HOME   News   Reviews   Adv Search   Features   My DVD   About   Apps   Stats     Search:
  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.85:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer ( )
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  Subtitles
    English - Hearing Impaired, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Commentary - English
  Extras
  • 11 Featurette
  • 7 Photo gallery
  • Storyboards - Videomatic
  • Original screenplay
  • THX Optimiser

Aliens: CE

20th Century Fox/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 148 mins . M15+ . PAL

  Feature
Contract

Well, if the first film transfer in this box set, Alien, is the cream, this is the crap. Being one of my favourite all-time movies, I was so looking forward to checking out this one in the Quadrilogy. However, while the disc contains two versions of this classic space epic (as does each disc in the 'Quadrilogy'), I naturally wanted to see the extended version, which is widely accepted to be the best. Yeah I’d seen it before; once even on a Friday night on television many years ago, but while the film is awesome and certainly one that cemented James Cameron as a director to watch, the transfer is comparably a piece of shit.

After the last little trip Officer Ripley went on turned to crap, she gets back into hyper-sleep with cat Jones and takes a nap for the projected ten months home to Earth. Unfortunately she kinda misses her target and ends up rescued by a salvage team 57 years after the events of the first film. A lot has changed - though not bureaucracy - and soon she’s on charges for willful destruction of the space vessel Nostromo. Until the planet her crew found the alien on (now colonised) loses touch, of course. So she’s immediately reinstated and back on a ship to the colony to take on a shitload of the acid-blooded bastards with a team of space marines. Naturally, carnage follows.

"They mostly come at night; mostly..."

James Cameron had the courage to take on a sequel to a film that had succeeded for a totally different reason; the first had a cast of eight people (including the guy in the suit...) whereas this one had scads of them everywhere. The first was a tense cat and monster thriller, whereas this was a balls-out action film. So well made it was, and so true to the original ideal, that it achieved massive applause from around the world - and deservedly so. As far as action films go, you’ll be hard-pressed to find one so unrelenting and terrifying. Filling in a little more of the ongoing story of Ripley (as did the following two films) there was suddenly a second story at work here. No longer just a bug-hunt, this had become a human story of people during crises and of Ripley’s losses at the cost of sleeping away her homelife... and of chances renewed.

Maybe most people take less than that from the film, and maybe some more; the fact remains that Aliens, even some 15 years later, can still kick arse as an action film and with the extended version available here does so all the more.

  Video
Contract

Well, the disappointments come in the form of grainy scenes and a smaller cinema aspect ratio than the three other films in the set. Unfortunate also in that the original Special Edition DVD version is practically immaculate! What happened down at Fox? Maybe a couple of them alien-fellers got loose or sumthin’? Anyway, particular points of reference regarding said grain can be found in numerous shots in the nest under the cooling towers and in the infra-red Med Lab scenes. To be honest I was quite shocked and more than a little disappointed.

The cinema aspect here is only 1.85:1 with anamorphic enhancement and while this is entirely adequate, it’s kinda odd when the rest of the box set is in 2.35:1. Oh well. Anyhow, the rest of the video transfer is just fine with few if any artefacts, blacks and colours being well saturated and shadow detail being fairly good.

  Audio
Contract

The Dolby Digital 5.1 surround will work your system until it bleeds. The same awesome soundtrack as the original Special Edition release needed no upgrading as it is near perfect here. Plenty of surrounds and deep booming gunfire with squeals and explosions and relentless noise really bring the house down. The final scenes among the decaying power plant are everything a growing Aliens fan needs by way of sound. Aww, yeah!

Dialogue is fine and the sound effects well deserved the two associated Oscars won for editing and sound. Composer James Horner, long time collaborator with James Cameron, has outdone himself with a fitting military style action assembly of noise and hardware with orchestral superiority. From the gentle opening violins as we re-encounter the Narcissus to the full metal racket of the first conflagration, the soundtrack is spot on every time and suits the film perfectly.

  Extras
Contract

Oh no, we’re at the ‘work through lunch’ part again. As part of this awesomely detailed nine-disc box set, each film comes complete with a new or special edition plus an audio commentary on Disc One. The commentary here is great with 12 cast and crew members showing up at various times to impart their knowledge of the film to us. Of interesting note is the grown up Carrie Henn who played Newt, the stranded little girl in the film. A good commentary that again fills in any gaps left over from the swollen ranks of Disc Two. Let’s head over there now...

Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
Unused Concept Art for Newt...

