Alien 2-disc digipack - AWESOME!
 

I just picked up the new 2-disc Alien (had no interest for the other movies). I have to say, the style, digipack, and artwork has got to be the sweetest I have ever seen for a two disc dvd case.

Admittingly, I am caring more and more about DVD artwork and packaging (though the A/V quality of a movie I want still matters MUCH more).

Fantastic job, Fox!

I look forward to more 2-discs from them. I do own two Five-star movies (ID4 and Die Hard) and am curious how these look.

I agree. I wish I had a digital camera so I could upload pictures of it.

Oh, and each 2-disc set is numbered as a "Collector's Edition" (like a number of the re-released Fox 2-disc packs) so the movies run from number 10 - 13.

Now if I can get my 20th anniversary disc in there somehow (Has a number of features and trailers/TV spots that this one doesn't have) I'd be really happy.

I have the ID4 re-release and it looks very slick. Still hate the numbering on the spine though. I love digipacks :)

Was the Alien Vs Predator teaser that's on these individual releases included in the Quadrilogy?

No.

All pics from EBay

http://i9.ebayimg.com/02/i/01/23/0f/04_1.JPG
http://a1944.g.akamai.net/7/1944/118...00/7184796.jpg
http://a1944.g.akamai.net/7/1944/118...00/7142118.jpg
http://images.rottentomatoes.com/ima...9754_thumb.jpg

Any pics for the interiors?

What does the 10-13 represent? What's 1-9 then?

Like the idea of the digipak, but I'm hating the artwork on the Aliens, 3, & Res discs. Why put the queen on the cover??? I mean, I know that by now everyone has seen this flick and knows that it's coming, but still, it's such a powerful reveal, when she's first shown. To just stick her on the cover like that, it feels like a spoiler for some reason.

They should have just used the simple, classy poster art: black background with blue lettering and the tagline "This Time It's War". Also, the original poster art for "Alien 3" was great as well. The green swirling Alien fetus the the "3 times the terror..." tag was a great poster.

I never liked any of the Res posters though, so the dvd art for that particular flick really isn't any worse.

DVD Profiler states that Aliens (the second movie) has a DTS 5.1 track?

is it true?

If it is, I will be quite angry that it's not included in my Quadrilogy set!

Aliens does NOT have a DTS track. Not enough room on the disc 1 of Aliens (so they said). Only DTS tracks on Alien (beautifully restored visuals) and Alien Resurrection.

Fox is now numbering all of their 2-disc releases (ala The Criterion Collection).

1-9 are things like The Abyss, Die Hard, Cast Away, ID4, etc. Pretty silly, I think, but harmless.

No, all of the Alien 2-disc sets include the same specs as their respective Quad brothers, except that the 9th disc is not avaliable for seperate purchase.

I agreed, Fox should'nt put the Alien queen on the front cover, instead they should have use the back cover of Ripley holding her weapon while carrying Newt instead. Interesting enough, I owned the Special Edition of Aliens that is OOP it also has the queen on the cover.

I didnt know the stuff on 2oth anniversary wasnt included on the new one. I havent got the new one yet..it shipped on Friday. how much of the old dvd features is not on the new one. can you be specific or is it a lot?

Basically, all of them, I think. The commentary, isolated score, and alternate production audio tracks are not on the new DVD.

I'm not sure about the other stuff (storyboards and such), but I don't think those made the transition either.

As mentioned before, the old disc has a similar picture. I am keeping my old Alien disc..the isolated score is pretty neat.

Sure they did. Between discs 2 and 9, there are tons of Alien storyboards and "such" in the Quadrilogy set. One thing the new individual 2-disc versions have that their Quad counterparts don't is the Alien Vs. Predator teaser trailer. Yippee.

Now they say there are NINE hours of special features. I find that hard to believe. The bonus disk had about 3 1/2 hours of documentaries if I remember correctly. Just saw it last week on my Quadrilogy set.

Are they counting the commentary track twice, even though it's the same track for both versions of the film (with the extended edition taking up an additional 10 minutes)?

Wow, I was going to get the Quad, I think I'll just get Alien and Aliens though, those digipacks are nice.

Is the film/audio transfer a big improvement over the 20th anniversay editions?

too bad..I was hoping to dump the old editions once the new ones showed up

Yes, I had the old disc as well. I objected to it then as well, but I was hoping that for the new, ramped-up releases we'd get better art. I guess it's an improvement over the "green fog" effect on the last disc. Blech.

