The Alien
Quadrilogy
The quartet of Alien films, each made by a different director and all starring Sigourney Weaver, have been gathered in a groundbreaking nine-platter 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment boxed set, The Alien Quadrilogy (2009847, $100). Not only is each film accompanied by a second platter of supplementary materials (the two-platter film sets will be released individually early next year), with the ninth platter containing more supplements about the entire series, but each film is presented in two different formats-its original theatrical version and an expanded/alternate home video version. Fox's previous collector's edition of the four films, The Alien Legacy, contained just a few scattered special features, although its content is rather overwhelmed by the extra features in Quadrilogy. The longer version of Aliens appeared in Legacy, but the theatrical version has never been available on DVD, while for Alien, Alien³ and Alien Resurrection, the new versions have not been seen anywhere (except for Alien, which had a very brief theatrical run recently).
No series of films with such a turnover in creative teams has ever received this sort of attention on DVD before, and the set obligates one to consider the films as a continuous series, despite their varied boxoffice fortunes. The original Alien, made in 1979 by Ridley Scott, was a brilliant technological upgrade of a monster movie, a startlingly intense hybrid of horror and science fiction, built upon a solid foundation of character development and a realistically imagined future. The heroes discover the alien for the first time, and attempt to cope with its aggressive nature and indestructible design. James Cameron's ultra-exciting 1986 Aliens, in which a unit of Marines is sent to eradicate the aliens from an isolated human settlement, was an inspired advancement of the concepts presented in the first film. Among its many attributes, it has a deliberate variety of thrills-there is the scouting mission in the aliens' lair, the massive firefight, the climactic battle between the heroine (using an armored bodysuit the size of a forklift) and the mother alien, and the most harrowing scene of all, in which the heroine and a little girl are trapped in a sealed room with two small aliens. There is so much variety in Aliens that its entertainment could not be topped, so Alien³, directed by David Fincher in 1992, and Alien Resurrection, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet in 1997, strive instead to advance the series artistically. In doing so, they lost the attention of general audiences, but retained and gratified the attentions of the core fanbase for the series. Fincher's movie is bizarrely bloody as only a Fincher movie can be, and tacks on an intriguing religious subtext as the heroine crashes on an isolated prison settlement and apparently brings an alien with her. Jeunet's film is equally bizarre, but veering more toward humor, presenting a carnival sideshow-like array of characters of which the alien is simply the main attraction. Weaver's character is presented as a super-powerful clone of the original, a mixture of alien DNA and her own, and tries to assist those who want to escape from the clutches of the aliens on a large spaceship where scientists have been attempting to breed and tame them. There are enough thrills to make the film worthwhile, but Jeunet's disdain for story logic takes some getting used to. On the other hand, his flair for sophisticated satire becomes more appealing with each viewing.
When the boxed set is completely unfolded, it measures 5 feet and 4 inches in length. The two versions of each film appear on one platter, each followed by a platter of supplements. An excellent jacket insert explains clearly what is on each platter and how to access it. All four films are in letterboxed format only, with an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. Aliens has an aspect ratio of about 1.85:1, while the other three are about 2.35:1. All of the films have alternate Spanish audio tracks in standard stereo (the Aliens Spanish track is mono) and optional English and Spanish subtitles. The commentaries appear on both the theatrical versions and the altered versions of each film. On each film presentation, the new scenes are also offered as a separate bundle in a supplement, with the optional commentary. The documentaries on the second platters, however, have not been time encoded, an annoying oversight that makes it difficult to stop and restart them.
The picture transfer on Alien is a pleasing improvement over the picture on the previous DVD. Although the letterboxing is a touch tighter on the sides, colors are truer and less grayish, and the image conveys an increased accuracy. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound is identical to the earlier release, but there is a DTS track that gives the audio a bit more solidity and strengthens the bass. There is very little surround activity in the film's mix, but the front is highly dimensional and for its age, the audio mix is very satisfying. Be forewarned however-the DVD branching technology used to present the two different versions of the film on one platter will create brief sound dropouts, especially in DTS, with most audio processors.
