropping system for intercepting possible terrorist communications stumble across a signal of extraterrestrial origin, coming from the Andromeda galaxy, some 2 million light years from Earth.The signal contains the instructions for building a Computer far in advance of anything humanity is yet capable of. The device is constructed and begins to issue instructions for the development of artificial life. Andromeda, created in the image of a team member who died in mysterious circumstances associated with the Computer, is born.The machine seems to offer so much - the possibility of curing all human diseases - but does it "know" too much, especially about how to manipulate humans in pursuit of what they desire, to achieve its own ends?

Stargazer59 What a pleasant change to see science fiction being treated seriously and played straight! Hot on the heels of the Patrick Stewart vehicle "Eleventh Hour" comes a remake of the seven-part 1961 serial "A for Andromeda" as a follow-up to last year's BBC4 remake of "The Quatermass Experiment". Richard Fell was given the task of updating and condensing astronomer Fred Hoyle and John Elliot's original, and actress Kelly Reilly, starring alongside Tom Hardy, Jane Asher and David Haig, became the third actress to play Andromeda, following in the footsteps of Julie Christie and Susan Hampshire.The story opens with a listening station picking up a signal from the Andromeda Galaxy that turns out to be instructions, in binary, detailing how to build a super-computer. Once active, the computer kills one of the scientific community, Christine, and creates a living being, with all the machine's knowledge, in her image. The themes of mankind's arrogance, humanity's inability to self-discipline, and the self-sacrifice of the Andromedan android, making her more human than human, have undoubtedly been done to death over the past 45 years but probably seemed fresh to a television audience in the early 60s.References to E-mails and Firewalls, early on, placed the story in the modern world as did the now seemingly-obligatory popular culture reference, in this instance to "Deep Space Nine", though in a much less heavy-handed fashion than crowbaring three lowbrow game shows into the penultimate episode of last year's season of "Doctor Who"! Ultimately, like the mid 70s' "Doctor Who" story "The Brain of Morbius", "A for Andromeda" is a reworking of "Frankenstein", a morality tale warning us of the error of playing God. There are a further two opportunities to see the production this coming Friday, again on BBC4.

sisyphus-imdb This pointless remake of the 1961 classic adds nothing to the original. Apparently "updated" to 1970's production (and score), 80's graphics and the occasional 90's technical term, it doesn't even qualify as an homage to the era.The characters have no depth and less credibility. The one dimensional depiction of Dawnay (Jane Asher) blindly pursuing the holy grail of genetics is an affront to anyone who has ever entered a laboratory. The essence of the scientific method is to question everything, and no scientist with more than half a brain would take the course of those portrayed here. Even the initially gullible Hardy (John Fleming) is unrealistically slow to develop a conscience and realise the potential issues raised by his actions. This is the kind of portrayal that gets scientists a bad name.Equally insulting are the scenes that portray the destruction of monitors and keyboards as integral to the destruction of the alien computer. How many people are actually stupid enough to believe this nowadays? Regardless of familiarity with the original version, the plot is 100% predictable from the first few minutes right up until the last five. In that last five minutes is the most dramatic plot point of the entire film. The turning of the creature against its creator, the examination of humanity vs. the alien, the very human moral dilemmas, freedom and pre-destination, all take place in under two minutes. There is no examination of the conflicts faced by the creature or their resolution. (It feels suspiciously as if there was a large edit here.) Similarly, throughout the film any opportunity to explore morality, the role of technology, or cloning is passed by. According to Richard Fell (BBC4 web-site), one of the key questions addressed is "How complex does a computer have to be before we consider it to have some kind of human qualities?". This has been under constant examination since 1950, and Alan Turing's paper "Computing machinery and intelligence" (available on-line). This adaptation adds absolutely nothing to the debate, even failing to acknowledge that for over twenty years there has been a growing opinion that it doesn't actually matter.Sadly the film isn't even bad enough to be amusing.If you're interested in the ideas of the film then read Crichton's original "Andromeda Strain", although the plot of this version is actually closer to Sagan's "Contact" (more investigative, and perhaps even more worthy than Crichton's). {Edit: Oops. That should have been "the original 'A for Andromeda' by Hoyle/Elliot", of course. Not "Andromeda Strain".}

stuart_poore ** Contains minor spoiler** Despite being a remake of the 1960s BBC series, this comes across as an uninspired cross between Contact and Species. It is filmed using the typical cheap BBC Sci-Fi manner i.e. dull, grey, overcast and in a quarry. They spend the budget on the one "special effect", which is, of course, destroyed at the end. The story is unconvincing and the basic science is badly flawed (real time communication to Andromeda anyone?)It tries to pad out a thin story line with the addition of a few extraneous few subplots, namely a love triangle, some espionage and the oh so stereotypical "government subverting science for evil" thing. Even Jane Asher can't drag this up from being a long, slow, and predictable hour and a half.