Alien Quadrilogy Review:

Synopsis

Alien
Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Gladiator) introduces Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, an iron-willed woman desperate to battle the galaxy's ultimate creature. The terror begins when the crew of a spaceship investigates the transmission from a desolate planet, only to discover a life form that is perfectly evolved to annihilate mankind.

Aliens
James Cameron (Titanic) brings us Sigourney Weaver's returns as Ripley, the only survivor from mankind's first encounter with the monstrous Alien. Her account of the Alien and the fate of her crew are received with scepticism until she returns to planet LV-426 with a team of high-tech colonial marines only to find the Alien has bred and this time it's all out war.

Alien 3
David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) takes over the directorial reins as lone survivor Ellen Ripley (Weaver) crashes on a bleak wasteland inhabited by former inmates of the planet's maximum-security prison. Ripley's fears of an alien onboard her craft are confirmed when the mutilated bodies of ex-cons start to mount. Without weapons or modern technology of any kind, Ripley must lead the men into battle against the terrifying creature. The horrifying realisation about her link with the Alien may compel Ripley to destroy not only the Alien, but herself as well.

Alien Resurrection
Ripley returns from the dead to battle against the aliens who terrorised her life more than 200 years ago. Bred with the alien queen inside her, the new Ripley is part of a deadly experiment to create the ultimate alien weapon. The scientists behind the project however, have no idea as to the chaos and horror that their dangerous plan will unleash. Once again Ripley must confront her enemies, this time with the help of a motley crew of smugglers, including a mechanic named Call (Winona Ryder), who holds more than a few surprises of her own.

The Films

In 1979, Ridley Scott unleashed a seminal science-fiction classic, Alien, upon worldwide box offices. The suspense, special effects, direction and design combined beautifully to produce one of the most effective and intelligent 'scary movies' to date.

The story starts with a space mining crew (obviously in the future) investigating a distress signal from a seemingly deserted planet. However, after a brief investigation upon landing, the travellers take off again with an unwanted passenger aboard. One of the most brilliant aspects of Scott's original is its prolonged build-up and continued sense of ill ease from the start. This tactic, mastered by Alfred Hitchcock, extends the film's running length beyond today's genre norms but allows for the provision of an explosive climax that, unlike most, truly satisfies.

Other than the admirable reluctance to adopt cheap thrills, Alien should also be praised for its stunning design. H.R. Giger, an eccentric Swiss artist, set an early tone for the production with his devastatingly vicious yet sexual conceptual drawings. His input was a key building block in all four films and this remains his most well-known work to date. Drawing from Giger's contributions, many areas of the film look decidedly damp, dreary and deserted, serving as refreshment from the industry's idealistic glossiness at the time, as well as a symbol for the loneliness of space.

The sound design is another of Alien's many strong points – the final act of the film, where the viewer is finally paid back with interest for their attention, features a disorienting yet virtuoso mix of visceral alarms, escaping steam and absolutely no dialogue.

With Aliens, Director James Cameron tried to add his own spin on the first film rather than remake it directly. Often referred to as 'Vietnam in space', this sequel is bigger and much more action-packed from start to finish, not to mention significantly longer. However, Cameron's skilful storytelling allows the adrenaline-packed scenes to withstand such length and fans generally see this instalment as both a worthy successor to Alien and one of cinema's few examples of a satisfying sequel.

Meanwhile, Alien 3 marked the beginning of decline for the series and was beset by profound production difficulties. Quite a few directors were approached to helm the film and Vincent Ward even made very significant inroads into the pre-production process. After the gadgets and gizmos of the two Alien films before it (particularly the Cameron entry), Ward had a rather quirky idea of setting the entire second sequel in a wooden monastery in space, full of monks looking to distance themselves from technology.

The studio, quite unsurprisingly, soon grew weary of the idea and scrapped Ward from the film – together with most of his ideas and concepts. Instead, they hired David Fincher, a young director with a successful line of commercials and music videos under his belt. Already known for his visual panache, Fincher was deemed to be the perfect candidate to follow the likes of Ridley Scott.

For a variety of reasons, the production of this second sequel was an unhappy experience, particularly for Fincher, who was given revised script pages virtually on the day of filming. The end result was a weakly structured film that failed to win over the critics. Fincher quickly disowned the film and, very fairly, viewed it as wholly unrepresentative of his talents. Indeed, he hoped the original negative would be accidentally destroyed – presumably, he still harbours the same feelings... However, Fincher would soon prove his worth (and regain his trust in filmmaking) with such dark hits as Se7en and Fight Club.

