Alien (The Director's Cut)
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Movie Reviews of Alien (The Director's Cut)
Movie Review: Two Different Takes on a Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
As someone who writes science fiction on the side, I have a keen appreciation of the genre. The Alien franchise of movies is one of the few series, in my opinion, to attempt to take the topic of aliens as extraterrestrial beings and portray them as just what they are: alien. It also takes human demographics and mindset forward and realistically portrays them as they would appear in the future. With Star Trek, all the aliens are humanoid and speak American-accented English, except for the evil ones, who speak in a British fashion (granted, Star Trek canon posits the 'Preservers' as the reason why the galaxy is full of humanoids, but still, aside from all the little skin tones, bumps and ridges, the nonhuman species tend to get a little cookie-cutter in their sameness). And in the Star Trek universe, every culture aspires to be 'human'; that is, noble and selfless, which, if you look at any newspaper anywhere, obviously just isn't the case. As well, in Alien, everything is portrayed where functionality is prime. The starship Nostromo isn't shiny; it's bulky and utilitarian. Some of its decks are downright filthy. The crew piloting it isn't all spit and polish. They are nowhere near superhuman, they smoke, they curse, make sexually offensive jokes about their crewmembers, and don't generally trust each other, just like in the real world.
THE STORY-5 Stars
I give fair warning to anyone reading this review who hasn't seen the movie yet that the following paragraph is one huge spoiler which might hamper your enjoyment of the picture. So, for those of you who this applies to, consider skipping over it to the next one.
Deep space. It is the year 2122 A.D. (according to one source) and the starship Nostromo is returning to Earth, towing a huge mobile refinery containing twenty million tons of mineral ore or oil or some such (Quick useless fact: 'Nostromo' is the name of the novel written in 1904 by author Joseph Conrad, which is also the name of the main character and it is Italian for 'boatswain', the town he resided in was named 'Sulaco' which is the name of the USCM ship in Aliens). The crew is under hibernation for the trip, but is revived by the ship's master computer mainframe, which goes by the name of 'Mother'. They are initially in good spirits, thinking that all they have to do is off-load the cargo and pick up their paychecks, but such isn't the case.
Mother has brought them out from under because it has detected a signal of unknown origin and according to a clause in contract stipulations, the crew is required to investigate under penalty of total forteiture of shares. The signal is coming from a planetoid orbiting a brown dwarf planet (a brown dwarf is a planet that just narrowly avoided accruing enough mass to collapse and fission into a star, generally massing several times that of Jupiter) which in turn is in orbit around the star Zeta 2 Reticuli, a star almost identical to Earth's sun, approximately 33 light years from Earth, coreward latitude (meaning closer to the core of the galaxy than we are). The ship sets down and 3 of the crew trek off to find the source of the signal.
It just so happens that the signal is coming from a derelict spacecraft, of a design that none of the crew has ever seen before. They enter the ship to find a nonhuman pilot of enormous size, fossilized and grown straight out of its chair. Further investigation by crewmember Cain reveals a gigantic holding bay containing thousands of egg-like objects in perfect preservation. Cain goes down for a closer look, but is attacked by a creature from one of the eggs and rendered immobile.
After the other two crewmembers, Dallas and Lambert, drag him back to the Nostromo, he's given to the science officer, Ash, for study and care. The ship is nearly hulled in an attempt to remove the creature from Cain's face when it bleeds an extremely corrosive fluid from a scalpel's incision, forgoing any other attempts to excise it.
A short time later, Cain revives and rejoins the crew for a meal before they return to hibernation. During the meal, he goes into convulsions as the embryo that was implanted by the 'facehugger' bursts out of his chest, leaving the rest of the crew in shock. Things quickly go from bad to worse. The creature grows extremely fast and is almost impossibly hostile, hunting the crew by moving through the vent structure. The body count begin to mount.
After captain Dallas's death, Ripley discovers some disturbing information. It seems that the company they work for, Weyland-Yutani, already knew of the signal and the ship, had some idea of what the crew would find and sent them there to retrieve a specimen for their weapons division research. The crew's lives were considered of secondary importance to the creature's capture, and Ash, who turns out to be an android, was implemented by the company as a safety measure to ensure retrieval. Thus revealed, the decision is made to scuttle the ship.