The standard version of Alien runs 117 minutes and the 'Director's Cut' runs 116 minutes. Both versions work quite well, though there is a tendency to trust Scott's judgments in tightening the new version. The two big scenes that have been added-one, where Veronica Cartwright's character hits Weaver in anger, and another, the infamous 'cocoon' scene, where Tom Skerritt's character begs Weaver to kill him-enrich the film significantly, while the other trims and additions enhance the film's focus and a viewer's concentration. Scott was fully satisfied with the original film, and has only fiddled with it because the DVD market allows him to without compromising his integrity. (By the way, has anybody ever noted that there is no possible reason for the water bird gizmo on the table in the opening shot of the ship's interior to be bobbing the way it is, since in the eleven months that the crew was in stasis, the water would have long since evaporated?)
Scott has also recorded a new commentary track for the movie, and this is one of the Quadrilogy's few flaws. The track he recorded for the Legacy version is excellent, and while his talk on the Quadrilogy presentation is fresh and is just as good, why couldn't the old talk have been retained as well? In the older talk, Scott was more in tune with his thought process and explaining why things look or happen as they do on the film. In the new talk, which is intercut with reflections by many other of the filmmakers, including Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett and several cast members (Weaver sits with Scott, but doesn't say much), he is more anecdotal, and if you flip back and forth between the two DVDs, your understanding of a scene is doubly enhanced. Nevertheless, Scott does deliver his usual superb insights on the art of directing. "Nobody respects you later for having been a nice guy and given up. You gotta get it. You have to get it now, because you're going to wear what you got, basically. You can be very unpopular on the route, but if you're right, all is forgiven." The rest of the cast also watches and comments as a group, reminiscing about the shoot, and the other speakers supply a few interesting tidbits here and there.
The documentary on the second platter runs 182 minutes and is far more comprehensive than the documentary that appeared in Legacy. It definitively traces the film's development and rewrites, identifying who was responsible for what and looking at the controversy that existed for a while over the screenplay credit. It also explores the conflicts composer Jerry Goldsmith had with Scott (Scott lifted some music from Goldsmith's score to Freud instead of using what Goldsmith had written for a couple scenes). They both laugh at it now as being caused, in part, by Scott's lack of experience as a director in communicating what he wanted to others, a problem the cast also confronted, though that aspect actually contributed to the tension in their performances. The program explores every aspect of the movie's creation and includes fresh interviews with practically every major artist who was involved. There is one discrepancy, however. In the commentary, Scott claims that they got the cat to hiss by confronting it, off camera, with a German shepherd. In the documentary, they say the cat was confronted by another cat.
Also included on the second platter is O'Bannon's somewhat infamous first draft screenplay, written in 1976, along with an admirable and fairly long essay by O'Bannon about its creation. Presented in their entirety, as well, are a complete collection of Scott's initial storyboards and notes, which represented his thorough analysis of what the film's creation would involve and enabled Scott to persuade Fox to double the movie's budget. That is followed by a reasonably extensive collection of detailed standard storyboards that were prepared for the actual shoot, and extensive production photos, effects photos, publicity photos, continuity photos and more (including some fascinating early poster designs), all effectively captioned.
Weaver's 5-minute audition is included, with an optional commentary by Scott ("There was a lot of discussion about what to do with her hair. I said, 'Leave it alone. Don't muck about. Don't start cutting her hair.' She was born to be Ripley."). There is a marvelous 5-minute segment of multi-camera angles from the 'chestburster' scene with more optional (and informative) commentary by Scott. Finally, there are 16 minutes of additional deleted scenes that Scott chose not to include in his alternate cut, but that feature some terrific material, including more jaunty interaction between Weaver's character and Yaphet Kotto's character, and more exploration of the alien crash site.
James Cameron had a history of making longish films that film companies forced him to trim back, until somebody finally let him have his way and he created the biggest boxoffice success of all time. Anyway, his director's cut of Aliens, which he put together in 1991, runs 154 minutes and is the true version of the movie. The original theatrical version, which runs 137 minutes, felt incomplete when it first appeared and is fairly useless now. The additional material doesn't just enrich the story, it elegantly ties the plot together and draws you through its adventure and excitement with a solid narrative logic.
