Aliens: Special Edition

DVD Details: Anamorphic Widescreen Audio Tracks: Dolby Surround, Dolby 5.1 Subtitles: English, Spanish Talent Bios/Filmographies Animated Menus 17 minutes additional footage More Extras (See below) R, 154 minutes

It seems like at least once a year they show Alien and Alien 3 on broadcast TV. But they always skip over Aliens. I don't know if they consider it too scary or what, but anyways they always seem to avoid it. Because of this, I decided when I was spending some Christmas money that I'd buy the one that I haven't seen completely. I'm glad I did, cause this movie is well worth it. Some people consider it the best of the 3, whereas others give it second place behind the first one. Either way, it's considered a great movie.

If you don't know what happened in Alien, you still won't miss much by watching this. All you have to understand is that there are these really evil, really smart, really tough aliens that like killing people. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) survived a close encounter her ship had with one, but at the cost of everyone else she was with. As such, she's tried to warn Earth about these horrible creatures, but no one believes her. When an outpost loses contact, they assume the worst, and they persuade Ripley to help them wipe the creatures out.

This DVD presents the movie in a near-perfect anamorphic display with THX video and sound. There were a few places I noticed some grain and artifacts, but so short it's not really worth getting into. There are both Dolby Surround and 5.1 audio options, and both seem to love that subwoofer. I was very happy with this transfer, and it looks like special care was taken to make this well-known film look as good as possible.

This DVD probably would've sold well with just the THX transfer and the 4 trailers, (one for each Alien movie) but they wanted to make this a nice Special Edition. There's a nice interview with James Cameron (now his black hawaiian shirt can live throughout eternity), but it's old, and I would've preferred something done in the 90s. The menus are all animated, which is a unique feature as far as I've seen, but it gets old, and I wish they would've used high quality first person views instead of 3rd person over the shoulder camera views. Oh well, it's neat none the less.

There are a lot of pictures in the photo gallery, centering on different parts of the movie, as well as some short footage of different aliens. I'd call it test footage, and unfortunately there's no sound on most of them. I would've liked to be told a little bit what I was looking at, but if you watch the movie you'll know exactly what each one is showing. There are both English and Spanish subtitles, and a nice little booklet with cast notes, but that's not what really makes this DVD worth getting.

The 17 minutes of restored footage that the box mentions several times is really nice. I didn't realize they had added anything in until after the movie when I was checking out the box more closely. This means you won't see the severe quality degradation that you might expect. After some researching, I figured out which scenes had been added back in, and I must say they help the story a bit, and fill out the movie in some areas. It would've been nice to had a commentary track, or at least a special section that would've explained which scenes were removed and why.

They are really hoping people buy the box set, as is obvious when you put in the disc and it does a little "The Alien Legacy" animation. I wouldn't mind owning the whole set, but for quality and extras, this disc is a treat in itself.