The fourth film, Alien Resurrection, may have enjoyed the most trouble free production period, but fans generally see it as the weakest member of the quartet. Filmed from a script by Joss Whedon (creator of TV's Buffy The Vampire Slayer), this Jean-Pierre Jeunet offering was vaguely watchable yet hopelessly generic and certainly nothing special. Alien Resurrection failed to match Ridley Scott's masterful suspense, James Cameron's dazzling action and David Fincher's beautifully moody visuals.

As a result, it is this final film that is most easily forgotten. Winona Ryder seems miscast, while the bizarre mindset of Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien Resurrection means that fans don't even have their trusted old Ripley to fall back upon for comfort.

Overall, the Alien films make up one of the most distinctive sci-fi action franchises to date. The strength of the series undeniably lies in the first two instalments, while David Fincher's effort also has its moments considering the production strife. However, the fourth film took the saga to disappointing lows and it's now time hang up Ripley's weapons... at least for now.

Video

All four films are, of course, anamorphically enhanced and presented in their respective theatrical aspect ratios. The overall impression of the image quality is very strong indeed, although only the first two films look significantly better than on the previous 5-disc Alien box set.

Although image quality tends to vary inversely with age, Alien is actually one of the most impressive discs visually. Quite a lot of fine-tuning had been completed for the transfer since the film's last DVD outing and this is a sharp, well-preserved transfer with excellent black levels and consistent colours to mask the feature's advanced years.

Meanwhile, the video transfer for Aliens has only undergone some minor grain removal since its appearance on the Alien Legacy box set. On the whole, sharpness is more than acceptable, while print damage and colour inaccuracies are pleasingly uncommon. In general, this is second-rate stuff in comparison to Alien, but certainly not shabby in absolute terms for such an old film.

Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection are fairly similar in terms of image quality but the latter film is understandably the better looking of the two. The transfers for both films perform as well as expected for nearly new material, offering all-round technical competence without breaking a sweat.

Overall, therefore, this is a pleasing presentation of all four films, but fans should be particularly impressed by the pristine Ridley Scott original.

Audio

All four films boast a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, while Alien and Alien Resurrection also feature additional DTS 5.1 sound. The first two films were originally recorded in a dreadfully inferior soundtrack format and their 5.1 upmixes here are surprisingly active and precise - the rear speakers are used both frequently and skilfully.

Meanwhile, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, in their capacity as the newer films, sound slightly more natural. Note that the third film suffers from some slightly indistinct dialogue on occasion due to the damaged suffered by the original sound elements.

Those with DTS compatible hardware should definitely take advantage of the afore-mentioned superior tracks accompanying the first and last films. In both cases, surround placemement seems more precise, while the soundstage appears wider for maximum atmospheric effect.

Overall, the soundtracks are almost as impressive as the transfers and the inclusion of supplementary DTS soundtracks for Alien and Alien Resurrection is particularly appreciated. The only disappointment is that the middle two films, particularly Cameron's gigantic space war, were overlooked in the DTS stakes.

Extras

This mammoth 9-disc undertaking basically includes the most comprehensive and detailed set of extras one could have ever hoped for. All four films receive the deluxe treatment, including an audio commentary and their own second disc with a lengthy documentary (neatly divided up into individual featurettes), galleries and more.

On these second discs for each film, there are options to play all the featurettes together (thus restoring them to their original documentary form) or to view all the artwork sequentially to cut down on remote control work. A ninth disc, containing a few further items, has also been included to close out the bonus material.

What follows is a blow-by-blow dissection of the extras - note that there are literally dozens of hours worth of material here and the lengthy critique below understandably reflects this. Note that the overwhelming majority of extras are presented in 1.33:1 full-frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.

If you can't bear to sift through the entire analysis, rest assured that this is a brilliantly compiled box set with very well-structured supplements, containing a mixture of interviews, on-set snippets, test footage and much more. Fans should therefore find this title worth every penny of its selling price.

Alien

The first disc kicks off with an audio commentary by Director Ridley Scott, Sigourney Weaver, Dan O'Bannon, Ron Shusett and a few of the other cast members. This is a very solid track, offering a nicely rounded approach to discussing the film, but Scott's solo commentary for the previous Alien DVD release should have really been included for completeness reasons.

The second disc for this original film starts off with the brilliant 'Star Beast - Developing The Story' featurette, an 18 minute exploration of the scripting stage. Many interviewees, including Dan O'Bannon deliver conflicting ideas on exactly who contributed what to the film and this sort of item makes a refreshing change from the diplomatic tone of most DVD extras.

