4k-UHD/Movie Review: Alien

 

Alien is the 1979 horror/action film directed by Ridley Scott that started the Alien franchise. It stars Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skeritt, Veronica Cartwright, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton, and Yaphet Kotto. The story involves the crew of a space tug called the Nostromo being awakened from suspended animation while returning to Earth by the ship's computer when a transmission from a nearby moon is detected. The crew is tasked with investigating the source of the transmission, which turns out to be a large spaceship with a dead alien with a hole in its chest. While investigating the ship, one of the crew members is attacked by a creature that ends up being brought aboard the ship. From there, it becomes a fairly standard monster/chase movie.

The 4k set is a two-disc set containing a UHD disc and a regular Blu-Ray disc.  The 4k set was released in conjunction with the 40th Anniversary of the film. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is outstanding. While the film does retain some grain and noise from the transfer, the movie looks better than it has on any prior physical media release. The extras (which are included on the UHD disc), however, are limited. There are two different versions of the movie, the Director's Cut and the theatrical version. There are commentary tracks on each version of the movie. On the Director's Cut, there is a commentary track that included Scott and all of the crew members that was recorded in 2003. The commentary track on the theatrical version was recorded by Scott in 1999. Then, you can watch the theatrical version of the movie with two different scores. One is the theatrical isolated score, and the other is Jerry Goldsmith's original score, which was heavily changed for the movie's release. Then, there are a handful of deleted and extended scenes. If you own the Alien Quadrilogy on DVD or Blu-Ray, that set has a lot of extras that were not transferred over to this release. So, if you are a person who is a fan of bonus content, you will want to keep that set. Ultimately, the movie is good but dated (as the newer movies in the franchise have proven). The physical release is very good (aside from the fact that not all the prior bonus content was included) and is definitely worth the pickup.  

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Alien Covenant

 

Alien Covenant is a 2017 horror movie directed by Ridley Scott. It stars Michael Fassbender, Billy Crudup, Katherine Waterston, and Danny McBride. Noomi Rapace, James Franco, and Guy Pearce all have minor roles. The movie is a sequel to Prometheus, set a decade after the events of that movie. We discover that Shaw (Rapace) and David (Fassbender) found a planet full of Engineers and crashed there. I will not give anything more away because to do so would spoil it, but essentially, the crew of the USS Covenant finds the planet, and what you would expect to occur does.

The 4k set is a two-disc set containing a UHD disc and a regular Blu-Ray disc. The movie looks and sounds great in 4k, as you would expect. On the 4k disc, you just have the movie with the option to play it with or without the commentary track by Ridley Scott. The extras are all on the regular blu-ray and include deleted scenes, some of which set up the movie, and some are extended scenes from the movie. There are also some shorter behind-the-scenes featurettes and an almost hour-long making-of feature titled "Master Class with Ridley Scott." Finally, there are some trailers and photography stills. So, this release includes a lot of good material for those who like a lot of extras.

This movie is definitely tied to the storyline from Prometheus, but it is not guaranteed that your feelings about Prometheus will carry over to this movie. For example, if you hated Prometheus because it was not a direct prequel to Alien, which many were expecting, this movie may be closer to what you would have liked that one to be. Just be aware that this is still not a direct sequel to the original movie, either. On the other hand, if you liked the direction that the story in Prometheus went, especially giving more backstory to the Engineers, this movie diverged from that quite a bit, so it may disappoint you. Since Ridley Scott has taken over the franchise again, so the movie has a very similar feel and tone to the others he has been involved with. He is reportedly working his way through a series of movies that will eventually lead to the direct prequel to Alien. So, looking at this as a piece of a much larger overall story, I think, gives it the context it would not have as a stand-alone movie. While the movie is not perfect, it is definitely worth watching.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: The Martian

 

The Martian is a 2015 Sci-Fi/Adventure movie directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Kristen Wig, Michael Pena, Sean Bean, Donald Glover, and Jeff Daniels. The movie is adapted from a book by the same name about an Astronaut named Mark Whitney, played by Matt Damon, who ends up getting stranded on Mars when the rest of his crew leaves believing that he died. The story basically revolves around his efforts to stay alive and communicate with NASA with the equipment that is left behind, and the concurrent plan to rescue him.

The original Blu-Ray release is a single disc with the movie and a decent amount of extras. The Blu-Ray's A/V quality is outstanding, and the movie looks and sounds great in HD format. As for extras, there are probably between an hour and a half to 2 hrs worth. The biggest is a mock documentary telling the story that plays out in the film, mainly from Sean Bean and Jeff Daniel's character's perspectives. But most of the cast is involved. There are also some commercial-like vignettes promoting the Mars missions, including one done with Neil Degrasse Tyson. Then there are some behind-the-scenes and making-of features as well. A decent amount for those who like to go through the bonus material.

