|
1. Blade Runner
Blade Runner follows policeman Rick Deckard, and the pursuit of four illegally cloned humans in a dystopian, futuristic Los Angeles. So a lot of things make this movie the best: a brooding score, the “I’ve seen things…” polemic, and the iconic future LA cityscape all work to tell a gripping story.
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
It achieved world-wide praise for it is revolutionary special effects.
It had a great deal of brilliant moments: exact simulations of space that are still unparalleled even with today’s CGI, the characterization of Hal, the malevolent super-computer, and using classical music in the opening scene.
3. Star Wars
The film weaved themes of good warring with evil in a space opera setting. It employed an all-encompassing “force” wielded for good or evil, adding a touch of mysticism not ordinarily seen in sci-fi films. It was the primary blockbuster, influencing sci-fi sagas for decades thereafter.
4. Alien
It was lauded for Gothic set design, terrifying Aliens, and heroic Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver. Alien also addresses themes of motherhood, and shows effective tension by showing long stretchings of quiet followed by scenes of sheer terror.
5. Solaris
A compelling, tragic drama of a psychologist travelling to another planet to replace a scientist. Once he arrives, he meets secretive survivors… and his dead wife. Reality is substituted with the dreams of the planet’s alien intelligence.
6. Terminator
Robots from the future send a cyborg back in time to assassinate a future humane rebel’s mother. It’s a perfective piece of film-making in it is genre, blending gripping action with intellectual time travel mechanics.
7. The Day the Earth Stood Still
In postwar America at the height of the Red Scare, an alien named Klaatu tries to convince the world’s leaders to stop the rush towards nuclear destruction. It has splendid dramatic tension and a message of peace that was far in front of it is time.
8. War of the Worlds
HG Wells’ tale of invaders from Mars of Earth was adapted into another cold war era movie. The idea that there could be life produced on dissimilar worlds which one would never recognise was a compelling idea for it is time. The spare special effects only intensified the contrast amidst persons and the unknowable invaders.
9. The Matrix
Stylish clothes, martial arts action, and ground-breaking particular effects combined to make a fresh spun on artificial intelligence enslaving humans. It likewise initiated the use of “bullet time” sequences employed global today.
10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
A tale of Richard Dreyfus’ growing obsession with aliens versus a backdrop of a mysterious governmental agency has given the core of sci-fi film lore ever since.
Alien 3 Collectors Sigourney Weaver
Disc 1: Alien Collector?s Edition Disc 2: Aliens Collector?s Edition Disc 3: Alien 3 Collector?s Edition Disc 4: Alien Resurrection Collector?s Edition Disc 5: Bonus Disc
The Alien Quadrilogy is a nine-disc boxed set committed to the four Alien films. Although antecedently available on DVD as the Alien Legacy, here they have been repackaged with vastly more extras and with upgraded sound and picture. For anybody who hasn’t been in hypersleep for the last 25 years, this series needs no introduction, even though for the initial time each film now comes in both firstborn and “special edition” form.
Alien (1979) was so perfective it didn’t need fixing, and Ridley Scott’s 2003 director’s cut is fiddling for the sake of fiddling. Watch it once, then return to the majestic, perfectly paced original. Conversely, the special edition of James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) is the definitive version, altho it’s nice to in the long run have the theatrical cut on DVD for comparison. Most interesting is the substitute Alien 3 (1992). This isn’t a “director’s cut”–David Fincher refused to have any involvement with this release–but a 1991 work-print that runs 29 minutes longer than the theatrical version, and has now been restored, remastered, and finished off with (unfortunately) cheap new CGI. Still, it’s veritably fascinating, supplying a dissimilar clear or deep perception into a flawed masterpiece. The expanded opening is visually breathtaking, the central firestorm is much longer, and a subplot involving Paul McGann’s reputation adds substantial depth to story. The ending is also subtly but significantly different. Alien: Resurrection (1997) always was a mess with a handful of brilliant scenes, and the special edition just makes it eight minutes longer.
The Alien Quadrilogy offers the basi and fourth films with DTS soundtracks, the others having still fine Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation. All four films sound fantastic, with much low-level detail revealed for the basi time. Each is anamorphically intensified at the rectify initial aspect ratio, and the prints and transfers are superlative. Every film offers a commentary track that lends clear or deep perception into the originative process–though the Scott-only commentary and detached music score from the introductory Alien DVD release are missing here.
