This Memorial Day weekend A&E releases their remake of The Andromeda Strain, a ’70s movie that was based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name.

Now I am one for slamming remakes. Most times you can just smell the taint of “bad” lurking within. But I will admit that this revision of the quintessential biological apocalypse may be pretty swank, especially since it will be far closer to Crichton’s version than the ’70s film, and Ridley Scott has his fingers all over it too.

For those who have never read the novel (shame on you) or seen the original film (again, shame on you), the general story goes something like this:

An entire town is killed by a mysterious virus brought to earth by a returning satellite. A search through the town reveals two survivors: a baby and an old man. Why the virus spared them could provide the key for immunizing the populace. A crack team of scientists isolates themselves with the survivors in an underground laboratory, and now they only have a few days to find a cure before the world is destroyed.

Below is a trailer for the A&E version followed by one for the ’70s version, which was considered pretty good in them there days.