The picture transfer is identical to the older DVD, but it is also the most problematic. Not only is it very grainy much of the time, but the grain and the ambitious running times create noticeable digital artifacting flaws, especially during darker sequences. Otherwise, colors and fleshtones appear reasonably fresh. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound is also identical to the earlier mix. It has a little more surround activity than Alien does, but it is still rather subdued in comparison to the later films.
Cameron is featured extensively on the commentary track, along with producer Gale Anne Hurd, four effects supervisors and a half dozen cast members. They reminisce about the movie, explain how things were staged, share a few anecdotes and that sort of thing. Cameron also tackles the film's graininess head on. "In this exact year, I think Kodak was in transition, they were changing their emulsions. This was a higher speed negative than had been used previously. They hadn't worked out their 't-grain' emulsion, so it turned out to be grainier than I would have wanted, but this was actually the standard, this is just what that stock was, that year, and because we weren't using the full negative like you would with an anamorphic film, we weren't getting quite as much image quality. I was surprised recently when I screened this film at how grainy it was. Of course, nobody noticed the grain at the time." Nobody except LD fans, who were up in arms when the film first came out in a blur that has now been substantially rectified.
The 183-minute documentary explores all aspects of the film's production and again dives straight into all the problems that developed as the production went along. First, there was the animosity of the British crew toward the youthful Cameron and Hurd. Then, there was Cameron's natural drive for perfectionism, and finally, there was the pressure of meeting the premiere deadline-composer James Horner, for example, was exasperated by Cameron's last minute cuts interfering with the emotional rhythm of the music and backed away from working with him again until Titanic proved too tempting to resist. The material is rich and extensive, looking at much more, for example, than just the basics of creating special effects, going instead into such minutia and what sorts of fires work best at which scales. Like the Alien documentary, most of the important artists involved in the movie's creation are interviewed in depth, and there is a great deal of behind-the-scenes footage showing Cameron at work and every major scene from the film being staged.
Other materials on the documentary platter include a complete presentation of Cameron's original treatment for the film, which is nearly in the form of a script. The conceptual artwork, some of it by Syd Mead and Ron Cobb, is included in still frame, as are extensive publicity photos, production photos, continuity Polaroids and other materials, all effectively captioned. There is a good 3-minute narrated presentation of video storyboards that were staged to help design the special effects and the timing of the effect sequences.
The colors on the older Alien³ DVD look just a tiny bit sharper and a tiny bit richer than the colors on the new version, giving the new version a slightly washier look, although the film's color scheme is so steeped in Fincher browns anyway that the differences aren't noticeable unless you compare the two programs carefully. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound mix appears to be interchangeable, and has a more active dimensionality than the earlier films do.
Cameron's difficulties with Fox on Aliens were nothing compared to what Fincher was confronted with on Alien³, given the direction he took the film (don't movie companies ever read scripts?). Fincher's initial 145-minute cut of the film, identified as the 'Special Edition' in the carefully worded jacket insert, comes from a relatively early stage in the final editing process. There are several important differences between that version and the standard 115-minute version that go beyond simply tightening up conversations and getting characters from one place to another. The alien hides in a dog in the theatrical version, but is in an ox in the 'Special Edition,' and while we won't spoil the details, the final shot of the heroine in the 'Special Edition' takes the film, thematically, in one important direction, while the final shot of her in the theatrical version does something more crowd pleasing and less resonant. Ultimately, it is a shame a better compromise could not be found. On the whole, the 'Special Edition' is preferable, because it allows the viewer an opportunity to savor the environment Fincher devised, yet it remains just as exciting and involving as the theatrical version.
Fincher did not participate in the creation of the DVD, which is a shame, because the supplement does not pull any punches when it comes to analyzing the ups and downs of the film's creation.