Only Ripley and the ship's mascot, the tomcat Jones, escape in a shuttle. The alien stows away on the shuttle, forcing Ripley to depressurize the cabin to blow it out of the airlock. She then incinerates it with the shuttle's main thrusters. End of line, until the next movie.
Screenwriter/actor Dan O'Bannon's original vision of his idea was as a straight 'B' horror movie with the simple premise of terrorizing the audience, an all-male military crew and the repository of the eggs was initially a giant pyramid on the planet. The inclusion of Ash as a foil was added later into the plot and turned the story from one of plain scare tactics into a rather deep one implicating what man is willing to do to his fellow man for the sake of a dollar. Granted, there were PLENTY of scenes meant to rip the guts from you, courage-wise, and director Ridley Scott got plenty of flak for it, (there's one instance in which an usher in one of the theaters where the movie was premiering fainted as Ash's head was clubbed off) but the addition of corporate greed and the lengths the company was willing to go to added a deep undertone of betrayal and that struck a chord with people, garnering a huge cult following and transforming this movie into the classic it is today.
Both the theatrical release and the director's cut are excellent takes on the same story. Each simply adds instances you don't see in the other version, such as the scene in the director's cut where Ripley finds Dallas and Brett cocooned in a side passage and Dallas implores her to kill him (something that was later added, in its own fashion, to the sequels), or the scene where they first listen to the alien transmission, giving the crew the first inklings of what they're about to jump into.
VISUALS-5 Stars
Even after almost thirty years and the implementation of CGI, the sequences in Alien stack up with the best of the new shows, all in anamorphic widescreen. This proves that the cast and crew really knew what they were doing and earned their pay with this one.
SOUND-5 Stars
Digital remastering really does justice to the sounds and music. I remember seeing this on tv on one of the first movie channels (my mother wouldn't let me go to it in the theaters because it was rated 'R' and she was afraid there was nudity in it; not that it mattered that there was blood and gore) and the difference fairly screams out at me. The clear sound really adds to the atmosphere.
SPECIAL FEATURES-5 Stars
I really enjoy digging into the insides of a movie to see how it came about and the director's cut gives you several hours of commentary, artwork, and snap shots to view during the shoot of the film. One interesting note is that much of the conceptual artwork for the ship and its interior was designed by French artist Moebius of Heavy Metal magazine fame.
OVERALL-5 Stars
Alien has consistently stood the test of time, remaining popular for nearly three decades and spawning several direct sequels, spinoffs, soundtracks, comics, novels and video games. It also has the distinction of being voted the second scariest movie of all time. All proof that this movie has the strength to dig into the human psyche and remain a classic. Two thumbs way up.
Movie Review: Reshaped cut, original and top notch transfer for Alien
Summary: 5 Stars
Sporting a top notch transfer, the latest edition of Alien out classes the original DVD release from 1999. There are a couple of major differences between the two releases. First, the "extended branching" edition or Director's Cut is a minute shorter than the original film. How can that be with 5 new scenes/alterations? Well, Scott went through the original and pruned a minute here or a couple of seconds there. It wasn't that he was displeased with his original version (in fact, he prefers it)but was given the option by Fox to revisit and make an alternate version if you like. Both versions have their merits the major differences are as follows:1) There's a scene included where the crew actually listen to the "distress" signal. This was available as a deleted scene previously on the laserdisc edition but wasn't integrated into the final film until now. The scene offers a couple of nice character moments and the broadcast itself adds to the eerie mood.
2)While working on Kane in the infirmery, Parker confronts Ripley about her decision to keep them from coming into the ship. She slaps her and they have a brief scuffle. There's also additional comments from Parker.
3) Brent's abduction by the Alien. The scene is longer here and we see Lambert and Parker as they run in after hearing Brent's screams. It's a creepy scene particularly when Brent's blood rains down from above on Lambert.
