Alien Vault: The Definitive Story Behind the Film [Hardcover]

Whilst many reviews have lauded the quality of the book, it's presentation and clearly fan driven narrative of it's author Ian Nathan who has managed to collate successfully data from numerous sources including older books, blu-ray commentaries and EMPIRE interviews, this review concentrates on the imagery, namely the photographs contained in the book should someone be hoping this is also a DEFINITIVE reference for ALIEN.

Many of the images of production photos and concept art have been seen before are seen in colour for the first time here. And whilst the concept drawings of Chris Foss, Moebius and Ron Cobb, the paintings of HR Giger have reproduced clearly (if somewhat darkly) the same cannot be said of the majority of behind the scenes stills which fall below expectations.

The presentation of the book is excellent as has been previously noted, but the formatting sometimes leaves a lot of dead white page around smaller stills that could have been made larger and to bleed off the page, especially at the top and bottom of pages (when this is done in the book it works much better, image-wise). Whilst colourful on the good quality paper, the majority of photos suffer from poor reproduction; soft looking, blown out highlights, dense large areas of black shadow with no detail. This is frustrating when compared with the same images in other books or on the internet that are sharper with more shadow detail (and really unforgivable in an age of digital scanning and clean up) . This is especially true of the Nostromo model ship which the book fails to have one decent picture of! Disappointing given the wealth of imagery on the internet especially with the recent restoration of the model. Even the adult alien was better catered for in previous publications. I would have preferred many more large, rare and detailed images to be able to refer to, but maybe that's a different book.

Where the book does score better though is in the reproduction of some concept art and rare Ridleygrams, Director Ridley Scott's own storyboards that provide additional insight into the movie making process . I could have done without the "Enclosures" gimmick (which makes flicking through the book difficult); loose images of FOLDED posters and notes that would have been better served being given a full page in the book (or a bigger book). But the Nostromo blueprints are a nice geeky treat! These are NOT floor plans of the stage sets as with the STAR WARS blueprints; this is front, side and top of the model) I certainly wouldn't buy this book second-hand given these additions would be likely missing!

There are interesting behind the scenes shots to be had in this book, but there still remains to be seen a definitive comprehensive image reference book on the sets, model work and concept art (other than Giger's work which has been covered extensively) that is given the same respect and reproduction quality (such as the Art of STAR WARS books) that fans of ALIEN would love to own. Hopefully this is lying in another vault waiting to be discovered!

The enclosure bonus's aside, the imagery is for the most part functional, to support the text. This is a book for the definitive story of ALIEN rather than the definitive imagery of the film but since it fulfills that admirably with passion from an obvious fan in Ian Nathan I will still give this excellent value and well presented book 4 stars for being ALMOST perfect.

Alien Vault is a 175 paged lavishly illustrated volume defining the story behind Ridley Scott's Alien. The volume comes with Boxed sleeve which suits the book really well, the story to most die-hard fans is well-known and nothing new is really revealed in this book, is basically a slightly expanded version of the 1979 Futura release of "The Book Of Alien", its well laid out and easy to read and one is going to dip into this volume from time to time, there are continuity polaroid snaps of certain scenes, sketches and a few candid photos of the Movie sets. The most interesting element of this book is the enclosed " Artifacts", 5 tracing paper pouches hold: a small sized Nostromo blueprint, a sticker badge of the Nostromo Logo, samples of Ridley Scott's Storyboards, Ron Cobb sketch, two Giger illustrations ( space jockey & face hugger), a script page sample, and two A4 Alien movie lobby posters. Each chapter is interspaced with a Nostromo Deck logo--a nice touch, and best of all is on the inside covers is the correctly spelt WEYLAN--YUTANI logo's. My favorite photo is of a thoughtful Sigourney Weaver on the Garage Deck of the Nostromo--near where Brett is taken by the Alien, All in all Ian Nathan has written and produced a worthy volume on this Iconic Science Fiction movie and its highly recommended.

Alien Vault is the movie companion to the masterpiece of Ridley Scott.

The 176-page book comes in a nice slipcase. The pages are filled with photos, artwork and some printed artefacts like Ridley Scott's annotated storyboards and other interesting stuff enclosed in vellum envelopes.

As for the content, much of the visual content were actually released in a much earlier book called The Book of Alien, just that the presentation is different. Some of the set photos are the same, as with Chris Foss' design for the Nostromo spaceship, Moebius design for the spacesuits, etc.

Alien Vault focuses on the movie production. The interviews and stories are interesting to read, especially when movies made nowadays are prone to using CGI for special effects. There are lots of insights to movie making and you can find out the little camera tricks they use. The content layout is organized, the artwork and set photos are great.

It makes more sense to get this if you've don't have the earlier book or the Alien DVDs with extras, or just new to Alien. It's 5 stars if you've not seen the content before.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)