Each movie is complemented by a discerned disc packed with hours of badly elaborate documentaries (all staged in full-screen with clips letterboxed), thousands of photos, production stills, and storyboards, giving a level of inside data for the consecrated buff only surpassed by the Lord of the Rings extended DVD sets. A ninth DVD compiles miscellaneous material, including an hourlong documentary and even all the extras from the old Alien laserdisc. “Exhaustive” hardly beings to describe the Alien Quadrilogy, a set that establishes the new DVD benchmark for retrospective releases and looks improbable to be surpassed for a lot of time. –Gary S. Dalkin
Alien 3 Collectors Sigourney Weaver Photo
Alien 3 Collectors Sigourney Weaver Picture
Alien 3 Collectors Sigourney Weaver Photo
Alien 3 Collectors Sigourney Weaver Image
Most helpful client reviews
213 of 221 people found the following review helpful.
 definitive collection
By S. Baker
This comprises of two discs for each film, the introductory and an substitute version (more on that below) on the basi disk, and collections of approximately 2 hours of featurettes and other bonuses on the second disc. The ninth disc is a hodgepodge of trailers and other items from former DVD and laser disk versions. Although the extras have been freed in a assortment of forms over assorted years (the John Hurt documentary ‘The Alien Saga’, being the latest), THIS is the definitive version.
‘Alien’ (average user rating: 4.6). If you haven’t seen this classic film, then you will have to be living beneath a rock. The collection includes the firstborn theatrical version (which I prefer) and the “Director’s Cut”, noteworthy for it is inclusion of the arguable captain-cacooned by alien scene (controversial because from the Alien mythology produced in later films, we recognise that only the massive queen may lay eggs). I prefer the primary (which is genuinely 1 minute longer), and interestingly enough, it appears that Ridley Scott alternatively chooses the firstborn as well. The making of featurettes are spacious and disclose Giger’s extensive participation and how what was in the first place expected to receive a b-moive budget became one of the very few examples where Fox studios followed the imaginativeness with a classic.
‘Aliens’ (average user rating: 4.7). This is the only sequel I recognise of that is rated higher than the original. This time, the “Special Edition” version (also on the former ‘Alien Legacy’ box set) is a superior experience and incisively is how upstart conductor James Cameron (who had written the script prior to the release of ‘The Terminator’) wanted to release the film, but was constrained totally by time limits. The result is further and added scenes featuring the colonists and Ripley’s family lost to the time she expended in hypersleep. As with the introductory installment, the featurettes are interesting and thorough, even though the Viet Nam War metaphor is not as exhaustively explored with Cameron as has been in other releases.
‘Alien 3′ (average user rating: 3.2). As a fan of the franchise, this was perchance the most envisioned share of this new box set. The “working print” of the film (the longest of all the versions here, and finish with subtitles for missed sound editing), adds a depth to the film that was not in the original. That is, the arrival of Ripley and the characters are covered much more thoroughly, the alien creature is begotten by an oxen with a much more firstborn look, there is an further and added plot twist arising from the nature of the inhabitants (criminally delusional), and there is no riduculously-timed chest-burster scene at the end. Still, the film is a flawed masterpiece. The film is better cherished in light of the bad circumstance first-time conductor David Fincher had been placed in – not the least of which is an not complete script for the duration of production and a set that had already been constructed for the ill-conceived “wooden planet/monestary” resourcefulness of the antecedently assigned director. In this sense, the three production featurettes come all over as almost an apology/tribute to Fincher. (NOTE: Fincher is the only conductor who is not interviewed on the box set.)
‘Alien Resurrection’ (average user rating: 3.0). What happens when you put the French conductor of ‘Amelie’ (Jean-Pierre Jeaunet) in charge of an alien movie? Well, foreign/art movies were all the craze in the last 1990s, so . . . Fox studios thought, “Why not?” In the end, a heap of fans of the franchise did not be grateful for the plainly satirical slant on this final installment. The opening scene and ending scenes (the only additions of substance) on the extended version make the film even more tongue-in-cheek. Despite the French conductor and crew’s evident regard for the primary ‘Alien’ (as documented in the featurettes), armed with the return of Sigourney Weaver and the addition of superstar Winona Ryder, the conductor ultimately made a quirky, campy action film. But in the end, it was the last quarter of the script that makes this the weakest of all the installments by far. Postscript to Fox studios: if you had given Fincher this much originative freedom, you would have have a third masterpiece.