The commentary track combines reflections by more than a half dozen production personnel, including cinematographer Alex Thomson, editor Terry Rawlings, and Lance Henricksen. Some speak individually and some in groups. Each talks about his specialty, describing how the special effects were achieved, how the set was lit, etc., but they also describe, here and there, what the tone of the production was like, what the enthusiastic Fincher was like, and what went on when Fox realized the movie wasn't going to be 'Aliens 2.' "We could never get them to give us permission to shoot the things that were needed for it, to start with. Then they come up and they said, 'What do you need to make this film work?' and we sort of sat down and discussed this, obviously. And we knew what we needed, we knew the things that we hadn't been able to complete. So we said, 'What we need is A, B, C, D, E, and F. We need to shoot these sequences.' So they had a meeting, and they said, 'Fine. You can shoot A, C, and F, but you can't shoot the others.' So, of course, what do you do? You start up, and you shoot those and then when you put that together, you need the one thing they wouldn't let you shoot. So it just went on and on and on. It's always disappointing when you put so much effort into these films. Every film you do, you put a lot into it, a lot of yourself, and when it's jeopardized by people other than yourselves-you know if you've done it wrong or if you've shot it wrong, you've got no one else to blame, but when you're in the hands of other people and you cannot change their point of view-they have the clout to do what they want with it, it's just tragic." There appear to be a couple comments on the theatrical version that don't make it into the commentary on the 'Special Edition' or the supplement.
The documentary is fascinating. Initially, there is an extensive interview with Renny Harlin, who spent nearly a year working on the project before deciding he couldn't make it unique enough to be worthwhile. Then there is a lengthy talk with screenwriter Vincent Ward, who was also attached to direct for quite a while and delivers a fascinating story pitch for how he intended to stage the film, accompanied by some terrific conceptual artwork. The producers finally decided that his concept was too far-fetched, and brought in Fincher, who modified Ward's ideas at the behest of the producers (they had already given the go-ahead for set construction before getting cold feet) and was hired to take charge, something he did with remarkable confidence and dexterity considering he had no previous experience directing a studio feature. The 155-minute documentary also covers all the basics about creating the film, again with many fresh and fascinating details and perspectives, and it also explores the exasperation that was described in the commentary track when the producers decided to wrap things up before Fincher was completely finished with the coverage he needed.
A movie, it turns out, can evolve very much like language. In the same way that the plural of 'child' is 'children,' not 'childs,' because English was developed from more than one source, so, too, will there be plot points or designs in films that make no logical sense whatsoever, and yet add to a movie's texture or landscape. That is what happened in Alien³. The heroine hasn't arrived on a full-fledged prison planet, she's arrived on a planet where a few prisoners are sticking around and acting like monks because they don't want to go anywhere else. Why? Because in Ward's treatment, the planet was a spaceship made of wood and inhabited by monks, and when the producers decided they wanted it set on a prison planet instead, too much work had been done on the monk stuff to throw it away entirely. The result could have been a silly hodgepodge, but in Fincher's hands it is just exotic enough and atmospheric enough to feel unique instead, giving the film's excitements a relatively fresh tapestry in which they can unfold. The movie was not the blockbuster hit that the first two films were, but it was a success, and has acquired an additional cult following over the years as viewers become acclimated to its eccentricities.
The artwork still frame galleries included plenty of conceptual drawings from Ward's initial plans as well as drawings and lengthy storyboards for Fincher's film. The production and publicity photos are also extensive and effectively captioned. There is a time-lapse view of the set construction that runs nearly 5 minutes and a 2-minute narrated multi-angle look at one of the film's effects, an x-ray of the heroine's chest.
In some scattered scenes, fleshtones on Alien Resurrection are slightly paler than they are on the older version, but otherwise the two transfers look identical. Again, the film is generally dark and drained of color by design, and there is some natural grain here and there, but the presentation is acceptable. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital soundtrack is identical to the older release, and the film, being the most recent, has the most elaborate and pumped up audio mix. Additionally, there is a DTS track, not available on the earlier DVD, which has more power and clarity than the Dolby track and is very satisfying.
The 'Special Edition' presentation runs 116 minutes, while the standard version runs 109 minutes, and the additions do not provide any important thematic alterations. They are mostly nice little touches of atmosphere and character that Jeunet removed for time and allowed Fox to put back in for the sake of the boxed set, although there is a fairly interesting and effect-laden alternate ending that does what the real feature did not, allow Weaver's character to step foot on Earth.