4)Ripley discovers what the Alien has been doing with Brent and Dallas. It's always been assumed by many fans that the Alien was eating them. This brings a whole new level of horror. Scott has gone on record as liking the scene but cutting it because it A)brought the film to a stand still because of its power and 2) it disrupted the flow and pacing of the original film's conclusion. While both points are true to an extent, it slows it down just long enough to digest (pardon the pun) the truly horrible thing that has happened to the crew.
5)The scene where Ripley encounters the Alien while going back for Jonesy is longer by about 10 seconds. We see the Alien look at the cat in its cage curiously before swatting it aside as if it was unworthy of its attention. To me this demonstrated an intelligence that was only hinted at in other scenes. The Alien recognizes that the creature won't be of any useful purpose.
The original Alien is also included and it, along with the Director's Cut, looks stunning. Scott supervised a digital clean up and restoration from the original negative. Both were then transferred from a high definition video master. The film still retains its dark look without the murky image quality that marred the previous edition.
There's supplementary sections dedication to pre-production which includes Dan O'Bannon's original script for Star Beast as well as pre-production drawings prepared by Mobieus, Ron Cobb and Chris Foss. While there are many details that differ from the final script (which was rewritten by director/producer/writer Walter Hill and his partner David Giler), the basic structure and overall feel is so similar to the final film that there's no doubt who the true author of the script was.
There's also interviews with O'Bannon, Ron Shuset (who helped O'Bannon with the original story), Giler (although curiously no Hill)and others. O'Bannon's comments are particularly interesting (as is his essay before the script)where he discusses the genesis of the idea. With tongue firmly in cheek he states he stole the idea from everyone he could--from The Thing, the obvious source It! The Terror Beyond Space, Forbidden Planet and even his own script Dark Star. Looking at the film, you can see these were all influences on the final product but it's still, uniquely, O'Bannon's script with many of the hallmarks that show up in other scripts he has written.
Production illustrators/designers Ron Cobb, H. R. Giger and others are also interviewed as is editor Terry Rawlings and, of course, Ridley Scott.
Production also includes interesting comments from optical effects director Brian Johnson. Evidently, Scott did go back and reshoot some of the opticals himself because he wanted to oversee as much as he could. He would "purposely" change his mind about the color of the ship, etc. so that it would have to be redone and, the implication is, he could direct the scenes himself.
The section on Post-Production includes pictures of the premiere with the props on display. Sadly, vandels destroyed some of these props shortly after the premiere. There's also a discussion on the critical reaction of the film.
The commentary track has bits and pieces of Scott, Weaver, the rest of the cast (with the exception of Kotto and Holm). It's very informative and provides interesting insights into the film's production.
What's missing:
The original Alien DVD release had Goldsmith's isolated score plus an alternate music track which included bits and pieces of Goldsmith's unused score (portions of the score were replaced by Scott and Rawlings by Goldsmith's score for Freud and Howard Hanson's Romantic Symphony). Sadly, Fox couldn't get permission to use these for some reason (I'd think that Fox owns them but I could be wrong). Perhaps too much money was involved or space on the DVD itself wasn't available.
Personally, I'd purchase this two disc set in a heartbeat. It's got the best looking transfer of Alien I've seen on home video with little to no edge enhancement issues and a beautifully crisp and colorful print. I am keeping my original 1999 disc because the differences between them may make it a collectible.
Movie Review: A terrifying and spectacular sci-fi horror classic.
Summary: 5 Stars
Although it took some time for me to appreciate it, today I can easily agree with many that 1979's "Alien" is one of the greatest science fiction/ horror movies that has ever been made. A team on board a deep space ship called Nostromo is returning to earth after a deep sleep but then while returning to Earth, receives a mysterious distress signal on a distant planet and are sent in to investigate the source of the signal. During that time, one of them discovers large objects with movement within them. It turns out that these `objects' are actually organic alien eggs and when one of them hatches, one of the crew is attacked and is brought back to the ship to have the `alien' removed but the `blood' of this alien is in fact a super strong molecular acid that eats through almost anything it touches. Even worse, the crew are being hunted and killed one by one by an extremely dangerous alien creature and now they must try to destroy the creature and escape with their lives before it's too late.
