Blu-Ray/Documentary Review: Aliens Expanded

 

Aliens Expanded is a massively long documentary (just under five hours if you watch the entire credits sequence) created by a group of documentary filmmakers who were fans of the 1986 movie Aliens. Of course, Aliens was the sequel to Ridley Scott's original movie. It was the second entry in what has become a franchise of films and the only one written and directed by James Cameron. This disc does not include the movie itself. Still, it does feature interviews with most of the surviving cast and crew members, including James Cameron, producer Gale Anne Hurd, Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henrickson, Jenette Goldstein, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, Colette Hiler, Mark Rolston, Willam Hope, Cynthia Dale Scott, Daniel Kash, and Ricco Ross. 

The film talks about pretty much every aspect of making the movie, from the initial approach by the studio to Cameron to write the screenplay, the casting process, including getting Weaver to reprise her role as Ripley, to the almost mythic battle that Cameron had working with the crew at Pinewood Studios in England, who were pissed off that a "yank" with no experience (Terminator had barely come out when Aliens was being made) was replacing Ridley Scott, to the grueling process of actually shooting the film. There is a discussion of the infamous "Tea Lady" incident in which Cameron (who is notorious for being difficult to work with anyway) kicked the tea cart that was brought for the crew every day, shutting down production while the crew drank tea and ate scones, and yelled at the tea lady to get the fuck out and ripped into the crew for being lazy. 

If you have watched the behind-the-scenes material and have listened to the commentary tracks on the physical media releases of Aliens, then you will have heard some of the stories that are discussed in the documentary, but this goes into much great depth and includes discussions of things that are not included on the official commentary tracks, such as why Michael Biehn replaced James Remar as Corporal Hicks. 

The documentary can be ordered on the website aliens-expanded.com. You can order a digital edition or a region-free Blu-Ray. The digital edition of the film itself is about $18, and the Blu-Ray is about $112-$119 (including the shipping cost), depending on whether you get the T-shirt. If you order the Blu-Ray, you get swag to go with it, including a patch, a poster, a certificate of contribution, and a T-shirt. If you ordered before the release date, you had the option of the T-shirt or having your name appear in the credit sequence.  There are some extras, including deleted scenes that are snippets of interviews that did not make it into the main film, including an interesting discussion of the rumored direct sequel that would have ignored Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection and would have brought back the characters of Ripley, Newt, and Hicks. There is also a Zoom meeting discussion between the filmmakers where they discuss the process of making the documentary, including the hoops they had to jump through to get in touch with Sigourney Weaver and get her to agree to sit down for an interview, which happened at the very last minute and ended up pushing the release date back. Thankfully, you can resume watching from where you left off if you do stop watching before the end of the film.

Ultimately, this is a very good documentary for die-hard fans of the film. It is not something that a casual fan will likely want to sit through, given that it is about 4 hours and 15 minutes long if you don't watch the credits and 4 hours and 42 minutes if you do. While it is not a scene-by-scene discussion of the movie, it does include a lot of clips from the movie and a lot of behind-the-scenes material from when the movie was made. Again, if you have watched the bonus content from the physical media releases, some of it is repetitive. It does not, however, feature any of the archived interviews that Bill Paxton did for the movie before he died. It does have a few f-bombs in it, so that is something to be aware of, but the movie had a lot of swearing in it, so that should not be too shocking. So, if you love the movie and don't mind watching a very long documentary about it, this is worth watching.    

4K-UHD/Movie Review: Avatar: The Way of Water (Three-Disc Edition)

 

Avatar: The Way of Water is the 2022 sequel to 2009's massive and groundbreaking hit, Avatar. It is again written and directed by James Cameron. In it, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana reprise their roles as Jake Sully and Neytiri. The rest of the cast includes Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Britain Dalton, Trinity Bliss, Bailey Bass, Jack Champion, Flip Geljo, Jamie Flatters, Scarlett Fernandez, and Edie Falco. Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi, CCH Pounder, and Dileep Rao, who all appeared in the first movie, also appear in this one. It would give away too much to reveal exactly how their characters appeared. Still, it is not spoiling anything to say that some of the appearances are very short cameos (e.g., through video footage), and others are more substantial.

The movie is set sixteen years after the events of the first movie and sees the return of the "sky people," aka the Resources Development Administration (RDA), to Pandora. Their mission is to colonize Pandora but to do so, they realize they will have to take out Jake. We learn that Jake and Neytiri have a family. When their family is attacked, they flee the forest and take refuge with a Na'vi clan called the Metkayin, who live next to the ocean and have a symbiotic relationship with the sea-dwelling creatures. We also learn that the Metkayin have a different physiology and a completely different way of life than the forest-dwelling clans. Of course, they cannot stay hidden forever, and another epic battle with the sky people ensues.

There are a couple of different versions of the 4K sets. This one is a three-disc version with a UHD disc and two regular Blu-Ray discs. The UHD disc and the first regular Blu-Ray disc contain the movie, while the second regular Blu-Ray disc has all of the bonus features. The most extensive bonus feature is a series of making-of featurettes that can be played together or individually, totaling almost three hours. The behind-the-scenes material covers the new characters, the returning characters, the casting process, the advances made to the motion capture technology, the stunt work, and more. Then, there is a music video and some promotional spots for the movie. So, this set has well over three hours of bonus content. There is a four-disc set that includes a second bonus disc, and that one has over eight hours of bonus features. It sucks that there are two different 4K releases, but if you want all of the bonus content, you need to pay attention to what 4K set you are purchasing. They did a similar 4K release for the first Avatar movie, but the difference is that the upgraded set for the original movie also had the expanded edition of the movie, whereas, for the sequel, both sets just have the theatrical release (which is on its own over three hours long). 

