A change for the 30th review from the fingertips of Critchyboy. 30 reviews in a just over a year, good grief how time flies!

I’ve reviewed musicals with relentless zeal and with the next theatre outing booked for an evening in October and the next one for February 2005 I am having to broaden my horizons with my writing.

You’ve lived through my fixation with ‘Futurama’ over four seasons worth of reviews, visited Kenya, Alton Towers and a Horse Farm on the Isle of Wight.

We’ve travelled together on First Great Western and rented with Sixt and along the way you’ve had a few insights into what makes me tick.

How different, therefore, could you get than the following review of the Science Fiction collection that is the ‘Alien Quadrilogy’ (is that even a word oh wise people of 20th Century Fox? Surely ‘tetra’ is next up from ‘tri’?).

It’s time for a bug hunt!

***THE BOX SET***

The ‘Alien Quadrilogy’ (Certificate 18) is a beautifully packed collection of the four Alien films. Each film has its own disc with two versions of the film PLUS a disc of extras relating to that film along with a ninth disc of features thrown in for good measure.

The outer casing of the set is made up of sturdy cardboard with a design of the all familiar alien egg under the title of the set. The egg is ominously opening from a crack at it’s base with a luminous lime green colour ‘oozing’ out before dissipating into the bluey-black background. (I never thought I’d use the word dissipating in a review either until now!)

The reverse of the box has an embossed Alien Creature design, that as with the egg, stands out from the background.

Sliding the middle out and therefore the casing that contains the discs is easy enough and it looks and feels much like a book, albeit a rather weighty book. Each disc is secure is a moulded green tray that folds out like the pages of a book.

The booklet that accompanies the box set is very useful, giving out brief plot synopses of each film, cast list of leading characters and an overall list of contents for each disc.

Enough of that – onto the review.

***ALIEN (1979)***

“IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM”.

Aboard the Commercial Space Tug ‘Nostromo’ owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation the crew of seven are safe in hyper-sleep and on their way back to earth, until the ship’s computer, ‘Mother’, awakens them to investigate what is believed to be a distress call from an unchartered planet by the name of LV-426.
They set down on the planet and three crew members head off to the source of the call only for one, Kane, to be contaminated by an alien life that has broken through the glass of the helmet of his spacesuit, clamp itself to his face, disable his body and still manage to keep him alive.

Back at the ‘Nostromo’, Kane is placed in the medical block and when the creature removes itself off his face and dies the patient seems to be in the best of health. That is until their final breakfast before returning to hyper-sleep when Kane begins to choke, before falling onto the table convulsing from the chest and a new life is born…

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‘Alien’ is presented in the 1979 Original Theatrical Release and the more recent 2003 Directors Cut.

The original release is an amazing example of cranking up the tension from an undeniable and totally deliberate slow start to get to know the characters and understand their reasoning to the cat and mouse chase of crew members through the claustrophobic corridors of the ‘Nostromo’.

With the alien being little more than a man in a suit, Ridley Scott (director) did well to hide the creature from full view – only allowing glimpses of it here and there, which added so much to the tension and fear of the creature rather than having the audience laughing at it.

The Director’s Cut, even though it has a number of deleted or extended scenes, is shorter by 6 minutes, through the shortening of slower scenes at the beginning.

By far and away the best film of the four.

***ALIENS (1986)***

“THIS TIME ITS WAR”.

57 years after the events of ‘Alien’, the only surviving member of the incident aboard the ‘Nostromo’ is floating through space in a tiny life raft, kept alive through hyper-sleep. The craft is picked up by a deep space salvage team and Ripley is retuned to a space-station orbiting earth.

Here she is stripped of her Flight Lieutenant status by the Corporation following her account of her reasons for blowing up their ship. No evidence of the creature Ripley describes – tall like a man, with sharp teeth and acid for blood – has been found and LV-426 has been colonised for some time with no reports of any alien life form forthcoming.

However, Carter J. Burke – a company representative – informs Ripley that contact has been lost with the colony on LV-426 and they would like her to go back to the planet, protected by a crack troop of marines, and find out what has happened. Only, after another nightmare does Ripley agree and begins a journey to confront her fears head on…

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‘Aliens’ is present in the 1986 Original Theatrical Release and the 1991 Special Edition.

‘Aliens’ is the second best film of the series, with the tension and horror of ‘Alien’ replaced with the guns and weapons of war. The story flows neatly from the rescue of Ripley floating through space, her rehabilitation, her fear of facing the creatures again through to her transformation into the protective mother of the only surviving colonist – a little girl called ‘Newt’.