The first draft screenplay by Dan O'Bannon discussed in the above featurette is also located on this second disc, together with 'The Visualists - Direction And Design' featurette, which spends 17 minutes explaining the visual input of Director Ridley Scott, artist H.R. Giger and others.

A vast collection of pre-production art that has been referenced in the preceding featurette follows, including a 'Ridleygrams' gallery (the director's original scene thumbnails), storyboard archives and multiple 'The Art Of Alien' conceptual galleries. Since the design of this first film was so inspired and unique, the inclusion of all these illustrations is a welcome addition to the disc.

Up next is the 'Truckers In Space - Casting' featurette, which conveys how the filmmakers wanted to hire quality character actors in order to hide the fact that Alien was essentially a B-movie. Over the course of this 15 minute extra, it is revealed that the role of Ripley was the last one to be cast - Sigourney Weaver herself recounts her experiences.

Meanwhile, the 'Fear Of The Unknown - Shepperton Studios' featurette spends 24 minutes examining a few of the difficulties encountered during the production phase - Ridley Scott was constantly told to work faster, despite his speedy pace, while many of the cast complain about the clausrophobic spacesuits which caused them to faint. Some interesting information about the sets is also imparted in this featurette.

Some further images are next up on the disc, located in the production gallery and continuity polaroids collection. A brief break from the galleries is offered in the 17 minute 'The Darkest Reaches - Nostromo And The Alien Planet' featurette, which features more set information, before the disc returns to offering yet more images in 'The Sets Of Alien' photo archive.

Some more all-round information on the alien lifeforms (namely the eggs, chestburster and larger creature) can be found in 'The Eighth Passenger - Creature Design' featurette - lengthy discussion of the infamous 'Chestburster' sequence is undoubtedly the highlight of this extra. Following on with much relevance is 'The Chestburster' multi-angle sequence with optional audio commentary by Director Ridley Scott. Running for 5 minutes with a choice of three angles, this is basically all the best material available to the editing room when assembling the gory set-piece.

The 'H.R. Giger's Workshop' gallery is the next item on the disc and offers an insight into the eccentric genius' den, while the 17 minute 'Future Tense - Editing And Music' featurette takes a decent look at its two topics, including the particularly intriguing discord between Ridley Scott and Composer Jerry Goldsmith.

The 7 deleted scenes that follow run for 6 minutes and are nothing special - after all, Scott had already reinstated any worthy material for his Director's Cut, thus branding this material as bottom of the barrel by implication. The mixture of sequences are basically dialogue set-ups and not all-new thrills and chills.

Next up is the 19 minute 'Outward Bound - Visual Effects' featurette, which (obviously) takes a look at the film's admirable special effects, followed quite logically by a 'Visual Effects' gallery. Closing out the disc is the superb 'A Nightmare Fulfilled - Reaction To The Film' featurette, which brilliantly charts the film's successful release, along with a 'Poster Explorations' gallery, 'Special Shoot' promotional photo archive and 'Premiere' photo archive.


Aliens

This sequel starts off with an audio commentary by Director James Cameron and various other collaborators from both sides of the camera. This is a very entertaining track to listen to, thanks to Cameron's intelligent filmmaking discussion being evenly balanced by humourous antics from the cast.

The first extra on the second Aliens disc, the '57 Years Later - Continuing The Story' featurette, runs for 11 minutes and serves as a general introduction to how the sequel was green-lit and how Cameron was approached to write the script - his original treatment has also been included on the DVD. Meanwhile, the 'Building Better Worlds - From Concept To Reality' featurette takes an interesting 14 minute look at the film's production design.

Up next are 'The Art Of Aliens' galleries, which house some conceptual artwork, followed by the 'Preparing For Battle - Casting And Characterization' featurette. This latter extra clocks in at 17 minutes and discusses the casting implications that arose from shooting the film in England.

The 20 minute 'This Time It's War - Pinewood Studios' featurette is undoubtedly the best Aliens extra (aside from the commentary) thanks to its coverage of the many disputes between James Cameron and the English crew. The various culture clashes, including Blighty's fondness of tea, are discussed, along with threats of strike.

Some further stills, in form of production galleries and continuity polaroids , are followed by 'The Risk Always Lives - Weapons And Action' featurette, a 15 minute piece about actual and potential on-set mishaps. Up next is the 'Weapons And Vehicles' photo gallery, which flows with relevance from the previous extra.