Disc Two again features three major subheadings with subheaders within those. These are Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production and this disc manages to contain waaaay more than the original Special Edition release. Under Pre-Production we have our first entry, 57 Years Later - Continuing the Story. This featurette runs for 11:05 and is an interesting piece about how the idea came about to sequelise Ridley Scott’s huge hit of seven years prior. The original treatment by James Cameron is delivered in text form, but is actually the screenplay and is well worth a look. Around 160 pages to keep you busy there. Some nice concept stuff is covered in the next featurette Building Better Worlds, which runs for 13:31. Interviews with concept artists Syd Mead, Ron Cobb and James Cameron himself are quite absorbing here, as is some original concept artwork. The Art of Aliens follows this theme in the next art gallery and shows around 40 pics under three subheaders. A multi-angle videomatic comes next and this is the same as an animation animatic in being a sort of moving storyboard. Dual streams give us videomatic or split screen with final cut and is worth checking out for its 3:16 length. Recent interviews with staple cast members turn up next in the featurette Preparing For Battle, which features chats with Gale Anne Hurd (producer) Jenette Goldstein (Vasquez), Mark Rolston (Drake), Lance Henriksen (Bishop), Bill Paxton (Hudson), Michael Biehn (Hicks) and a grown up Carrie Henn (Newt). Very interesting and among the highlights of this section for me. This also features information on the personal touches of comments and jokes on the Marines’ armour and weapons. Finally, for this section, there’s a portrait gallery featuring cast shots totalling 72 images.

Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
Unused Concept Art for the Aliens...

Production comes in next and herein we have nine subheadings. Our first is This Time it’s War which is a simple behind the scenes featurette running for 19:43. There are plenty of interviews and some nice information about Hicks here. Next up is the production gallery which contains over 550 pictures featured under nine headings. Phew! Continuity Polaroids continue the theme (haha) with over 280 original shots from the shoot. The Risk Always Lives is the next featurette and is about the creation of the guns and stuff for the film. Really very interesting for all of its 15:16. Another gallery follows featuring over 70 pictures of those weapons and armour. Bughunt wins as my highlight for the second section here. This runs for 16:28 and features interviews with Stan Winston about the creation of the alien suits and puppets. You would not believe how much effort goes into this stuff! Along a similar vein is our next featurette called Beauty and the Bitch which describes the delicate ballet that is the queen alien versus the Power Loader. Great stuff running for 22:30. This has some great footage of the test puppets and such being built in Winston’s studio carpark. On that subject (again) comes Stan Winston’s photo archive that contains around 60 shots. Finally (just for section two!) comes Two Orphans: Sigourney Weaver and Carrie Henn, which is a nice little featurette about how these two chicks bonded while shooting the last parts of the film (in which there were just the two of them for several weeks). Also included here is a brief interview with the makeup guy as he relates his experience of the two at work.

Click here to enlarge and send to a friend
Unused Concept Art for the Alien Queen...

Alright (deep breath and stretch) here comes the last section, Post-Production. Only five subsections here to go, so we’re nearly there! First up is The Final Countdown – Music, Editing and Sound which is a featurette about just that. It runs for 15:34 and details the incredible soundscape for this film, particularly in that it was created without benefit of the computers everyone takes for granted today. It also earned two Academy Awards, so this bit is definitely worth a look. Next up is a 27:53 featurette on The Power of Real-Tech: Visual Effects. This is again very informative and is my highlight for part three. It also features interviews with the odd Skotek brothers, visual effects geniuses. The visual effects gallery drops in next with around 250 shots included. Our final featurette for this disc is in Aliens Unleashed – Reaction to the Film. This features some great stuff from the time including the original wordless teaser trailer. It runs for 11:41 and like all of these featurettes, is in the screen ratio of 4:3. Last, and possibly least, is another gallery entitled Film Finish and Release and features over 50 shots under three headings and includes the Special Shoot pics. (This is the post film stuff for video and DVD cases, promos, cards etc.)

I’m worn out.

  Overall  
Contract

Well, the film is a modern classic and is naturally going to be in a box set of Alien films. However, it isn’t as nice a version as we saw in the Special Edition release a little while back and is therefore the biggest disappointment of the set. That being said, it is still awesome, with only momentary pieces of lacking film quality. The only one released in the 1.85:1 ratio is another mystery here, however the film still kicks major arse and with the multitude of extras included balances the scale again.

Stay tuned for more Alien reviews from the Quadrilogy from your Alien experts, DVDnet.


  • LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=3493
  • Send to a friend.

    Cast your vote here: You must enable cookies to vote.
  •   
      And I quote...
    "This time it’s war!"
    - Jules Faber
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Nintaus DVD-N9901
    • TV:
          Sony 51cm
    • Receiver:
          Diamond
    • Speakers:
          Diamond
    • Surrounds:
          No Name
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
      Recent Reviews:
    by Jules Faber

    Narrow Margin
    "Gene Hackman as an action star? It happened… "

    A King in New York: SE
    "Taking a poke at too many demons makes this film a little stilted and not among his best works"

    A Zed and Two Noughts
    "Is it art or is it pornography? Who cares? Both are good."

    Blake's 7 - The Complete Series One
    "Performances are fine, but the flimsy sets, the crappy props and the undisguisable late 70s hairdos are just too much."

    Heavens Above
    "While not amongst some of Sellers’ more confident roles, this one is still up there amidst the more subtle of them…"

      Related Links
      None listed

     

    Search for Title/Actor/Director:
    Google Web dvd.net.au
       Copyright © DVDnet. All rights reserved. Site Design by RED 5   
    rss