Ultimately, this is a good sequel. It touches on many of the same themes as the original movie and expands the world of Pandora beyond what we saw in the first film. The acting and writing are very good, and the motion capture and CGI technology have advanced so much and look so good that it is almost hard to tell what is practical and what is computer-generated. The A/V quality is top-notch, and the video and sound are reference-quality. If you enjoyed the first movie, this is absolutely worth watching.

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Aliens

 

Aliens is a 1986 Sci-Fi action/adventure/horror film written and directed by James Cameron as a sequel to the 1979 Ridley Scott film Alien. It stars Sigourney Weaver (reprising her role as Ripley from Alien), Carrie Henn, Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, Paul Reiser, Al Matthews, Mark Rolston, and William Hope. The movie is set 57 years after the events of Alien. At the beginning of the film, Ripley's spacecraft is discovered with her and Jones the cat still in stasis. We learn that the exomoon LV-426 has been colonized by a terraforming colony with no reports of hostile aliens. When Earth loses contact with the colony, Ripley is asked by a representative of the Weyland Corporation named Carter Burke (played by Reiser) to act as a consultant for a group of Marines sent to investigate the loss of communication. Once they arrive on the moon, they find the colony destroyed and evidence of an attack.

The 4k set is a three-disc set containing a UHD disc and two regular Blu-Rays. The UHD disc and one of the regular Blu-Rays just include the two versions of the movie (the theatrical edition and the 1990 remastered expanded edition). There are commentary tracks on each version of the movie by Cameron and members of the cast and crew. Some of the people providing commentary were recorded together, and some were recorded on their own, so the commentary jumps between conversations. The second regular Blu-Ray disc contains bonus features. The bonus disc has over four hours of extras. The most extensive is a three-hour-long making-of documentary (that can be watched in individual segments or in a play-all mode) that includes interviews with the cast and crew from the time the movie was being made, along with interviews made later on. There is also a discussion with Jim Cameron that was made very recently. Finally, there are some stills galleries, trailers, and TV spots.

Ultimately, the movie is very good, with a lot of action and suspense. The longer version of the film adds about 20 minutes of additional footage, mostly at the beginning of the movie before the team arrives on LV-426, which adds a bit more context for Ripley's motivations. The bonus content and commentary tracks provide a lot of interesting information, including the contentious filming process (Cameron, who has a reputation for being hard to work with anyway, butted heads with much of the initial crew that was forced upon him by Pinewood studio), how Weaver ended up getting a massive payday because she was not signed until after the script (which was centered around the Ripley character) was written, and how Cameron was only allowed to direct the movie after The Terminator was a hit. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is good. This movie looks grainier than many of Cameron's other 4k restorations because of how the movie was shot. Cameron notoriously hates film grain and uses a lot of digital noise reduction to make his older movies look like they were shot digitally with today's cameras, which some people hate. But because of the equipment they used to film Aliens, some of the grain is left in (although it is much less grainy than the VHS or original DVD release). Since CGI was not a thing back in 1986, in the UHD format, you can definitely tell when models or matte paintings were being used to create effects, and some of the effects do look a bit cheesy. Even so, the movie is still very enjoyable and well worth the time to watch.

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.  

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Heartbreakers

 

Heartbreakers is a 2001 romantic comedy starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sigourney Weaver, Gene Hackman, Ray Liotta, Jason Lee, and Anne Bancroft. Sarah Silverman and Zach Galifianakis also appear in supporting roles. It is about a mother-daughter pair of con women (played by Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt) who con wealthy men in a marriage/cheating scam that leaves them with half his money. Ray Liotta plays the mark at the beginning of the movie, a wannabe mobster who runs a chop shop in New Jersey, and Gene Hackman plays the mark for the majority of the movie, the owner of a tobacco company in FL, who is the mark for "one last score" for Weaver and Love Hewitt's characters. The rest of the cast is rounded out by Jason Lee, who plays a love interest for JLH's character, along with minor roles for Carrie Fisher, Anne Bancroft, Sarah Silverman, and Zach Galifianakis.

The movie is meant to be a silly comedy with a bit of romantic comedy mixed. The story is very absurd, especially because Jason Lee's character would want to live happily ever after with Jennifer Love Hewitt's character just because she is hot, given how awful she is for most of the movie. But, it is not exactly meant to be anything but an unbelievable story. All the main actors involved were very good sports, as their characters were very over the top in a bad way. Gene Hackman as the chain-smoking, smoke-spewing, lung-hacking-up cigarette company executive was awesome, and they never missed an opportunity to put Jennifer Love Hewitt into a skin-tight, cleavage-baring outfit.

For those who get the Blu-Ray, it is a decent, but not great, video transfer. You will not get a big difference in quality from a DVD version, but you do the Blu-Ray anti-scratch coating, which is the only reason to upgrade. There are no subtitles, and the audio seems to dip in volume level, so I had to keep turning the volume on my TV up and down to hear some of the dialogue and then keep it from blasting during other scenes. There is about an hour's worth of extras, including a making-of documentary, a gag reel that also incorporates some making-of interviews, deleted scenes, and the trailer.

Overall, the movie is fun if you do not expect an award-winning movie. It is a silly comedy that does not try to be anything more than that. The Blu-Ray quality could be better, but it is not all that surprising that the movie, which came out well before the Blu-Rays were created, and was not popular enough to get a high-quality transfer. If you are looking for a comedy to kill a couple of hours watching, this is a good option.