DVD Review - The Alien Quadrilogy

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page created: 11/3/03

The Alien Quadrilogy
1979-2003 (2003) - 20th Century Fox

review by Bill Hunt, Editor of The Digital Bits

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Disc Nine - Alien Bonus Disc

Extras Rating: B

Alien - Alien Evolution documentary (64 mins), Experience in Terror 1979 promotional featurette (7 mins), Ridley Scott Q&A video (15 mins), 1992 Alien: Special Widescreen Collector's Edition laserdisc archive (contains all still and video material from LD release, accessible in the original linear experience format of through a table of contents), 2 theatrical trailers, 2 TV spots, Aliens - 1991 Aliens: Special Widescreen Collector's Edition laserdisc archive (contains all still and video material from LD release, accessible in the original linear experience format of through a table of contents), teaser trailer, theatrical trailer, domestic trailer, international trailer, TV spot, Alien³ - advance featurette (3 mins), 5 theatrical trailers, 7 TV spots, Alien Resurrection - teaser trailer, theatrical trailer, 4 TV spots, Additional Material - Aliens in the Basement: The Bob Burns Collection featurette (17 mins), Dark Horse Comics cover gallery, PC & Mac compatible DVD-ROM features (including weblinks and script-to-screen comparison for all four films), animated film-themed menus with sound effects, languages: English (DD 2.0), subtitles: none

The whole purpose of Disc Nine is to act as a sort of catch-all for the Quadrilogy - to serve as a repository for as much of the previously released special edition material for the Alien films as possible. This time, the disc's menu pages feature the Queen stage of the alien life-cycle, with the first part of the disc organized into sections for each of the individual films.

The Alien section starts off with the Alien Evolution documentary. This was produced for Channel 4 in the UK. It's in anamorphic widescreen and runs a little over an hour. The piece takes itself a little too seriously, but it features a lot of great interview footage with most of the cast and crew, as well as images and other interesting material. If you've already watched the other discs in this set, there isn't a lot here that you haven't already seen. Still, it's a good watch.

Next up is the vintage Experience in Terror promotional featurette. This is in its original full frame format, and was produced by Fox to promote the film's theatrical release back in 1979. There's more vintage interview clips, footage from the movie and the like.

Also available is a Ridley Scott Q&A featurette, which runs about 15 minutes. This is again in full frame, and is a recording of a Q&A session Ridley did after an American Cinematheque screening of the film at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on September 14th, 2001.

All of the trailers and TV spots for the film are presented here (specifically 2 trailers and 2 TV spots, with one of the trailers in anamorphic widescreen).

Finally, this section is rounded out with an archive of the complete supplemental contents of the 1992 Alien: Special Widescreen Collector's Edition laserdisc. Every single bit of text, every photo and every behind-the-scenes video clip that was found on the laserdisc is presented here. You can navigate the material in linear fashion, recreating the laserdisc experience, or you can jump to specific "chapters" with an on-screen index. This material pales in comparison to the new content on the other discs of the Quadrilogy, but fans will appreciate having it here for completion's sake. Having it here also means you can sell those LDs on eBay if you choose.

The Aliens section begins with another laserdisc archive, this time containing the complete contents of the 1991 Aliens: Special Widescreen Collector's Edition. Once again, you can simulate the linear access of LD, or you can select items from an index.

The rest of this section is composed of a series of 4 trailers for the film (the theatrical trailer, the teaser trailer and the domestic and international trailers), along with a lone TV spot. Two of the trailers are anamorphic, the rest are full frame.

The Alien³ section contains an "advance featurette" for the film (your basic modern-day, studio-produced EPK piece), 5 theatrical trailers (all of them anamorphic) and 7 TV spots.

The Alien Resurrection section contains 2 theatrical trailers for the film (both full frame) and 4 TV spots.

The remainder of the disc, which isn't specific to any one film, includes a gallery of dozens of Dark Horse comic book covers (in anamorphic widescreen and complete with issue credits and a summary of the story for each), as well as DVD-ROM script-to-screen viewing options for all four films in this series. This works on both Macs and Windows PCs - a cool touch (and about damn time for you Mac users, who to often in the past have gotten short shrift on DVD-ROM content).

But the best item on this disc, in my opinion, is a piece called Aliens in the Basement: The Bob Burns Collection. Bob is a prop collector/film historian, who has been charged by Fox with storing and caring for most of the props from the Alien films (he also has an extensive collection of props from other Hollywood films as well). In this featurette, Bob tells how he came to be involved with prop collecting, and how he was given possession of the Alien items. All the while, he takes you through his collection of Alien items, and shows many of them to you more closely. There were some extremely cool props, models and costumes made for these films, and Bob has a clear love for them, which definitely comes through here. This is fun stuff for fans.

Conclusion

So that's the Alien Quadrilogy... well, not exactly in a nutshell, but there it is. We've taken you through every single wrinkle of these 9 discs - every bonus item, every hidden feature. This is easily the most comprehensive package ever released on DVD. Each film in this series has been given kid glove treatment, complete with new special edition versions of the films themselves (along with the original versions fans love), as well as entire separate discs of new supplemental materials. These extras aren't studio-produced promotional pieces... these are the kind of in-depth documentaries that can only be created by people who know and love the Alien films as much as the rest of us.

As I said in introduction to this review, the Alien Quadrilogy is very close to the perfect special edition treatment of these films - at least as close as you can get without the participation of director David Fincher, which is likely never to happen anyway. Really the only weak spot in the entire 9-disc set is the bonus disc for Alien³, and you have to put even that one weakness in perspective. Does Disc Six give you everything you might have wanted to see and hear regarding Alien³? No. But you're still getting FAR more material on Alien³ (and all of the films for that matter) than has ever been released before. I do hope that Fox eventually releases the originally produced, uncut version Disc Six, because that's about the only way this set could get better.

COULD someone make a better special edition of these films? I suppose you should never say never, but I sure don't know how you'd do it... or who would ever have time to watch it all for that matter. This is far and away the most ambitious DVD production ever attempted (if you'd like to learn more about the year-long production of this set, including more than 45 pages of in-depth interviews and behind-the-scenes photos, be sure to check out our new book, The Digital Bits: Insider's Guide to DVD, which is in stores now). The only thing that could arguably match Alien Quadrilogy is the Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition DVDs, when all three of those are finally completed and released. Our hats off to 20th Century Fox, as well as DVD producer Charles de Lauzirika and his team. Simply put, this is heaven in a box for Alien fans.

The box is actually about the only thing I don't like about the Alien Quadrilogy. All 9 discs are contained in a fold-out Digipak, which slides into an outer slipcase. The slipcase looks great, embossed with all the lettering in this sort of reflective foil stamping. But let me tell you, opening the fold-out part takes almost as much time as it does to watch this set! If your life ever depends on getting to Disc Nine in a hurry, you're screwed. Completely opened, this packaging is probably longer than some of you are tall. I'm only half kidding.

I'll leave you with a few shots of said packaging, because I know some of you are curious. With that, this is Bits editor Bill Hunt... last survivor of this review... signing off...

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