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The Film's and their Blu-Ray transfer's
Alien: This film is incredible, no matter how many times you see it it never loses it's impact. It's fantastic, it has an atmosphere that is so unique, everything about this film is amazing. It's a shame that CGI has taken over so much in films now because this along with Aliens shows how effective practical visual effects can be. Less is more and the fact that it takes so long to see the Alien itself and the fact that we see so little works incredibly well. Unfortunately this isn't a consistent approach throughout the series. The transfer is amazing, it's perfect absolutely perfect, the picture quality never dips and you'll see details that you've probably never seen before.
Aliens: To try and make another Alien film in the same mould as the first would have been a mistake so thankfully they go a different direction and give us one of the most important and brilliant action movies off all time whilst still maintaining a sense of dread that the original had. Everything is bigger, bigger cast, bigger aliens. Very different from the first and your opinion in films will determine which you prefer but together these are two of the very best films ever mad. The transfer for aliens is not quite as good as with Alien but is still very good, the film moves much faster than the first and so we don't really get to appreciate the extra detail that blu-ray shows us as much. It's still a fantastic picture though and is without doubt the best this film has ever looked. Not as good as the first but then it sets such high standards that was always going to be hard.
Alien 3: To watch this film on its own and not find out what happened behind the scenes would be a big mistake. There was so much nonsense going on, so much studio interference that it's surprising that the film isn't much worse. Although do yourself a favour, don't watch the theatrical cut watch the special edition, it makes you wonder what was going through the head of the idiot who cut out so much from this film. Some things work very, very well, Sigourney Weaver is excellent, especially at the start of the film and I have to say even though the scores for the first two films may be the more famous I feel like 3 has some of the best moment's in the series in terms of how much the music adds to the film. Only at certain points though, the more emotional parts of the film, because it's everywhere else that the film doesn't do so well. The acting from the main characters is good but it has to be said some of the supporting characters are just awful, shouting out their line's and really not giving you an incentive to care what happens to them unlike in the last two films. This is one you should watch with an open mind however and even if you aren't a fan of watching extras you should make the exception for this film because it's clear that this film could have been so much more. The transfer isn't great to be honest, the effort all went into the first two films from the looks of it, not to say the film looks terrible, it still looks good but not anything that really takes you back.
Alien Resurrection: This film is terrible, even if you took it away from the rest of the franchise and looked at it on it's own it would still be terrible. There is honestly nothing to recommend about this. The writing is beyond terrible, characters blast out lines that could have come from any action movie in the world because that's all this is, it's an action film, it has no atmosphere, the attempts at scares are just cheap tricks. Unlike the third film where you don't really care about the characters in this either way, in this I genuinely wanted them all to die. The acting,it's pathetic. Even taking away how ridiculous some of the lines are, you'd think an actor might at least try and deliver them in a convincing way but no, the worst offender is Dan Hedeya playing a ridiculous general, it's unbelievable how bad he is. It's a shame to see such a great franchise (despite what you may think of the third) turn into this joke of a film. The transfer is the same as the third in that it's not great but it's not bad, the film doesn't look good anyway, sort of grubby so maybe there was only so much they could do with it.
The Extras
All the films come in both theatrical and special editions, this can make a big difference, 2 and in particular 3 are improved by their special edition. With the fourth it really doesn't matter, it's terrible both way's but the special edition does have a different ending which I suppose for now at least has to be considered the end of the series so maybe worth checking out.
Discs 5 and 6 are where most of the extras are. Disc 5 contains what must be near feature length documentaries on each film, these are split into featurettes which can be watched separately but are best viewed together, it takes you through the whole journey of each of the films from the script to the screen and cover's everything you could ever want to see. Each one has it's merits, its really interesting to see how alien came into existence, they talk with the original writers then go on to the 20th Century Fox executives who took it on. In regard to Fox I have to say how surprised I am by the fact that they have let these interviews go out into the public domain on their product. The people at Fox who were involved with the film are interviewed and give their thoughts on the productions but it's when the interviews start with - let's face it - the more creative people it starts to become very interesting. The original writer of the script talks about how some people at fox took his story, changed the character names and called it their own, you even have Ridley Scott agreeing with him but then they talk to the Fox writer and he claims he drastically rewrote it.