While nowhere near as action-packed as it's 1986 sequel "Aliens", this movie however is equally intense as the sequel but in a totally different way. While the sequel benefits from it's tons of action sequences, "Alien" is every bit as intense by it's extremely suspenseful tone and while it may be slow at times, when the intense parts come, they'll make you jump right out of your seat. This movie does not rely so much on action for intensity as it does on immense suspense, tension, and disturbingly quiet tone and then the alien jumps right out into the screen! While "Alien" is slow-paced a lot of the time the pace leads up to terrifying confrontations with the creature as it kills the crew members one by one. Perhaps it's most famous scene of all time is the frighteningly vile scene where one of the crew members who was previously attacked by the `baby' alien goes into violent convulsions and culminating when a `baby' alien bursts right out of the mans chest killing him instantly. That scene is perhaps the most famous sci-fi horror scenes ever filmed. I had nightmares for many years after seeing that and even now with a stomach made of titanium steel, I still get very queasy at that scene but it is one of the most original sequences ever filmed to this day.
Ridley Scott's directing is absolutely phenomenal. Being that this was a low budget movie of only 11 Million dollars, Scott and the crew have used the limited resources to create a really stunningly beautiful yet terrifying epic that has been virtually unrivalled to this day. The sets are incredible and the special effects are really awesome. Even then the film shows it's age in some places such as some extremely dated special effects, a few of which are ancient even by early 1980s standards but overall, this film is one of the greatest examples of using the limited budget to an efficient degree and the result is not only a terrifying Sci-Fi horror movie but also one of the greatest landmark achievements in these two genres.
The cast is absolutely spectacular. The career of a then unknown Sigourney Weaver would literally take off right through the roof with her playing the main protagonist character Ellen Ripley. Ripley's character is one of the best woman protagonists that I've ever seen in any movie especially towards the latter half of this movie. It was this that made Weaver into a superstar. She's even better in the 1986 James Cameron directed sequel "Aliens". Perhaps another favorite `actor' of mines in this movie surprisingly enough is the cat Jones. I absolutely love the scenes where he like hisses at the guy in the storage unit and literally walks away when the alien grabs him and makes a meal out of him.
This "Collector's Edition" two disk set is a massive treat. The first disc alone is a vast improvement on both the VHS and the 1999 "Special Edition" DVD. The picture and sound quality of the original movie was not all that great but this "Collector's Edition" gives this movie a much needed clean-up job on a phenomenal classic and the picture quality is now crystal clear and the sound quality is also vastly improved too and I no longer have to turn the volume up to eardrum bursting levels to hear the movie clearly enough. The first disc contains the original theatrical version untouched for the `purists' who don't want anything done to it. Disc One also comes with the "Director's Cut" edition where some footage that Scott didn't feel to happy with is removed but is replaced with some newly incorporated footage that wasn't on the original. The result is the movie being only a minute longer but gives the movie a different light.
The second disc contains an excellent `making of' documentary and you can witness some ego battles between some of the members of the cast especially between Yaphet Kotto and the actor who played the `Alien' and how they edited it to make their tensions work in the movie itself. It also has tons of other amazing extras that I don't want to point out, out of fear of spoiling the fun of this DVD.
Most horror movies to me are nothing but vile gore fests with little to no plot behind them but "Alien" is one of the best horror movies of all time. It was groundbreaking back in 1979 when it was released and now 25 years later (at the time of writing this review), it is an absolutely classic today. I strongly recommend that you buy this today and get this DVD. This is one of the most smartly assembled DVDs that I've had in recent years and it is on the border of being flawless.
Movie Review: One of the best horror/sci-fi films ever crafted...
