Alien Anthology Blu-ray Screenshots

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 35mm 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