The Special Edition adds much more to the film by way of showing us the colony of LV-426 before it’s destruction at the hands of the aliens to how the creatures first arrived in the colony living quarters.

The creature effects had improved drastically since 1979 and we get to see them in full view as a mixture of puppets and stunt performers and as all sizes from the man sized Alien warrior to the gigantic Alien Queen.

A very close second to Alien.

***ALIEN 3 (1992)***

”THE BITCH IS BACK”.

Following the events on LV-426 of the previous movie Ripley is woken from hyper-sleep to find that she has crash landed on a strange planet called ‘Fiorina 161’. The only inhabited area of the bleak planet is a maximum security work-correctional facility and the only people she has for company are the violent and dangerous criminals who have been left there to die.

Since her arrival and after a number of unusual deaths, Ripley begins to think that she was not alone when she crashed into the sea and when she meets her old nemesis face to face, the creature does not attack her, leaving Ripley to make a terrifying discovery that will ultimately lead to her demise.

As there are no weapons on the planet nor any advanced technology, trying to kill the creature takes a lot of hard work.

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‘Alien3’ is presented in its 1992 Original Theatrical Release and in a Special Edition format.

It’s interesting that in ‘Alien3’, Sigourney Weaver (who plays Ripley) got her wish of no guns and what was a glittering gem of a series of films began a drastic downward slide.

I have watched ‘Alien3’ in the theatrical release and in the Special Edition and there is very little worth while therein.

A terrible, incoherent plot. A creature design that is spectacularly let down by horrendous CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). And more swear words in a sentence than you can shake a stick at. It is a terrible movie with few, if any, redeeming features.

The troubled production has a long history of meddling 20th Century Fox executives getting in the way of newcomer director David Fincher, an unfinished script re-written whilst principal photography had begun. The Special Edition only adds the confusion to what on earth is going on within the film.

Worst of the bunch.

***ALIEN RESURRECTION (1997)***

“WITNESS THE RESURRECTION”.

200 years after the events of ‘Alien3’ and her death on ‘Fiorina 161’, Ripley is perfectly cloned by scientists aboard the spaceship ‘USM Auriga’ for the purpose of removing the perfectly cloned baby alien queen contained within her.

The crew of another spaceship called ‘The Betty’ arrive, carrying with them their cargo of live human beings currently in hyper-sleep, a member of their band – ‘Call’ – has an ulterior motive for being there.

Call seeks out the cloned Ripley and discovers that the alien queen has already been removed, just as the new alien creatures begin to break out of their pens. Cut off from ‘The Betty’ the surviving crew members plus Ripley try to get back to the ship alive, though it is a race against time…

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‘Alien Resurrection’ is presented in its 1997 Original Theatrical Release and a new Special Edition.

‘Alien Resurrection’ is a brave attempt to get the whole franchise back on the tracks after the spectacular wreck that was ‘Alien3’. On the whole, it works…but only just.

Through the cloning process Ripley has inherited alien genes and there are times you’re not sure which side she is more interested in saving – the humans or the aliens, although I am sure more could have been made of this.

As the events are confined to a spaceship we’re back in ‘Alien’ territory, but with none of the finesse or suspense of the first film. Aliens run wild, humans run scared and some survive to live another day.

There is a different slant to Ripley – having already died once and found herself alive again, she gets to kick out some acidic one liners. The supporting cast, on the whole, come out of the whole thing pretty well.

However, the worst part of the film is the dreadful decision to allow Ripley’s genes to mess with the alien creatures and therefore giving us the daftest birth scene in cinematic history as the alien queen – complete with a womb – gives birth to a huge humanoid alien with puppy dog eyes. It looks rubbish – but then anything is better than ‘Alien3’.

The Special Edition version of the film adds very little to the Theatrical Version except for an interesting ending where Ripley and Call make it back to earth.

***THE DISCS***

Disc One:

‘Alien’ – Theatrical Version (116 minutes) and Director’s Cut (110 minutes).
Full length commentary (theatrical version only) by Ridley Scott (Director), Dan O’Bannon (Writer), Ronald Shusett (Executive Producer),

Pictures of Alien Quadrilogy (Box Set) (DVD)

alien

Terry Rawlings (Editor) and actors Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton and John Hurt.

Disc Two:

Alien Supplemental: Pre-production, Production and Post-production.