Summary: 5 Stars
I attended a screening of "Alien: The Director's Cut" not four hours ago, and not four hours ago I was thrilled. I knew that I was going to get a chance to witness one of the most atmospheric and thrilling films of all time--with added footage. Fans who picked up the DVD (now out of print to make way for the new "Alien Quadrilogy") may have already seen a few of the deleted segments, while other fans who didn't, and are waiting on the promised quadrilogy to be released next year, will be enthralled. This film doesn't feature a wealth of new footage such as "Apocalypse Now Redux," scenes that could damage its flow, but instead gives us scenes that click together a bit more. One of these is when Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) finds Dallas (Tom Skerritt) attached to the wall with alien mucus seen later in "Aliens." It doesn't make sense to feature it in the original cut, and director Ridley Scott was smart for deleting it when the film hit theaters back in 1979. It doesn't really make much sense, and stops the gripping flow of the ending when Ripley is racing to get to the escape shuttle. It causes people to think, What? and then they start letting their minds wander. But now that we have seen "Aliens," and understand the significance of the mucus (sounds funny, huh?), it makes complete sense. This is the fan's version.Plus, it's fun to get to see the movie on the big screen for those who didn't twenty-four years ago.
The plot (as if you didn't know it by now): A mining ship in the future named the Nostromo, carrying seven passengers back to earth, stops in its course to locate an SOS beacon on a distant planet, which may, or may not, actually be a warning signal as opposed to a distress beacon--too late to find out, since they land on the planet and one of the investigating crew members, Kane (John Hurt), gets attacked by a strange alien creature that attaches itself to his face and doesn't let go.
The ship's captain, Dallas, hauls him into the ship's lab, where he is looked over by the ship's scientist, Ash (Ian Holm), who takes an odd affection to the creature that bothers Ripley, the second in command. The technician, Parker (Yaphet Kotto), doesn't like any of this either, and their suspicions reach a maximum when Kane wakes up from his sleep, the alien unattached from his face, and proceeds to eat irregularly. Later that night, back in their course to earth, a small alien bursts from Kane's stomach at dinner. The alien escapes into the depths of the ship. Search parties commence but the alien starts to grow more fierce and terrifying as the film treads on--soon it's a man-eating set of teeth bent on killing the lot of them.
Atmosphere is part of what makes "Alien" the terrifying nail-biter it is. This isn't a routine horror flick that jumps through all the hoops--it's original to a certain degree. Its inspiration comes from earlier films but it improves upon them all for the most part. From its opening shots to its final, it is eerie, moody, and scary. To show millions of aliens abounding from hidden crevices would be typical--the fear of "Alien" lies in the anticipation of the jump, or the startle. We wait, and wait, and suddenly something leaps at the screen. It's not the alien. The alien is in front of the thing that jumped. Our heart stops and then jolts again. Forget pumping volts of electricity through dead people--place them in front of this and their hearts will pound once again.
James Cameron's sequel "Aliens" (1986) is often considered the better of the series, in terms of excitement and aliens themselves. But "Alien," like the movie "Signs" (2002), isn't really about aliens. The film "Aliens" is terrific--but so is "Alien," as its central idea is too unnerve the audience through bumps and jolts. Not through blood and guts. Depends on what your personal preferences are--startles or explosions? I appreciate and enjoy both.
Ridley Scott knows how to evoke wonder and magnificence from his shots. The opening sequence that shows the exterior of the Nostromo and then dissolves to the interior, crawling along the shafts as we wait for something scary to happen and then forget as we are wowed by the movement and visuals, is a fine example of the art of filmmaking and not the filmmaking itself. Cameron is one of my favorite directors. Scott, when given the right material, can turn out wonders. "Alien" is his crowning achievement alongside the dark 1982 classic "Bladerunner," another sci-fi feast for the eyes and mind. I wasn't a fan of "Gladiator," but let's not bring that up, shall we?
"Alien" may seem tame by today's standards. But this isn't a film that wants to be another mindless blood and guts extravaganza. This is a smart horror film, one that is as involving as it visually magnificent, one that is as amazing as it is terrifying. This is horror at its finest. And if you didn't get to see it on the big screen last time around, now is your chance to get a glance at what you've been missing all these years.
Notes: The new "Alien: Director's Cut" version features over three minutes of never-before-seen sequences, as well as restored prints and a newly remixed surround-sound track. Attached to the director's release of the film is also the first teaser trailer for next year's "Alien vs. Predator."
