Alien Anthology Details

[Hudson]

The image is so clear that the eggs easily stand out as set decorations.

Exactly the thing that makes me worry about blu-ray so much, especially for my favorite movie series. 

[beckmen]

Honestly, the eggs look fine to me. What doesn't look fine is the area of the queen on one shot where you can see through to I think it's the skeletal armature...but that's visible on the DVD, as well. I just never noticed.

IMO Trek TOS always looked really fake. I remember watching it as a kid during the TNG days and thinking "Wow, that is fake.". I hear the "BD enhances the flaws of set decoration of special effects" complaint from time to time, but honestly I have never really been bothered by it. Other than the wires in Face/Off, but that was a DVD.

I can't post news, can I? I mean I seem to be able to post in the News board, but I don't remember if I am on the list, or if some big guy with a clipboard and a stool is going to tell me to hit the bricks. Anyway, it might be a tad rambley, but here is what I was going to post:

Several screenshots from the first three Alien films on Blu-ray have surfaced over the last few days, allowing fans of the franchise and film buffs in general to size up how the films will look in 1080P. It should come as no major surprise that Alien (which had been remastered for a theatrical re-release in 2004) and Alien³ look great.

The real noteworthy news is regarding James Cameron's Aliens. The film was shot on a new-at-the-time 16mm film stock that ended up being discontinued shortly after. Part of the reason was how much grain and noise then stock produced. Because of that, previous incarnations of the film on DVD have been riddled with excessive amounts of noise and grain, as well as a general soft sharpness and detail level. The restoration team for the Alien Anthology Blu-ray set remastered the entire film under the supervision of James Cameron himself. Comments Cameron made regarding the restoration led to concerns about another DNR disaster like Fox's second release of Predator on Blu-ray, which presented the film "clean" and free of noise and grain, at the cost of fine picture detail which made some shots look absolutley awful and resulted in "waxy faces", the hallmark of a botched DNR application. However, with the full High definition screencaps available to view, one can see that the film is presented in an organic way. Grain and noise are still present, but it's minimized and sharpness and detail are at an all-time high. The film also seems to have been digitally color timed as part of the restoration process, resulting in a generally more vivid color pallete.

But don't take my word for it, check out the screenshots yourself and size up how good the films look in true hi-def. Screens from the first three films can be seen in the following links:

http://hcc.techradar.com/playback/coming-soon/blu-ray-screenshot-gallery-alien-anthology-alien-06-09-10

http://hcc.techradar.com/playback/coming-soon/blu-ray-screenshot-gallery-alien-anthology-aliens-07-09-10

http://hcc.techradar.com/playback/coming-soon/blu-ray-screenshot-gallery-alien-anthology-alien3-08-09-10

AVS Forum then did a comparison of the screenshots from the Blu-ray to screens from the existing DVD. The difference is quite striking:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=19151751&postcount=869

[Thedus]

IMO Trek TOS always looked really fake. I remember watching it as a kid during the TNG days and thinking "Wow, that is fake.". I hear the "BD enhances the flaws of set decoration of special effects" complaint from time to time, but honestly I have never really been bothered by it. Other than the wires in Face/Off, but that was a DVD.

There are times the level of clarity bothers me and times it doesn't.  It's less of a distraction in Star Trek than elsewhere, but when it occurs in a film or show that I really love it really annoys me - like the DVD release of the 1954 War of the Worlds.  The DVD was being touted as a great thing and showed untold clarity... what it did was further enhance the strings, matte paintings, and miniatures.  Movie magic isn't movie magic if all of the secrets are shown - even if the film is from 1954.

I can't post news, can I? I mean I seem to be able to post in the News board, but I don't remember if I am on the list, or if some big guy with a clipboard and a stool is going to tell me to hit the bricks.

Give it a shot.  Board specific Mods can post news, so you should be able to.

[Dan]

Anyone else wondering what happened to Sig's commentary's?

[beckmen]

Yes. That was briefly discussed but nobody had an answer. We need a "Ask Chuck" BD Q&A!

[Nas]

This is disappointing, I thought we were getting new audio commentaries with Sigourney Weaver. It will be good though to finally see the deleted Burke scene from Aliens.

I didn't know that FOX had shortened down the making of Alien 3, that's bad.

[J-Syxx]

She re-recorded the fucked up audio for the A3 Extended edition.  James Cameron also went back and fixed a number of errors in Aliens including behinds the scenes stuff you weren't supposed to see and at least one continuity error.

I'll probably buy it for the Aliens and A3 discs alone.  Resurrection is going to look very soft due to it never being rescanned for eons, and the picture may look stretched on the Alien disc (unconfirmed though, but the screenshots posted were messed up like that).

[Hooper]

I was lurking over at the forums over at jamescameraononline.com, and I found this:

http://www.jamescamerononline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2502

This thread claims that the Biship goof in 'Aliens' is being corrected for the blu-ray release.  Has this been officially confirmed? 

Are they intending to fix any other goofs/continuity errors in any of the films? 

[beckmen]

Pretty much confirmed. See: http://www.alienexperience.com/forum/index.php/topic,8009.0.html

(of course, the thread you linked to has the same pic...did you think somebody photoshopped it?)

[Hooper]

Actually, I did, in fact, think somebody 'shopped it, since I never saw anything official.   

So if they fixed that shot, I'm really hoping they fix a particular shot' Alien'.   

[AlienFan91]

Have any of you seen the facehugger site where you can get facehugged? Its pretty cool. Check it out at www.lv-426.co.uk.

Also there's a new game out online. You kill facehuggers to advance to the next level. Its a bit addicting and a good stress reliever. Its called Facehugger Survival. The link is www.FacehuggerSurvival.co.uk

[beckmen]

bleedingcool.com is doing a piece "Five Days With The Alien Anthology", pretty cool...

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/10/19/five-days-with-the-alien-anthology-day-one/

Highlights from the first entry

-Both cuts of Alien are color-timed differently. The Director's Cut uses the Digital Intermediate (citing needed) Scott did for the 25th Anniversary re-release, the original cut is more representational of the original 1979 theatrical exhibition.
-The theatrical cut also features a loss-less 4.1 track, also closer to the original theatrical exhibition. Both of these should be good news to purists

[AlienFan91]

I also just discovered a website where you post your favorite memories about the horror flick. You can upload a video as well! http://embeddable.foxinternational.com/alienmemories/uk/statichtml.html

[AlienFan91]

Sorry a bit obessed with the DVD. Have been researching and looking at all the things related to the release of the DVD. There's a site where you hear all the screams as well and you can record your own - http://www.alienscream.com/UK/

[Dan]

Just had a quick look at the bluray of Aliens and to me its perfect! Also the Burke cocoon scene is pretty awesome