Alien Anthology is a spin-off of the Alien Quadrilogy that 20th Century Fox put out in 2003. That particular set brought a ton of extra features packed in with all four of the films. Well, Fox wanted to take another step with the four films and bring them to high definition in a Blu-ray format.
What’s amazing is that they could have simply just upscaled them and put them on Blu-ray and that would have been fine for fans of the series. Instead, 20th Century Fox seemed to take a chapter from Warner Home Video and offer up a better experience, and better packaging, to their fanbase. Mission accomplished on all intentions.
The Movies
Well, it’s not surprise on which films were the fan favorites of the bunch. The first two films, Alien and Aliens, is simply unrivaled compared to the last two films. The first film from director Ridley Scott was more artsy than action packed. It drove the idea of seclusion and absolutely terror in confined spaces. The close quarter shooting and the dependence on more sound than dialogue made this space horror one of the biggest classics of all-time. I know when I was five years old and saw it (thanks to irresponsible parenting) I had nightmares for years. It’s a creepy film based off of creepy artwork that is surprisingly effective to the senses.
The sequel to that, Aliens, was an unexpected delight. Back when it arrived in 1986 there was no telling that this sequel would be such a hit. Less art and more action, James Cameron brought the characters to life and a set of ragtag space marines. Reprising her role as Ripley, Sigourney Weaver brought a tougher, more hardened role to the films. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in the sci-fi genre and it’s still damn good to watch today. Personally, I appreciate what Scott did for Alien, but I think that Aliens is on another level.
Those two movies really make this set worth the money in terms of movie entertainment.
The third Alien film is one of those films that you either love or hate. The connection between the second and third is strangely familiar, as it pretty much goes the same route as Aliens. The difference is that the characters have changed, the tale of survival is a lot more desperate on a couple of levels and the intensity isn’t as high as Aliens. The seclusion is there and the ‘being hunted’ portion of the story is still intense (an alien dog is unique), but something just seems to be off. Director David Fincher did a great job with what he had, but it didn’t quite live up to the two previous installments of the series.
Finally, let’s talk about the fourth the film. I’m not sure where to begin on this one, as it was a disaster from beginning to end. The only saving grace was Ron Perlman’s gun touting thug, which didn’t help the scenes of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley when it came to her ‘interaction’ with an alien. Disturbing, pointless and just plain uninspired are the best way to describe the fourth film in the bunch.
Anyway, you know about the films, so let’s get to the part you want to hear about.
The Blu-ray portion of this set is simply stunning. Each film has been transferred successfully, and at its highest quality, in high definition. The first two films look like they were made last year on a digital format. Amazingly, the dark scenes in the first two films have little to no grain in them at all. The only grain you will be able to notice comes from the mixture of fog and shadow, but that’s debatable because it might have actually looked like that in the original film. Still, you get all the grotesque scenes in eloquent high definition and you get all the tense moments of ‘waiting’ on the beautiful format. The upgrade to HD has worked wonders for this film set, as you’re going to be absolutely drawn into the film more (if that’s at all possible). Ridley Scott’s film benefits the most from the upgrade, as there are less special effects and more actual set pieces. Of course, the second film isn’t hurt by the 80s special effects HD, but it is more noticeable. Still, you’ll be enthralled by what 20th Century Fox has done to these movies and happy that you spent the extra dough ($89 if you can find them cheap on the interwebs), as they have treated this set of films perfectly.
The second benefit to this upgrade was with the sound. Again, the first film certainly benefits from the upgrade to DTS-HD the most, as the big push in Alien is for the sound to dominate the picture. Scary as hell and adding more dimension to already ‘edgy’ environment, you’ll be in love (and in horror) on how fantastic the sound truly is in Alien Anthology. I’m a huge fan of perfecting sound and this really does impress me the fullest.
Now for the gold standard of the set; the special features. There are far too many to list here, but let me just say that you get ‘everything’, plus the kitchen sink. Each disc for each movie comes with the theatrical and special edition of the films (both in HD). You get audio commentary on each disc and you get isolated scores from said composers on each disc. You also get something called the ‘MU-TH-UR’ mode for each disc, which provides you with additional content such as facts, images and other nice goodies that you can’t even imagine anyone could actually fit on a disc. Oh, but that’s not all, dear readers!
On a fifth disc you get four very long featurettes (hours and hours of them). Each one of the featurettes covers every gambit of each film. The featurettes are a mixture of HD and archived SD content; strangely enough it all works well together.
On the last disc in the set you get an ‘archive’ of material that you’ve probably come into contact with before. It’s the icing on the cake in this reviewer’s opinion.
So to bring this all together in the most graceful of manners is the Blu-ray case. For years I’ve praised Warner Home Video for their booklet Blu-ray cases. 20th Century Fox developed the same type of idea with Alien Anthology. You get a hardback Blu-ray case containing thick cardboard pages; each one of the pages has a disc inside of it. It’s like looking at a children’s book, if the children’s book contained scary monsters that would eat your flash and innards. The case truly reflects the material, as it’s clearly one of the prettiest containers that I’ve seen Blu-ray come packed in.