Overall, the movie is wonderful. The screenplay was great and the acting is superb on all fronts.  I have not read the book, but apparently, the writers did not change much from the book. For those who are into science or engineering, it is enjoyable because they based things on real science, and although they certainly did take liberties with some things, they kept most of those liberties plausible. And for those who are not very science literate, the film did a good job of not being so technical that everything would only be understandable to scientists and engineers. It is absolutely worth the time to watch.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Blade Runner (Five-Disc Complete Collector's Edition)

 

This set is really a must for any fan of Ridley Scott's iconic dystopian future movie, Blade Runner. The movie made in 1982 and set in 2019 involves a group of fugitive androids called Replicants, which have escaped from a space colony where they are forced to work. A cop named Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) is tasked with hunting down and "retiring" the fugitive replicants. The rest of the main cast includes Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Edward James Olmos, and Joanna Cassidy. Chances are most people reading this know what the movie is about and whether they like it or not. For those who do not, if you are familiar with Ridley Scott's other sci-fi movies, it very much has a similar feel, with a very dark and moody tone, but does not try to copy a movie like Alien or some of his other works. It can be a bit slow in pacing in parts of the movie, but even the final director's cut comes in under two hours, so it is not overly long. The set includes all the prior editions of the movie (on disc 3), including the 1982 theatrical edition, the 1982 international theatrical edition, and the 1992 director's cut. Each cut of the film has a similar run time, just under two hours, and the 1982 editions are nearly identical. The 1992 cut does make substantial changes to the movie, some of which are carried over into the new final cut which is on the first disc.

Really, where the set shines, is the bonus features. On the first disc, there are three separate commentary tracks on the final cut of the film, one by Ridley Scott one by the executive producer and some of the writers, and the third by the production designers and effects supervisors. Each of the commentary tracks provides great insight into the making of the movie. The second disc includes a three-and-a-half-hour-long making-of documentary that combines new and archival footage and includes a ton of interviews with cast and crew members. There are also some trailers and promos for other movies on the second disc. The third disc, as I mentioned, has all of the prior versions of the movie, and disc four includes a ton of featurettes including a comparison of the movie to the novel, features on the graphic design, the costumes, deleted and alternate scenes, and a lot more (including original promotional material from 1982). On the fifth disc, there is a workprint version of the movie that was the pre-release/test screening version of the film. It has an introduction by Ridley Scott and a commentary track by a film historian. Then there is a half-hour-long feature called All Our Variant Futures that details the processes to create the final cut of the movie.

Overall, the movie is a classic sci-fi film. It is one that does not have as wide a fan base as say Star Wars, or even the Aliens franchise, but even being more in the cult-classic category, it still holds up well after forty years. This release has every possible cut of the movie, so if you prefer the theatrical release above all others you can watch that one exclusively, or you can watch them all compare the versions. It will definitely take days to watch every version of the movie (which you may get sick of after a while) and all the bonus features, but if you are a fan of the movie, this set has everything you could possibly want, especially if you love watching bonus material.

DVD Review: Alien Quadrilogy

 

This is the set of original Alien films starring Sigourney Weaver, the one that started it all, directed by Ridley Scott, the very good follow-up Aliens, and then the two that kind of delved into the "hot garbage" category, Alien 3, and Alien Ressurection. All of the movies got an upgraded version of the movie and a TON of extras per movie. The best of which, in my opinion, was for the first movie. Those included the Director's Cut with an introduction by Ridley Scott, and a deleted footage marker, so you can see what was not in the theatrical version of the movie, a new commentary track that included Ridley Scott, many of the actors, and one of the producers and the editor. And then you get a bunch of making-of features, storyboards, stills, the original draft of the script, a creature design featurette, and more.

Aliens received a similar treatment with a special edition of the movie being included, along with the theatrical version. The special edition had an intro by James Cameron and a commentary track that included Cameron and many of the cast and crew members. Then it got a ton of behind the scenes and making-of features, a large production gallery of photos, visual effects features, and more.

Alien 3 also got a special edition, but the director, David Fincher, refused to participate in the re-release, so he was not involved in anything. Hence, the commentary track just included a few of the crew members and a couple of cast members. There were still a ton of making-of and behind-the-scenes material, stills galleries, deleted scenes, and the like for this one.

Alien Ressurection also received the same kind of release, with a special edition and a theatrical edition, a new commentary track on the special edition with the director, some cast members, and some crew members, and then a ton of behind-the-scenes material.

So, each movie has two discs devoted to them, then the final ninth disc just has more special features those include documentaries, laser disc archives (the extras included on the laserdisc releases of the films), original trailers and TV spots, and even more stills, for each of the various movies.

Overall, this set is wonderful. I have heard that some of the transfers to the Blu-Ray version of this, Alien Legacy, were kind of so-so. Because of that, I have never upgraded, because I love the DVD set that much. If there is ever a 4kUHD release of this set, I may bite the bullet and upgrade, but until then I definitely recommend this to anyone who is a hard-core fan of the Alien franchise and loves DVD extras.