71 of 78 people found the following review helpful.
It must be called the Tetralogy, but get it anyway
By Adam Dukovich
The Alien series never broke out the way that Star Trek and Star Wars did–you don’t see the presence of an Alien-worshipping subculture, the way you do with Roddenberry’s and Lucas’s franchises. However, the series has been far more inventive and varied than those two franchises. Explore the Alien movies (minus the abomination known as Alien vs. Predator) on this 9-disc set. Even even though they are very dissimilar films which have little commonality, apart from the presence of those vicious monsters and the lovely Sigourney Weaver, they supplement each other well, and gatherers would be wise to pick up this boxed set rather of buying the movies piecemeal. Far from being simple horror films, the Alien movies are attempts to put into film the anxieties of the modern age, from the biological to the corporate, and the series is at it is best when it exploits these anxieties.
This is what the firstborn entry in the series, Alien, does best. Directed by Ridley Scott, whose other work includes Blade Runner and Gladiator, this 1979 film pits a group of mercantile astronauts versus a foe which cannot be killed and will not be placated. With a cast that includes Weaver, Tom Skeritt, Yaphet Kotto, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton and Ian Holm, this is in all likelihood the most impressively-acted of the bunch, and Scott has style to spare. Unlike most terror films, this movie derives it is thrills not from continual pop-ups at the screen, but from building a sustained mood of dread–the alien could pop up at any moment. When it does come, it doesn’t stay around for long. Perhaps the movie’s biggest attribute is it is allegorical simplicity–one is bound to reflect on what the alien represents? Perhaps it’s a Rorshach Ink Blot to galore extent, however, this movie is the perfective counterpoint to such movies as Independence Day–instead of taking off and kicking ass, in Alien, not one thing we may do may protect us from the Alien. In our post-Iraq, post-9/11 nation, perchance this film will have gained a great deal of resonance in it is treatment of the subject matter.
Aliens might be decried by some as a pure action film, but it is a bit more than that. James Cameron logically extends the conceptions in the introductory film, and while it lacks the atmosphere and creepy suspense of the original movie, it is an exceedingly stimulating and in an emotional manner satisfying film. In this film, Ellen Ripley returns to the beast’s planet with a squad of marines, which includes such personalities as the humane Cpl. Hicks (Michael Biehn), the freaked-out Pvt. Hudson (Bill Paxton) and the macho Pvt. Vasquez (Janette Goldstein). Also in the mix are Paul Reiser as the personification of corporate malfeasance, and Lance Henriksen as a sinister-seeming android. Trivia note: Henriksen would be the only actor (aside from Weaver) to appear in more than one Alien film. Ultimately, this is a movie where the thrills come from stuff popping out at you, but if you are more than willing to suspend disbelief a little and come along for the ride, it is in truth rather good for a genre picture, and became the benchmark versus which the later pictures were compared.
Alien3 is a film which never got a reasonable chance. Consider: a script which underwent more than a few major revisions, various changes in managers which genuinely produced the perfective man for the occupation (future Fight Club auteur David Fincher), a meddling studio and fan expected values which could not perhaps have been sated. It was, in retrospect, a recipe for disaster, so one must not complain with regards to how flawed it is, but rather realize just how good it is. Fincher manages to develop a exclusively convincing atmosphere of dread in a prison planet populated by monk-like inmates. It takes up the allegorical mantle again, but rather than the open-ended allegory of the first, this installment has overt religious parallels that anybody even remotely intimate with Western Civilization will have to be competent to pick up on (even though a great deal of of the imagery is subtle). This set notably includes the Assembly Cut, billed euphamistically here as a “Special Edition”, which is far closer to the movie Fincher intended to make. While there are any number of rightful complaints versus the film–the most sympathetic reputation dies halfway through, a great deal of of the inmates never genuinely stick out, the final action sequence is too disorienting, high on gore but low on scares, etc.–it is actually a rather compelling film in it is unaltered form. Not perfect, but in terms of the plotting, main characters, and it is clear or deep perception into the mindset of the religious isolationist mindset, it is more than adequate. In terms of visuals and mood, no installment of the Alien series has been better. In my book, it’s a good film with flaws rather than a flawed film with a great deal of good parts. The beginning and ending are contentious–watch the film and you will see why–but both serve the story, and the ending in Fincher’s version is a astoundingly powerful one, as opposed to the theatrical version, which might have a heap of Biblical undertones (the story of Jacob, specifically) but it feels more hollow. Overall, with this restored version, hopefully the movie will see an end to the backlash that has been pervasive since it is release in 1992.