Obviously these movies would never have been made the way they were without Fox but you actually feel the frustration of the filmakers during the filming as everything they do is scrutinised and criticised and in some cases just overruled by people at Fox who only cared about schedules and budgets. Ridley Scott and James Cameron today are two of the greatest director's of our times but back when they made these films they had only made one film each prior. So it's frustrating to see Fox try and control them he way they do, fortunately both Scott and Cameron were able to provide us with two of the best film's of all time despite constant interference.
It's the third documentary, about Alien 3 where you can see what an absolute mess Fox made of it. They announce a release date before they even have a script, they go hire 3 different directors, they change everything. There's a a massive feeling of "what if" when it comes to the third, we get to see what Vincent Ward would have done, his "wooden planet" storyline could have been fantastic and even just listening to him talk about what he would have done conjures some fantastic images in your head and when they start playing the 3rd films (excellent) score over pre production paintings and designs you can see what a great chance of a film there was which was just destroyed by some idiotic producers. When they did get David Fincher in they interfered with everything, they started shooting without a complete script, they had people reporting back to them what the director was doing, they told set designers what to do, the list goes on, it's amazing to see what they did to David Fincher, an absolutely brilliant director now but perhaps unfortunately for him was taking on his first feature film. That he lasted as long as he did is amazing, his absence from the interviews is completely understandable and it would have been great to hear from him but what we get instead is almost as good, it's fly on the wall footage from the shoot and you see the huge toll that this interference has on him, he may not give any interviews but his body language from the set tells it's own story.
In my opinion the documentary on the making of the third would be worth buying separately if it were available, it's amazing that Fox are ok to put this on the blu-ray, to even cut in the interviews with the same producers who interfered with it and showing them try to justify it is fascinating.
Everything that the documentary's on the first three film's are, the fourth one is not. The documentary is particularly disappointing watched after the brilliant and revealing third one. Whereas before we saw the struggle that the last three directors had, fighting against the studio's to try and deliver the film they envisaged and we got to hear the opinion of nearly everyone involved, the fourth one is a huge disappointment. Not that you would be expecting too much from it anyway seeing as how poor the fourth film is but it almost feels like the interviewee's are ignoring the elephant in the room, just how terrible the film is. It's noticeable that Sigourney Weaver is absent from this in the more recent interview that they had been using for the previous three films. Did she just not want to talk about it? Instead we have what almost feels like a promotional interview where she's in costume talking about how great the film is. We get this constantly through the documentary and it's very strange, it seems as if the people involved are trying to convince themselves of the film's qualities. None of the honest reflection that we've seen through hours of interviews is here instead it's the French director and his crew talking about how much they loved the film and how good they thought it was.
Conclusion
The first two film's are incredible and the extras here are among the best you'll ever see, they really do cover everything. For some it might almost weaken re-watching the film's once you know how everything was done in terms of effects but it really shouldn't. They are so influential not only in Sci-Fi but in their respective Horror/Action genres.
It's frustrating more than anything when watching Alien 3 knowing what was going on behind the scenes and it's a shame that everything that was going on really hangs over the film because it really does have some great moment's, arguably some of the most powerful scenes of the series are in the third.
The fourth is however completely without merit. It shouldn't have been made and it's not really worth seeing at all but it's here because like it or not this is a part of the Alien series.
This blu-ray set is more expensive than the standalone set with just the films but the extras are worth the price, even if you don't spend time watching extras regularly. Even taking away the way we get to see inside of production's where the talented people are not the ones in charge, we still get to see all the fascinating work that went into the design of the films.
This set is at the top of most lists of the best blu-rays for a reason,the previous DVD "Quadrilogy" was one of the best DVD sets for much the same reason. It's outstanding, anything you ever wanted to know about these films is in here, the extras are fantastic and so interesting. If you have this on DVD upgrade if possible, the transfers of the first two films are brilliant, they really do look as good as any blu-ray out there.
Thoroughly recommended.
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Amazing quality
Didn't realise how much of the films I had missed from seeing these films on video and DVD and even TV .Super detail in the films and new bits added in the 2003 directors cut of Alien wow.Delivery came day earlier than stated and did not disappoint.