Disc Three:

‘Aliens’ – Theatrical Version (131 minutes) and 1991 Special Edition (148 minutes).
Full length commentary (extended version only) James Cameron (Director), Gale Anne Hurd (Producer), Stan Winston (Alien Effects Creator), Robert Skotak and Dennis Skotak (Visual Effects Supervisors), Pat McClung (Minature Effects Supervisor) and actors Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henrikson, Jenette Goldstein, Carrie Henn and Christopher Henn.

Disc Four:

Aliens Supplemental: Pre-production, Production and Post-production.

Disc Five:

‘Alien3’ – Theatrical Version (109 minutes) and Special Edition (138 minutes).
Full length commentary (theatrical version only) Alex Thompson (Cinematographer), Terry Rawlings (Editor), Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff (Alien Effects Designers), Richard Edlund (Visual Effects Producer) and actor Paul Mcgann.

Disc Six:

Alien3 Supplemental: Pre-production, Production and Post-production.
Disc Seven:

‘Alien Resurrection’ – Theatrical Version (104 minutes) and Special Edition (111 minutes).
Full length commentary (both versions) Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Director), Herve Schneid (Editor), Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff (Alien Effects Creators), Sylvain Despretz (Conceptual Artist) and actors Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon and Leland Orser.

Disc Eight:

Alien Resurrection Supplemental: Pre-production, Production and Post-production.

Disc Nine:

“Alien Evloution” Documentary (Channel 4).
Ridley Scott Q&A (not interesting!)
Alien and Aliens Laserdisc Archive.
Alien, Aliens, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection trailers and TV spots.
“Aliens in the Basement” Bob Burns who now holds the largest collection of Alien props.
Comic Book Gallery.

* Apologies for not including a full list of extras. There are simply too many too list!

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The extras on these discs are unbelievably detailed. Everything you could possibly want to know about each of the films is contained within the featurettes on each disc.

• Pre-production deals with the story, the casting, the design and the visuals of each film.
• Production looks into the filming of each part of the franchise, the set design, the alien effects, multi-angle breakdowns of various scenes and behind the scenes information and interviews.
• Post-production contains information about the reaction to the films, the scoring of the music and various deleted scenes.

The best of the extras:

• “The Chestburster: Creature Design” – a multi-angle featurette of the famous chest bursting scene from ‘Alien’ with some interesting comments from cast and crew members (disc 2).
• Sigourney Weaver’s screen test for ‘Alien’. Sigourney had come straight to the film from being a highly respected actress on Broadway. This is her screen test around the actual set of the film (disc 2).
• “Beauty and the Bitch: Power Loader vs. Alien Queen”. A fantastic behind the scenes glance at the making of the climax to ‘Aliens’. A close look at the near full size Alien Queen and the shooting of it on set (disc 4).
• “Death from Below” – a featurette about the rigours of filming and acting underwater for Alien Resurrection (disc 8).
***SOUND AND VISION***

All films offered with DTS soundtracks except for ‘Alien3’ which has a Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation so sound is of the highest quality on all four films.

The picture transfers are of the highest quality and play perfectly on my TV!

***CONCLUSION***

This is DVD as it should be - or at least this and the extended versions of Lord of The Rings and the Indiana Jones Trilogy - offering a lesson to anyone studio wishing to release a dynamic and packed presentation of its films.

At least it would be a lesson had 20th Century Fox not released each film individually, then in the legacy box-set, then finally in the Quadrilogy box set. It really does annoy me when studios do this to their public – why not just bring out the best set first!?

The collection of all four films is fantastic and I would put them in the following order of greatness: Alien, Aliens, Alien Resurrection and finally Alien3.

The extras are exhaustive and well worth trawling through for gems of information about the shooting and filming of these films.

Fantastic set, if a little expensive (£52.49 on amazon.co.uk) and worthy of a place on my DVD shelf with the help of Christmas Gift Vouchers!

Four Shiny Golden Stars out of Five! One star knocked off for the price!

***BUT WAIT..!***

If you don’t want to buy all the films then don’t!

Be cheeky instead!

Fox have released each film on a two disc special edition with BOTH versions of the films and all their related extras!! Grrrr – how annoyed am I now!

Each film is available on amazon.co.uk for the unbelievably cheap price of £8.97! That’s £35.88 for all four films! And if you don’t like one of them, you don't buy and therefore you don’t have to get stuck with it forever!

I’ve even seen them buy one get one free! Curses!

ON THE INTERNET NO-ONE CAN HEAR YOU CURSE 20th CENTURY FOX!

Thanks for reading!

C. : )