NEW Alien Quadrilogy (DVD)

This is another of my retro reviews for a product that has been around for quite awhile but I have never turned my attention to,until now.
First off I cannot believe the price drop that has occured since its' initial release;a drop of about $60-70.00....amazing.
This is a set NO Alien fan should be without.This is the WHOLE enchillada,and then some.What you get here are all four Alien movies,presented in their original widescreen formats and in two forms;in their original theatrical presentation AND in new director cuts.The most material added was in Aliens by director James Cameron and the least in the last,Alien Ressurection.I have viewed all movies in both versions and after viewing the directors' editions I have never watched anything else.The bonus footage is definitely a plus.
I have owned this set almost since its' inital release and I cannot tell you how many times I have watched and rewatched this series and it always keeps me coming back for more.Each film has been transferred wonderfully and everything,picture and sound wise,is as it should be.There is included here an extra disc with a multitude of fascinating extras and all in all the back slip cover tells us there are nearly 50 hours total worth of extras throughout the entire series discs.Just phenomenal.
Opening the set itself can be a bit unwieldy at first and takes time to get used to.It is folded into two large sections and when you take them out of the protective large cover/box it is in you lay them down and they fold out into two main parts.Each in turn folds out about three times in opposite directions so if you want to open the entire set you need ALOT of space underneath it.I would only recommend opening one section at a time.I found it a bit of a bugboo intially but the more you play with it the more you get the hang of it.
"Alien" was a groundbreaking picture in its' day and the rest of the movies have kept that tradition alive and well and each new director/movie has expanded on that idea(with their own sense of vision) while keeping faithful to the Alien dictum.
20th Century Fox did a superb job on this set in its' release year of 2003 and did the franchise proud in doing so;easily standing the test of time.That is why it is so unfortunate to see the franchise being dragged down by Foxs' AVP series,especially the latest offering "Requiem".Whether Fox has the where withall to stop this slide is problematic.
However we do have this set to remind us(and Fox) what exactly the Alien franchise is all about/should be all about;good actors,good acting,good scipts,good direction,good special effects and an unerring sense of the essence and spirit of the Alien universe.These films in this set are the foundations of the series and are a must see/have for all Alien and Sci-Fi fans everywhere.At this price there is no time like right now to get your set.

I'm sure everybody's seen these movies. This is a great set, great picture, great sound, lots of commentaries on each of the 4 films. The best part of this set is just to watch the 2nd disc of each movie, back to back and see the whole "making-of" saga unfold. Ridley Scott's "Alien" seemed easy-to-make, compared to the struggles of Cameron and Fincher. Of course, Ridley always makes the 'near-impossible' seem easy. He's so well-prepared and has such great, inventive, pre-CGI ideas that save so much money and keep the studio happy. Yes, those are really his hands, inside those washing-up gloves, fluttering inside the plexiglas egg that Kane is about to stick his foolish face into.
Cameron's "Aliens" was a fight from day one. James is a perfectionist who knows everyone's job, on the set, and can do it better than them all. His movie sets would run smoothly if there were simply 100 Jimmy Camerons surrounding him. Cameron has a hard enough time with crews in America, but plunking him down into a typical British crew in Shepperton who have their tea break at 11 and a liquid lunch later on and stop for the day at 5... well, you can just imagine the conflicts. "Let the sackings begin!"
David Fincher's first film, the 'trial-by-fire', "Alien 3" was a fight between him and the studio all the way. This is a typical Hollywood story (like the story of Coppola and The Godfather). The clever studio hires the brilliant young director to basically do as he's told and save a bunch of money for them... but, the reason he's brilliant is that he has a definite artistic vision and he sees the project a certain way and he is extremely stubborn about doing it his way and not listening to the studio, no matter how many suits are standing around on the set watching him and wagging their fingers everytime he wants to take that one extra shot to get it just right. This 'making-of' was the most interesting of all of them because of what Fincher was up against coming into this film and the studio pulling the plug on him later and him washing his hands of the whole thing, once it was done. He's the only director who's missing from the extensive commentaries and interviews, which is a shame. But, at least, the 'director's cut' of the film has the restored beautiful exterior scenes which show how the doctor finds the barely-alive Ripley washed up on the shore.
Monsieur Jeunet's "Alien Resurrection" seemed to be a piece of cake for everyone involved. In his commentary he implied that he felt privileged to be shooting a huge Hollywood movie, he loves the 'Alien' series and he was there to give the studio what it wants. His attitude made for a smooth-running set. A lot of people dismiss "Alien 4" but I like his visual style. His D.P., Darius Khondji, brings that beautiful "City of Lost Children" look to this film. I even like most of his humor and sense of parody. I don't really like the ending or the new creature he came up with, but the story of the making-of this film is fascinating.
The Bonus 9th disc is one of those "let's amaze them by giving them 9 discs instead of just 8" sort of things. A truly archival disc containing a lot of written extras from the laser discs of the first 2 'Alien' films then just endless trailers from all of them. They did stick in some photos, drawings and video clips to break up the mountain of reading in the laser disc information, but it mostly seems like more work than it's worth.
On the whole, as a movie fanatic and collector, I'd say I'm happy with this set. After going through the whole thing I feel that I won't want to see another face-hugger or chest-burster for as long as I live... or at least not until next year when I go through the whole box again.

Great buy, good value, and definitely worth checking out if you're an Alien fan, or even if you're new to the series and just need to see the movies. I personally prefer the special editions/directors versions of all the movies because they add a lot to the story in each. I find the special edition of Alien Resurrection on par with Alien 3 theatrical version, because now the extra minutes at the beginning and the pacing give you the sense that Ripley could be just as much Alien as the Aliens are. And that's something I think they intended; for the viewer to see Ripley as a potential antagonist early on in the basketball scene and in the fight with the space pirates, demonstrating how strong she is. It just flows better, and the new opening/extended conversations about Ripley's cloning made me really dig the movie this time around, and I appreciated what they did with the alien getting her characteristics, and vice versa much more. Everything about A:R is better in special edition imo, especially Call(Winona Ryder) and a few other characters. Alien 3 is also much better overall in the special edition imo, it fleshes out the characters a little more, but substitutes the dog-xenomorph for an ox-xenomorph(nothing really changes about the actual creature other than the animal it gestates in). Aliens' themes and ending are more powerful to me with the stronger focus on the theme of maternity (extended scene where Ripley finds out about her daughter's death). The sentry guns always made me more tense instead of breaking the tense, claustrophobic feeling of Aliens, as some internet posters claim. This is because we see the sentry guns empty as the creatures just keep coming. They were confident the sentries would help keep them safe, but we can clearly see there were still some left. Our heroes can also see there is a huge horde moving into the room directly after the sentry guns stop (with a very small amount of ammo left). This makes more sense when you compare it to the theatrical version. The aliens are forced to crawl through the crawl space to avoid sentry fire. Instead, Ripley ostensibly forgets to think to check for a small crawlspace above them(not included in blueprints, possibly in both cases) in the theatrical version as they see the horde close in, on the motion tracker. Also the sentry gun scene is just plain cool, and even if you prefer the theatrical release of any of these movies; its still nice to own the extras. On top of the special edition/director's cut discs you get all 4 theatrical versions on their own, with seperate bonus features. As well, you get extra behind the scenes features and "making of" documentaries. Very interesting to watch for any fan, and includes directors some talk about the ideas behind, and characteristics of the alien lifeform and unexplored/unexplained questions . With all the films bundled together this is a perfect buy to get ready for Prometheus, the quasi-Alien prequel, if you don't yet own any of these films on blu-ray or DVD