K&AJones

Hey

Seeing these at under $13.00 each I'm tempted but at the same time just wondering just how well are these in BR format? Aliens itself is one of my all-time favorites.


Kenny J

FinkPish

They all look pretty incredible. Worth the upgrade from the DVDs.

Mr. Salty

Seeing as how these have been out since last year they've been discussed pretty extensively. Here are a couple of threads with everything you'd ever need to know:

DVD Talk review of Alien Anthology on Blu-ray (same discs as individual releases)

Alien Anthology - Oct. 26th

PopcornTreeCt

Pretty.

TheDuke

Get them, you won't regret it.

Giles

'Alien' looks and sounds almost... almost as good as the 70mm print

OldBoy

just saw Alien last night and it looked and sounded fantastic.

milo bloom

But not the additional extras discs though, right?

Etrigan

Just get the "Anthology" from Amazon UK.

Ultra cheap!(when I bought it-don't know now?) but much cheaper than U.S.

Same Exact content,Took about the same time to arrive,as if I ordered from Amazon U.S.

I was shocked! But at that price,I was willing to wait.

I don't regret it-neither will you

Give away or donate that old 9 disc set (I kept the booklet)

The first 2 films look AMAZING! I happen to like the 3rd one also,the 4th-ehhh.

But all look certainly better than ever for the home screen.

Paul_SD

For the 95% of people out there who love modern movies, and think Michael Bay is a visual virtuoso, The Alien Bd is stunning.

For the other 5% of us who remember when movies, including this one, had warmer palates and more natural color grading, This Bd is all kinds of frustrating. Yes it looks impressive. It also looks more derivative and more like every other 2000 era sci-fi movie out there thanks to Ridley's revised coloring.

The people that have been weaned on primarily modern movies aren't likely to notice- but some of us old codgers do, and it a bittersweet pill to swallow.

Pizza

When did they change the color palate on these? Do the older DVDs still contain what you feel was the original color?

NoirFan

RocShemp

I thought it was Aliens that underwent those color timing changes rather than Alien.

Paul_SD

Aliens has been altered in an even more dramatic, easily noticeably, way.
The color changes to Alien are much more subtle- but to someone like me who has seen the film in it's original release several times, and innumerable times on multiple formats over the last 30 years, the changes to it are still very pronounced.

Like I said though, it's bittersweet. I have to admit- if I had no prior bonding with the film, the way it looks on Bd would probably be 100% satisfying.
I've just come to really dislike the teal/orange grading frenzy that is going on with contemporary films now, and I get livid seeing that sensibility creep into catalog titles now more and more. It doesn't overwhelm Alien, but it has creeped in enough to make its presence known.

The coloring has been changed for every release. Digital Bits had a quote from Scott in regards to the original 1999 DVD that the color timing there was how it was supposed to look. And for someone like me who grew up watching a lot of 70's era movies in the theater, that '99 DVD looks the most natural and appropriate to me in regards to color timing. The Quad release was a definite departure from that, and the Bd continues to push that new paradigm even further.

Aliens is another story. Even though the teal/orange stuff is laid on even thicker here- I actually have less of an issue with it.
Part of it is because I just don't have the same degree of nostalgic attachment to the material, the way I do the first film.
But mostly it is because the overall improvement to the image (irrespective of color) is so damned incredible. There is a huge leap from the image on the DVD Quad set to the image on the Bds for the second film. It's almost like going from 16mm to VistaVision. To accept that though, you have to surrender the more natural coloring the film used to have.
I wish I could have both the finer, more resolved pic with a more natural and appropriate 80's palate- but since I can't, I'll take the Bd and enjoy it for what it is.

Boba Fett

As far as ALIENS go, a few months back a theater was going to show a 35mm of ALIENS and found out the day of, the print was destroyed beyond usage. Fox allowed the event to use a BluRay of ALIENS and the quality was phenomenal. The person who managed to do the DNR and get rid of a lot of the grain without sacrificing any detail should get a promotion and a raise and Fox has no excuse for PREDATOR looking as bad as it did.

Terrier

Reading this thread, and finding out that the colors of Alien have been modernized, appalls me.

But I don't have much of a choice, do I.

I would like to ask about something else. How do I know if I order the Alien blu-ray with or without the slipcover? Do they have different UPC codes?

JeffTheAlpaca

The extras on the anthology set are longer than the movies and they did a good job with those.

zyzzle

No, the colors have not been "modernized", they have been *changed* and no longer reflect the what the film is supposed to be. Sad, and for what purpose?

Sales, alas, and a sell-out to the under-16 hyperactive crowd?

Cameron did the same damn thing with the original TERMINATOR. Why?

hanshotfirst1138

Because he can is the simple reason why. I'm sure that like Lucas, he feels it's "what he originally wanted." It's a damn shame, because it's my understanding that in every other way, the boxed set is superlative. Didn't know Scott revised the coloring too, dammit, it figures. Just can't leave well enough alone. Pics?

hanshotfirst1138

You've seen it in 70mm? I hate you so much !

Terrier

EVERYTHING is about producer's sales these days. Artistic integrity is not as important as it used to be, like in the 70's.

For example, why do they put the monster on the front of the box? The old poster and video box covers showed the egg, and had an atmosphere of mystery. Alien is a suspenseful mysterious movie, and the monster is only revealed later in the film. Why ruin that feeling and sense of mystery by revealing the monster on the box cover? Talk about pushing a spoiler right up in our faces!

Selling to the vulgar masses. Money is all that matters to the "chosen people" ruling Hollywood.

Eddie W

I was super excited to watch Aliens in HD for the first time ever. But the fact that every damn thing was now either blue or orange irritated me to no end. It looks like one of those Hobbit movies now. Why must every movie look the same & use only these two colors?

Maybe I'll just try watching in in black & white next time.

hanshotfirst1138

People romanticize the 70s, but I think that was just an exception rather than the rule, due to a whole variety of social and political factors, cinema briefly managed to rise above marketing blitzes and actually let artists have their day in the sun. But it wasn't anything that could've lasted.

The Planet of the Apes DVD does the same thing, it's kind of annoying. But there are bigger issues like.

That's just marketing though. While I think that it's stupid to repackage the product that way, whatever, as long as they don't screw with the contents. But in the case of the first two films, they've actually changed the content itself, and that's not okay. And it's probably not something enough people care about for them to stop doing it, much less fix it on a nonexistent future release when the market is dead. It's like the mono tracks missing from An American Werewolf in London, The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, countless Hong Kong movies, Sergio Leone films, and so on. Why is it so hard?

But yeah, but money is vulgar. But the mainstream eats almost everything eventually. Anti-establishment T-shirts are sold by the establishment now.

Terrier

Are the colors actually worse on the Alien blu-ray than on the Alien (The Director's Cut) DVD 2004?

It could also conceivably be the case that you guys have not calibrated your new flatscreen TVs properly? Colors are often way too strong in standard settings, and not correctly color balanced.

Terrier