Alien Resurrection is the final film in this group, and while it is less polarizing than Alien3 amid fans, it is likewise less memorable. If the initial film was with regards to a post-Vietnam set of anxieties, then this film is in regards to a post-Berlin Wall set of ironies, and it cannot be displaced from the culture from whence it came–a culture which prided itself on being so “over” everything. Yet another director, this time Jean-Pierre Jeaunet of Amelie, brings a dissimilar twist to the franchise. Armed with a screenplay by TV wunderkind Joss Whedon, and game performances from Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, et al. The rudimentary problem is that the viewer never actually connects with the characters, and therefore isn’t invested in their fates. This being the case, the movie then becomes a series of action setpieces which don’t rather add up to anything. The visual style is astoundingly missing out here as well: I once heard Amelie described as a David Fincher take on a Meg Ryan film, so I expected unforgettable visuals. I rather ran into that Roger Ebert was right when he said there was not a single shot to inspire the imagination. While the production values are high, the grotesque violence, fast-paced editing, camerawork and lighting all come together to make one feel as altho in a video game, and while that might work for fourteen year-old boys, it’s a far cry from the film’s heritage. On the other hand, the satirical distinct elements of the film are enjoyable, and it in some manner was much more beloved in Europe–maybe I’m missing something. Ultimately, the film is either a standard-issue adventure story or a savvy satirical deconstruction of a standard-issue thriller–I’m not totally certain.
The bonus features are interesting–commentaries on all the four films, featuring directors, cast members, and production staff. I guess that, given the amount of commentary tracks punctuated by uncomfortable silences, the folks over at Fox decisive to cut to dissimilar conversations at dissimilar points for the duration of the films. There is a neverending stream of information, a good deal of interesting and enlightening, other parts are funny (Bill Paxton’s contributions especially), but the only one that is tough to sit through is Alien3′s, which is unbalanced in favor of the technical side of the production and only has when it comes to 15 minutes of Henriksen and another actor. The documentaries go into outstanding detail regarding all the films, fundamentally from the germination of the story all the way through to critical reception. Overall, it’s a good collection of particular features.
Overall, as far as franchises go, the Alien films are one of the better bets out there. As a receptacle for millenial anxieties, a proving ground for new and gifted directors, and just plain scares, this is a series which must appeal to most and I highly commend this set.
67 of 74 humans found the following review helpful.
 If all this isn’t sufficient for ya, WHAT IS?
By John S. Harris
There’s a LOT of stuff in this box set. Almost too much, really. You could spend a couple of weeks watching and reading all the extras, commentaries, script drafts, etc. But by then you would have deconstructed the films so much that you have robbed them of whatsoever “innocent observing pleasure” you enjoyed before you delved into the minutiae of the extra features.
So it is a double-edged sword: Learn more than you ever thought you would when it comes to the 4 “Alien” films, but suffer having to watch them from then on and for a limitless time more through the filter of “knowing too much behind-the-scenes info” & “curtain-pulled-back-on-the-Wizard” insider perspective.
That said, it is a real treat to have this collection, even though the fourth film was abominably disappointing. The packaging, which opens to a closely five foot long foldout, is kind of neat but soon grows cumbersome and irritating. When you unfold it the firstborn time, it is like “Hey, look what THIS thing does!”. But after a while, when you just want to retrieve a single disc for a heap of occasion, it has evolved to “Okay, okay, I get it – it’s long. Just gimme the stupid disc already!”
For “Alien” fanatics, this is a must-have. I don’t own the “Alien Legacy” set, so I can’t compare them.
I exceptionally like the DTS sound on two of the films. DTS always brings a new dimension to the listening experience that the still-great Dolby 5.1 doesn’t.
Don’t complain in regards to the price, either. You get your money’s worth in spades, and you save on tax and get free shipping if you order it online (from the right vendor). Besides, even if the price is a bit too steep for you, that amount of your cash would have been lost to the sands of time soon sufficient anyway. Might as well spend the cash and have something cool to show for it.
See all 410 client reviews…
|