A Box 'o Bugs

I guess it goes without saying that it's an entry requirement for DVD box sets that one be a pretty rabid fan of the subject of the box set. The "Aliens Quadriliogy" set is no exception. There's more "Aliens Series" detail than most folks will care for. It's expensive, too.

I've reviewed the Aliens movies separately elsewhere (See: "Aliens", "Aliens", "Alien3", and "Alien Resurection") , so I'll not go into the plots of the movies themselves in any detail here. Briefly then...

"Alien" was released in 1979. It's the story of the last voyage of the starship USCSS Nostromo. The ship, a "commercial towing vessel" is redirected to a desolate planet to investigate a unexplained radio signal emanating from a strange derelict ship. There the crew encounter a strange and vicious alien organism. After several bloody deaths, Ripley destroys the ship and the monster.

"Aliens" was directed by Terminator and "Titanic" director James Cameron. It was released in 1986 and marked a sharp departure from the first film. Here Ripley is rescued and eventually recruited to assist a military expedition back to the alien planet which is now inhabited by colonists. There they run into rather more trouble than they can handle.

"Aliens3" (1992), which is rather the runt of the Aliens litter, has Ripley's suspended animation capsule is ejected into space when the ship she's riding home on runs into difficulty. She lands, alone, on a dismal prison planet full of convicts. Of course, there is an alien passenger, as you would expect by now there are many bloody deaths. In this movie Ripley dies.

"Alien Resurection" revived the franchise in 1997. It brought a European look and feel to the series. In this film Ripley is brought back to life by a group of military scientists who want to propagate the aliens for a variety of purposes.

The "Quadriliogy". an inelegant title, that, is a nine-disc set. Each movie has it's own disc, containing the original theater cut and an expanded or "director's" cut. For each film there is also a "supplement" disc containing making-of features and the like. The ninth disc contains some other odds and sods such as extras content from the old laserdiscs.

The first disc discusses the genesis of the first movie with extensive interviews with Dan O'Bannon and Ron Shusett, who created the original script and story concept. These guys didn't have much to do with the subsequent films (I'm not talking about AVP here, that film wasn't yet released at the the of the release of the box set.) and more or less disappear after the first film. Producer David Giler is heard from quite a bit as well. The interviews with these principals show a bit of the friction between the original creators and the people the script was handed off to. We're not talking about any "warts and all" knock-down's here, but even the odd bit of cattiness is more than one usually get from movie extra discs. The pre-production and production phases of the film are documented in detail. Much behind-the-scenes footage is shown as well as interviews with director Ridley Scott, concept artists Ron Cobb and H.R. Giger, Actors Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, and Harry Dean Stanton, as well as numerous other members of the crew, especially the SPX people. There are also features on the post-production and release phases. Editing and musical scoring are examined as well as post-production optical effects. Finally the publicity campaign and public and critical reaction to the movie get a turn as well. You get quite a bit of raw footage as well as deleted shots, sometimes in rather raw and unfinished form. Things are closed out by extensive galleries of concept art and production still photos. Commentary by Scott, O'Bannon, Shusett, Weaver, Skerritt, Cartwright, Stanton, Actor John Hurt and editor Terry Rawlings is embedded on the main movie disc.

The extras disc for "Aliens" is much the same, if anything more extensive. James Cameron and his producer and then-wife Gale Ann Hurd take center stage this time. The structure of this disc is very similar with somewhat more emphasis on SFX which were more featured in this movie than it's predecessor. Movie commentary this time is courtesy of Cameron, Hurd, FX guys Stan Winston, Robert and Dennis Skotak, and Pat McClurg. Also the commentary track by actors Micheal Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henrikson, Jenette Goldstein, and Carrie and Christopher Henn is an especial stand-out. The same sorts of art and photo galleries are also included.

"Aliens3" was a mess from the get-go. Producer Giler says that they were shooting for a release date rather than a script. The extras disc for this movie has rather the tone of a post-mortum, one of the features is even entitled "Post-Mortem". Everybody gives their take on "what-went-wrong". Basically too much management and too little story (or rather too much, there were multiple major re-writes). Director David Fincher (of "Seven" fame)is absent. I certainly don't blame him for wanting to put this mess behind him but without his presence there's rather a hole in this examination. The commentary track is mostly contributed by technical types, Editor Rawlings, for example. Only one actor, Paul McGann, who played Golic, showed up for this one. One thing I took away from this was what a miracle Fincher pulled off getting this into the shape it stands in given the mess that it was when he started.

"Aliens Resurection" is a breath of fresh air after the mess of A3. The structure of this extra disc is the same as the other three. The filming of the underwater sequences and the basketball scene are shown in detail The former was especially difficult and it's a wonder it even worked. The basketball scene, where Weaver nailed an incredible over-the-back shot on the first take, is also examined in detail. Weaver and co-star Winona Ryder are interviewed at length as well as other members of the cast. Commentary is provided by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet
as well as technical people and some of the lower-billed actors.

The ninth disc is for hard-core fans only. There is a decent documentary of the production of the first movie, loads of trailers and other ads, etc. There is a bunch of content ported over from the old laserdisc format releases of the first two movies. Most of this covers old ground the main exceptions being some of the out-take footage from "Alien" which showed the bug in greater detail. It was nice to finally see this stuff after hearing about it for so long. This disc also contains "DVD-ROM content" that wasn't too impressive, I couldn't get the web link stuff to work...**shrug**...didn't try too hard, I'll admit.

This set contains two "Easter eggs" that are pretty cool. One is kind of a "day in the life of the guy in the other bug suit" thing. The thing about the dude who built his own power-loader suit has to be seen to be believed. You'll have to look on-line for the access directions, I don't remember them, sorry.

The last feature on the disc is a feature about a guy in LA who has a sort of Alien Prop Museum in his house. Cool. Weird, but cool.

Although the interview content of the extra discs is frequently illuminating and some dirty laundry is aired, some of the stickier points are glossed over. Most glaring here is the affair of the cast/crew walk-off on A3. This incident is glossed over quickly with one sentence from Gieler. If you want more detail on this (admittedly not much more) check out the independently produced "Aliens Saga".

Two quick complaints. One, this set is packages in a kind of fold-out format which I don't like. Also the formatting of the discs doesn't work well with PowerDVD, which I use to watch DVDs on my computer, my "Alien" review has all the details.


So,

Do you want to buy this set. Well, do you love the "Aliens" movies? Not "like" but love. OK. Do you have about $60 burning a hole in your pocket? OK, then buy it. Otherwise...probably not.