The disc subsequently supplies two creature featurettes - a 16 minute item entitled 'Bug Hunt - Creature Design' , followed by the 23 minute 'Beauty And The Bitch - Power Loader vs Queen Alien' piece. Both of these extras are more than detailed enough and complemented well by the 'Stan Winston's Workshop' photo archive.

The extras continue with the 'Two Orphans - Sigourney Weaver And Carrie Henn' featurette, a rather dull 14 minute exploration of how Weaver and Henn became very close, especially towards the end of the production. Thankfully, things pick up sharply with the 16 minute 'The Final Countdown - Music, Editing And Sound' featurette, which uncovers the flaring tempers between James Cameron, Producer Gale Anne Hurd and James Horner. The pressure placed upon Horner to finish the score was immense and fans will appreciate this short featurette greatly.

After some closing dissection of the effects trickery through the 28 minute 'The Power Of Real Technology - Visual Effects' featurette and corresponding 'Visual Effects' photo gallery, the extras on this disc finish with the 'Aliens Unleashed - Reaction To The Film' featurette. This 12 minute extra dips into the initial box-office screenings and serves as a fitting conclusion to an excellent set of supplements.


Alien 3

The first Alien 3 disc houses an audio commentary by Editor Terry Rawlings, Cinematographer Thomson, Lance Henriksen and others. Thanks to David Fincher's despisal of the film, this the only track from the box set's quartet that doesn't benefit from a director's voice. As expected, the others manage well despite his absence and talk quite defensively about the film in general.

Meanwhile, the second disc for this third film stars with the 'Development - Concluding The Story' featurette, which is takes a frank 17 minute look at the initial stages of conception for this second sequel. Amongst the interviews, stories about plotting difficulties, directorial changes and other troubles are explored in detail. Note that David Fincher does not feature in any interview footage for this featurette, or indeed any other amongst this entire 9-disc box set.

The 'Tales Of The Wooden Planet' featurette expands upon the ideas that Vincent Ward had for the film during his brief stint as official director. For a period of 13 minutes, Ward discusses his notion of a massive wooden sanctuary for monks that would be the setting for Ripley's third big-screen outing. Towards the end, others talk about how the impracticalities and poor 'science' of the idea led to it being scrapped.

Three conceptual artwork galleries, entitled 'The Art Of Arceon' follow, along with a 12 minute 'Pre-Production: Part III' featurette which reveals further difficulties from the outset for Director David Fincher. Be on the look out for an appearance by Aliens actor Michael Biehn in this featurette too - he talks about how he asked the production for money in exchange for use of his image in the film.

Further stills archives, in the form of storyboards and 'The Art Of Fiorina' conceptual galleries have been included on the disc, followed by the 10 minute 'Xeno-Erotic: H.R. Giger's Redesign' featurette, which takes a look at modifications of the alien for this film and includes interviews with Giger himself.

Meanwhile, the 18 minute 'Production: Part I' featurette begins to explore the shooting process. Much reference is made to how difficult Fincer's task was and there is lots of footage of the director at work on the set. Some extensive production galleries and a self-explanatory 5 minute 'Furnace Construction' timelapse sequence follow this featurette.

Moving on, the 'Adaptive Organism - Creature Design' featurette takes a lengthy 21 minute look at crafting the monsters, including a 'Super Facehugger'. The 'A.D.I.'s Workshop' photo archives almost serve as an appendix to this featurette, offering an array of effects stills.

Up next is the 'E.E.V. Bioscan' multi-angle vignette , which runs for 2 minutes and offers a choice of five angles (and a composite of all five viewpoints) from which to view the short Bioscan sequence that unveils the 'Chestburster' inside Ripley. Some technical commentary automatically accompanies this footage for brief explanation.

Meanwhile, the 'Production: Part II' featurette takes 15 minutes to chart the crew's return to Los Angeles after shooting was abruptly halted at Pinewood Studios in London. A variety of interview participants talk about how a rough cut was assembled for the studio and new American crew - no-one seemed to like it and many thought that certain (subsequently deleted) portions were distastefully gory.

The 'Production: Part III' featurette is a superb 9 minute piece that delves further into David Fincher's misery during the making of the film, while the 'Optical Fury - Visual Effects' and 'Music, Editing And Sound' featurettes run for 23 minutes and 15 minutes respectively, exploring their self-explanatory subject matters concisely.

The final two extras for this third Alien film are a visual effects gallery and the 5 minute 'Post-Mortem: Reaction To The Film' featurette, which sees the numerous interview participants attest to the film's achievements in spite of its many flaws and production woes.


Alien Resurrection

This final film starts off with an audio commentary by Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and many others - like the track for Alien 3, this is a detailed offering for the more serious fans out there, but perhaps of less importantance for most people than the commentaries for the first two films.