"It was a French film, made with American money," admits Jeunet on the commentary track, which also features five other members of the production team and three cast members, including Ron Perlman. "I remember I asked the studio about the violence," Jeunet continues, "And they told me, 'No problem with the violence,' because from this kind of movie the teenager wants violence, they want to have gore, gory shots and this kind of stuff." On the whole, they don't talk quite as much about how the movie was staged as is done on the other commentaries, but they do share anecdotes (the cast's stories about shooting the underwater scenes have some vitality), discuss the concepts behind various scenes, describe Jeunet's working methods and share reactions to different parts of the film.
Weaver claims, with perhaps some believability, that after getting married and having a child, the highpoint of her life was sinking the basket with the basketball, on the first take, yet, without looking as she walks off the court in one of the film's sequences that establish her character's 'alien' superiority. Her description of this moment is also one of the highlights of the 163-minute documentary. Again, the story of the film's development is thoroughly explored (an initial ship design was rejected, after a lot of work had been done on it, when they realized it had a vertical orientation instead of a horizontal orientation and would therefore be ill suited to widescreen cinematography), as is the creation of the various effects and the uniqueness of Jeunet's imagination. At the end, several scenarios are discussed for further sequels, although nobody talks about the Alien vs. Predator concept.
Also included on the platter is a complete presentation of Joss Whedon's first screenplay, which the film follows to some extent (though not, among other things, the chase through a field of marijuana) until it reaches a more elaborate but ultimately mundane finale. There are 10 minutes of great test footage involving various effects with some good narration, 3 minutes of interesting rehearsal footage and 5 minutes of make up and costume tests for Weaver, including several okay-we-had-to-freeze-frame-and-stare topless shots. The conceptual art includes interesting unused ideas by several different artists as well as extensive sketches of utilized designs. The storyboard sequences are good fun and include some ideas that were so gross they didn't make it any farther. There are also plenty of production and publicity photos, which are again thoroughly captioned and include some of Weaver's actual baby pictures, employed to create a model of the developing clone in the film.
The ninth platter contains some entertaining odds and ends, including a totally cool complete recreation of the original-and highly impressive for their day-LD supplements for Alien and Aliens, an extensive combination of still frame sequences and motion sequences that methodically move through every aspect of each film's production and include some good background material that does not otherwise appear in the DVD set. There is also a highly enjoyable 17-minute documentary about a fan who was so earnest about collecting memorabilia from the films that Fox ended up making him the official archivist for the props. A still frame collection of covers from the Dark Horse Comics series inspired by the film is included, with thumbnail promotional plot summaries of each issue depicted. There is a 64-minute 2001 British retrospective documentary about making the first film. It covers the same basic ground that the longer documentary covers, but it has a fresh tone and fresh interviews with Scott, O'Bannon, artist H.R. Giger and others. There is also a 15-minute question-and-answer segment with Scott after a 2001 screening in Los Angeles, the film's original 7-minute production featurette, two trailers, two TV commercials, four trailers and a TV commercial for Aliens, five trailers and seven TV commercials for Alien³, a 3-minute promotional featurette for Alien³, and two trailers and four TV commercials for Alien Resurrection. On DVD-ROM, the finalized screenplays for all four films are readily accessible.
It should be noted that the accelerated metabolism of the aliens after they leave their infancy stage is never explained, neither in the films nor in the supplements, and while that can be a sticking point in the narrative of any one movie, each film is justified by the others, making it less of a problem for the series as a whole-something is making these creatures grow and fight, and you just never learn what that is. Much, too, has been pondered in recent times about the evolution of Man. Will Man take control of his own advancement, or will his creations, the machine and the computer, become his ultimate embodiment? There is however, one creation of mankind, depicted in the films as being the alien's mirror rival, which exists and thrives today. Like the alien, it has no conscience, and yet it has the intelligence to adapt in the face of any adversity or advantage. It has the power of thousands of men, and its only goal is to grow and become more powerful still. Some say it has benefited mankind-without it there would be no movies or DVDs, and many are voluntarily enslaved to it, but it is also responsible for a great deal of suffering, and even war, and while heroes defeat it occasionally in battle, it nevertheless becomes more unstoppable as time advances - the corporation.
- December 7, 2003