I agree with your idea about what should have been on the cover. It's the image from the international poster (reissued and reprinted a great deal here in the US) and while it does have a hazy pic of the Queen in the background, it's not so blatent. The laserdisc set used this pic along with a nice black border. It was pretty classy.

Studios typically count each commentary as a special feature. So if you have 2 commentaries for the movie thats 2hours long, the studios can effectively claim "Over four hours of extra features."

Alien is a huge improvement.

Aliens is the exact same audio and video. Cameron wouldn't approve a new transfer because he thought the current one was fine and it is the worst of the lot.
Fox was willing to pay for a new HD transfer and Cameron refused! Thanks Jim!

Alien 3 and 4 look the same to me but they always looked great.

meh.

must be me but those covers do nothing for me..

i'm happy with my $42 quad set..

Not everyone has a membership to Costco :mad:

Those covers are pretty awful, but I don't like the films enough to totally replace my Legacy set, so I'm just going to watch for used copies of 2 and 3 for the Cameron commentary and new cut of 3.

If you're interested in Ridley's old commentary on the 20th anniversary edition, the sudden availability of these discs has dramatically reduced the prices of the OOP discs on eBay. You should be able to pick one up easily enough, now. (I got a copy of the 20th a few weeks ago for $12.00, and ordered the new 2 disc a day or two ago.)

And some of us that do didn't even know about the sale price. :mad:

Ending up watching Alien last night and I have to say this is the best looking 1979 movie I have seen on DVD. It's virtually reference quality. It's video restoration is even better than Raiders, Jaws, Superman, and every other movie from that era (and that's saying a lot as all of those look quite good for their age).

I was less impressed with the audio. I think Alien still sounds a bit harsh and flat too often. Overall, it's not a bad soundtrack though. Given the effort that went into the video, I'm sure this is the best it could sound.

But that's my whole point! The commentary for the extended cut is THE SAME as the commentary for the original cut (plus the added 10 minutes for the 10 minutes of extra footage in the extended cut).

They should only count the commentaries as being 2 hours of extra features. Not 3 hours and 50 minutes of extra features.

Well, I was at Costco yesterday, had the set in my hand for $61.99, but decided that I'd rather get the individual movies.

Those look nice, almost as good as the Quadrilogy art. :)
Must have been the same designer.

i agree.
Raiders was a disappointment for me, though.
the opening titles aren't rock solid on my display, and the opening jungle sequence displays splotchy blacks, and in general has a less resolute quality than other areas of the film.
its a good transfer, but not worthy of the film, and no way justification for the long time this film was in coming to disc.

in fact, if you compare the video of Alien (20th ann), Alien (quad set remaster) and Raiders, you'll see that Raiders has more in common with the old Alien disc quality (video wise) than with the new one.

Alien (new set) is video reference all the way (i have a hard time taking issue with the soundtrack of a film from 79, while not spit-out-your-coffee astounding, it sounded quite acceptable to me).
unfortunately, i chose to watch the DC on my first viewing with this set, so i was concentrating more on the seemingly mindless changes Scott made to the film, moreso than the audio.
the video however grabbed me by the throat right away and never let go.
its a remarkable improvment over what looked to be a decent disc to begin with .

I saw Alien: Directors Cut in the theater, it looked absolutely awesome.

Scott has been quoted as saying he prefers the originally released version of the film to the DC since it maintains the tension better.

In the Alien 2-disc set, there is a little pamplet with several paragraphs of writing from Scott. To the effect, he's says the Director's Cut is BS and just a marketing scheme to get people back in the theater. He says the original cut is "perfect" and just what he has always wanted.

Are there any problems with these new 2 disc sets with skipping? I saw them at the store over the weekend and really wanted to grab "Alien" and "Aliens" but decided to wait since there seemed to be a lot of issues with skipping in the quadrilogy.

I wasn't even considering buying any of these until I pulled out my 20th anniversary edition of "Alien" around Thanksgiving, which had never been watched, and it started pausing and skipping like crazy. Tried a couple different players and it turns out it has rot! I looked at it and it definitely has the blurry-looking "coffee stains". Sorry to go off-topic...

Those stains are probably layers.