The second disc for this fourth film starts with the 'From The Ashes - Reviving The Story' featurette, which carries a very frank tone thanks to various interviewees saying how they thought the film would ruin the franchise and should have never been made. Running for 10 minutes, this extra also features a few quick interview snippets with Joss Whedon, who wrote the Alien Resurrection screenplay but is better known as the creator of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV show.

Meanwhile, the 26 minute 'French Twist: Direction And Design' featurette takes a look at the hiring of Jean-Pierre Jeunet to direct the film. The Frenchman discusses his apprehension about signing onto the Hollywood project, while others, including Sigourney Weaver, talk about how his distinct visual style made him perfect for the job.

The 13 minute 'Under The Skin - Casting And Characterization' featurette is fairly self-explanatory and is perhaps most notable for Winona Ryder talking about stealing props from the set... did the courts consider this during the Saks case? Some fairly bland test footage follows, offering 20 minutes of costume and hair experimentations.

A few more image collections follow (namely 'The Marc Caro Portfolio' character design gallery, 'The Art Of Resurrection' conceptual gallery and a storyboards archive ) followed by multi-angle rehearsals . This latter feature consists of 3 minutes worth of footage offering three angles (storyboards, rehearsal or a composite of the two) and two audio tracks (rehearsal and final film).

The 'Death From Below - Fox Studios, Los Angeles' featurette feels a lot like the hour-long documentary for The Abyss since it focuses on the giant tank constructed for the underwater scenes. Running for 32 minutes, this ends up being the longest video extra on the entire disc.

Meanwhile, the 'In The Zone - The Basketball Scene' featurette is a playful 7 minute item on the basketball throw Weaver makes over her head in the film. It apparently looked like it would never work but, as luck would have it, she made the shot at the eleventh hour. An extensive production gallery follows this featurette.

The 'Unnatural Mutation - Creature Design' featurette runs for a sizeable 26 minutes and tackles the various beasts in this third sequel. Amongst the material, viewers will find some swimming pool tests designed to simulate the extensive underwater filming sessions. Some of the work mentioned in this featurette is subsequently documented in the 'A.D.I.'s Workshop' photo archive.

Next up is the 'Genetic Composition - Music' featurette, in which some scoring sessions and interviews with the composer can be digested over a period of 13 minutes. This latest film had far more technological advances at its disposal and its computer work is covered in the 10 minute 'Virtual Aliens - CGI' featurette.

The 'A Matter Of Scale' miniatures and 'Visual Effects' photo galleries are the next items on the disc, closely followed by the 15 minute 'A Critical Juncture - Reaction To The Film' featurette, which adopts a strange mix of admirable criticism and dubious praise from the film's cast and crew. The extras for this film come to an end with the 'Special Shoot' promotional photo archive.


Bonus disc

This ninth disc is quite weak in comparison to the others in the set and was probably not needed - the only significant items on the DVD are related to the first film. First up is the 'Alien Evolution' documentary, which clocks in at 64 minutes and summarises the making of the first film quite well but fails to add anything terribly new to the dedicated Alien bonus disc earlier on.

Meanwhile, the 7 minute 'Experiment In Terror' original promotional featurette is a fairly pathetic vintage piece that suffers from dire image quality. The Ridley Scott Q & A , which runs for 16 minutes, is much more interesting and features some informal chat at the Egyptian Theatres following a fresh theatrical showing of the film.

Some laserdisc archives for the first two films have also been bundled onto this disc, which consist of pages upon pages of text and stills from the respective laserdiscs. The information contained within these extensive reservoirs is certainly detailed, but the presence of such quality extras for the two films elsewhere in the box set essentially makes this extra no more than a museum piece.

A whopping 22 minutes of trailers and TV spots for all four films follow, along with a flimsy 3 minute 'Alien 3' advance featurette that is little more than a trailer for the third film. Next up is 17 minute 'The Bob Burns Alien Collection' featurette, which charts how a sci-fi props enthusiast has gradually acquired a warehouse of items from the Alien films plus other famous tales. The closing extra on this final disc is the 'Dark Horse' artwork gallery, which houses some Alien comic book covers.

Overall, this is an absolutely essential purchase for any fan of the Alien films. Boasting extras of truly epic proportions, this is one of the year's very finest DVD titles and an undeniably essential addition to the enthusiast's collection.

Feature 8/10
Video 8/10
Audio 8/10
Extras 10/10

Overall 10/10

DVD Bulletin

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of Alien Quadrilogy and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.