Movie Review: Amazing; truly remarkable
Summary: 5 Stars
A timeless tale of horror and man (or in this case woman) against an unknown murderous force, Alien , now over 30 years in age, continues to be one of the most beloved gems of the science-fiction genre. Alien has always been one of my personal favorite movies for many reasons, which I would fail to summarize in the span of this review, but I certainly can try my best to fill out details on my casual view on what's the best way to enjoy the film.
Alien is a haunted house if you could put the feeling of a well-done haunted house on screen. A fusion of various sci-fi elements (think `2001: A Space Odyssey' with a dash of `Star Wars') and some horror (`The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and `Jaws') is a winning decision in Director Ridley Scott's dark vision of the future.
I'm sure that most of you are familiar with the plot of this "truckers in space" horror that launched the career of actress Sigourney Weaver and placed Swedish artist, H.R. Giger's sexual monster in the nightmares of millions filmgoers the world over.
A crew aboard a commercial towing vessel entitled the Nostromo is hauling a refinery and its metal ore back to Earth when suddenly the computer (known simply as "Mother") sets them on a new course. The blue-collared crew is awoken to find themselves far off course and are given news of a distress signal. Corporation protocols dictate that they must stop, investigate, and, if possible, rescue any survivors. Upon completing this mission they soon come to realize they have brought something aboard unlike anything mankind has ever faced before.
What follows is one of the greatest horror films in movie history. Ridley Scott and his technical crew weave together a gothic, sexual nightmare the likes of which has never been recreated. Unlike its sequels, Alien is a visually engaging movie that puts aside characters in the place of atmosphere. This film is a beauty to behold, but most importantly is the monster itself. Now, I love James Cameron's Aliens, but his representation of the aliens was dumb, simple-minded insects. RIDLEY SCOTT'S ALIEN on the other hand is a curious, sentient killer that is in no way human, but at the same time is clearly far from a mindless animal. From its first appearance to the end of the film the creature is kept in shadow making full use of "What you don't see" to create its suspense. This incarnation of the creature is likely to be my favorite movie monster of all time. Not to discredit future films such as the superb Aliens, but this Alien's creature is simply in a league of its own.
In short, Alien is a real testament of quality filmmaking. I believe Alien belongs among the ranks of such classics as Psycho and Jaws as being one of the best horror/suspense pictures of all time.
Now, to conclude this review I'm going to fill you all in on how you can come to own this gem. There are currently (in-circulation) two DVD versions of Alien. I have owned both and shall now summarize them the two of them for potential buyers from a fan standpoint, and as a consumer.
The single-disc 20th Anniversary edition originally a part of the Alien Legacy box set is the common version you'll find at most stores. For an early DVD this comes with a buffet of features that will satisfy any but the sternest of viewers. It comes with fully animated menus and such features as a full-length director's commentary by Sir Ridley Scott along with deleted scenes.
Alien: The Director's Cut is a two-disc collector's edition of the film that contains both the theatrical cut and director's cut. There are added features, most notably (at least for me) is the joint commentary between both Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver.
I currently own the Director's Cut seeing as I own the Quadrilogy set, but don't take that as a full-on recommendation for the 2-disc set. It may seem extreme, but I do not enjoy the "Director's Cut" and I'll explain why.
Ridley Scott already considered the theatrical cut the definitive edition of the film. The Director's Cut in actuality is more of a "Fan Cut." In my mind you get absolutely nothing from seeing this version since you could already view these deleted/extended scenes on the 20th anniversary edition. As Scott himself has noted initially the deleted scenes are entertaining, but ruin the pacing of the final product, especially when Ripley must escape the ship.
The Director's Cut does have some good special features and the picture may be a tad better, but if you aren't a huge fan of Alien or don't watch many special features I would suggest keeping to the single-disc release of the film. It just has more bang for your buck. BUT, if you really, really, REALLY must see everything there is to see about Alien you will probably go with the 2-disc set.
Just one note before I conclude this review: At home everyone can hear you scream. So try to tone it down.