This looks exactly like I thought/feared it would look like. Tony Scott has got a serious jump-cut problem.

@B: And its gotten worse. My wife and I used to love Numb3rs but since the second half of the season premiered with Kilmer, the show has like tripled the jump cuts and CGI crap.

Is this a music video? How many cut's can you possibly need in 20 seconds? Someone needs to go back to film school.

so, that is what utter disappointment looks like. i've always wondered...

what a very poor treatment of a good book and original movie.

IIRC what happened with the jet is that all of the rubber seals on the jet, including the pilots mask started to deteriorate, which caused the plane to go down.

Also, in the book, the birds were never affected.

You're only hope concerns the ribbits (that happen every two seconds so are most likely in the movie)? You aren't concerned that a simple disease has been turned into a rapidly-mutating, intelligent, communicating rage virus?

I don't see how this this a real "trailer" with all this cast stuff in it.
More like a Sci Fi channel teaser spot to me.

Actually, I think it's gonna be fascinating: Ridley and Tony are both very good directors but they create very different atmospheres. This story, in either of their hands would only partially work: Ridley would draw it out too long (the original film came close to doing that), Tony would skimp on the tension in favor of action. Together, they might just correct each other's weaknesses.

The film will either be phenomenally good or a phenomenal train wreck. Either way will be really really interesting. I, personally, think they're both smart enough to avoid the train wreck. And Andre Braugher always gets my support. Remember, this clip is an advertisement. With such a short time to get your attention, the pace here may have little or nothing to do with how the final film plays.

The whole point of the friggin book and original movie was that the nerds win. They figure it out, they stay alive and it doesn't get out. Here we will get army guys shooting stuff.

Oh, and spoiler... but if the virus doesn't effect people with breathing problems and people who breath fast, how would it spread among people running away terrified from rageaholic victims.

@MonkeyT: Umm, the original was 2 hours 10 minutes... This is a MINISERIES!

The original tagline was: "The picture runs 130 minutes!... The story covers 96 of the most critical hours in man's history!... The suspense will last through your lifetime!"

One of my favorite parts of the the original movie was the Doctor vs. The facility aspect after the containment protocols were breached. I hope that they don't overlook that aspect of it during the mini-series.

Oh, and it's less widescreeny than the original (2.2:1 versus 1.78:1). Not a good thing when aspect ratio is one of two superlatives you can come up with, and it's not even true.

A rage virus.

How...."original".

The Andromeda Strain, now with prettier actors.

@Tim Faulkner: Not talking about length. Talking about pace. The original had some great edge-of-your-seat tension, but it also had a good deal of "I'm going to flip over and see what's on PBS tonight..." dialogue.

Neither can be perfect, but I'm willing to wait and see how they handle it instead of writing off in advance just because of a hyperactive promo clip.

@MonkeyT: Well, considering the science seems to have been thrown out the window, maybe you'll be satisfied. I could care less about the cuts in a promo clip, but I do care that they've made the original story nonsensical with 10 currently popular plots/trends/gimmicks.

on a side note, anyone else having trouble with embedded videos here today? Every one that I've tried to watch goes to about a minute, the video stops while the audio keeps going for about 10 seconds, then the video starts playing again and is out of sync for the rest of the time.

@AZTriGuy: Yes. Nick Denton needs to spend some of that Wonkette money on new video servers, methinks.

@AZTriGuy: Hmmm... that doesn't happen to me when I try to watch videos on our site. But I will mention it to our video guy.

I couldn't actually see one scene long enough in that trailer to tell if it was cool or not. But i'm leaning towards not

hmmm I really liked the original movie. I'm not excited about this at all.

I agree, this movie looks like it has to much action and scares with not enough suspense. Can't someone ressurect Alfred Hitchcock?!? For the love of all that is film!

Benjamin Bratt is the new Lou Diamond Phillips. i hope you know this.

A&E? seriously? you couldn't sell it to any other network could you, Scott?

hey another io9 video with sound issues

At least they replaced Kate Reid with someone who looks like a scientist, rather then some 21yo actress whos only there to provide eye candy and scream.

@Plague: It's called a "featurette".

@AZTriGuy: Good to know I'm not the only one!

I worked with virologists and microbiologists for years and I can guarantee that the best in their field look a lot more like David Wayne than Benjamin Bratt.

Another "intelligent virus" movie--ARRRRGGGHHH.

I have a sinking suspicion that the female scientist from the original film--who was about as glamorous and attractive as your great aunt, but believable as a scientist-- will be replaced by, oh, Lindsey Lohan or Tara Reid or Jessica Simpson or Jessica Alba...

@B: Oddly, I thought the exact same thing when I watched the preview. "Wow, if I were ADD I'd be having a field day right now! I wouldn't have to see the actual movie!"

I want to think this will be good, but really? An A&E Television Event? Hmm.

@Cacafuego: Why not Paris Hilton or Britney Spears? You know, someone smartlyier.

OH,the humanity....

another great film gets the MTV treatment.

"The whole point of the friggin book and original movie was that the nerds win. They figure it out, they stay alive and it doesn't get out"

Curiously enough, Crichton commented somewhere that the point of the novel and the first movie is that Andromeda mutates into a harmless form without human intervention, and the scientists make mistake upon mistake up to the point of them nearly blowing the base up and turning Andromeda into a monster.

Knocking Science out off its pedestal seems to be Crichton's recurring theme, not just as an excuse for thrilling adventure but as a conscientious posture: scientists are humans and just as reliable as anybody else, their mistakes quite amplifiable by their jobs' nature, he seems to mean. Sphere, The Terminal Man and others are about that. He explained Sphere as how wrong it is to put psichologically untrained scientists in charge of a first contact scenario.

He's an interesting guy: I read some lecture of him about how scientists don't do enough of a Sagan and make science more attractive to the mainstream, and some letter of his demanding that climate science change research and manifestos are as thoroughly scientific process-checked as other things are (independently of how most data seems to point out things, it is true there have been some real rigorousness failures, and you can't allow yourself that if your data is involved in some megazillion bucks-costly political decisions).