The Andromeda Strain

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

1 suggested correction

(2 votes)

Revealing mistake: During the helicopter flyover several 'corpses' are seen lying in a depression in the dust where they fell after dying (imagine a 'snow angel' to see what I mean). However, there are no footprints leading up to any of them. Any soil loose and powdery enough to form a depression when a body lands in it would hold footprints. And if there was a strong enough wind to erase footprints it would have piled some of the dust up against one or more sides of the body.

Grumpy Scot

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Suggested correction: Unless you are suggesting that the production crew dropped the actors into place from a helicopter, the configuration you see is obviously possible in real life. The actors playing the corpses walked to their positions for filming.

Or more dust was laid down by the production crew once the actors were in place, presumably to cover the crew tracks which would have shown a lot of activity, and had the side effect of covering the actors' prints too. They either didn't realise or didn't think it was worth recreating the steps.

Continuity mistake: When Stone and Levitt are examining the capsule, the angle of the camera changes each time the camera goes to a higher magnification. However, the following shot shows the camera mounted straight up and down with no joint to pivot for an angle change.

Grumpy Scot

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Question: If the Andromeda "Incident" at Piedmont and the facility were top secret, ever wonder what they did with the old man who knew of both? (I'm excluding the baby, since he can't talk or remember).

Answer: The government would have concocted an official story about what happened in Piedmont - attributing it to some natural disaster. The old man had dementia, was alcoholic, and suffered a severe emotional trauma, so it's doubtful many would give much credence to anything he had to say. He was also confined to a small area of the Wildfire complex and was given minimal information about what it was or where he was at. In his confused mental state at the time, he probably would have remembered little about what actually happened.

raywest

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