Product Details

• Actors: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Lance Henriksen, Winona Ryder
• Directors: Ridley Scott, David Fincher, James Cameron, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
• Format: AC-3, Box set, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 6
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: October 26, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (203 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001AQO3QA
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,978 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Brace yourself for a whole new breed of Blu-ray: Four powerful films...eight thrilling versions...in dazzling, terrifying, high-def clarity with the purest digital sound on the planet. Two bonus dics and over 65 hours of archival and never-before-seen content, including the totally immersive MU-TH-UR mode feature, makes this definitive Alien collection!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

580 of 594 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding! A review by someone who already owns it (no, really). [UPDATED 6], October 21, 2010

By 

TNB (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alien Anthology [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

My local electronics store already had the Alien Anthology bluray on the shelves this Tuesday (October 19). At first I thought the street date had been changed at the last minute (it wouldn't be the first time). But it appears that all the websites still list the release date for next Tuesday (Oct 26), so I guess my local store must have made a mistake (it wouldn't be the first time for that either).
In either case, I already got my hands on the Alien Anthology set, and I thought that Alien fans who are still trying to decide whether it's worth the upgrade before next week's proper street date might want to know the following:
(Note: This review assumes that most of you have already seen the films, and there may be some very mild spoilers.)
[UPDATE: I've added LOTS more detail about the extras, including the extended Alien 3 doc. Find this under PROS section (3). In PROS section (1) I've also answered some questions from another customer.]
[UPDATE 4: More specifics on why the 3rd and 4th films' picture quality won't wow you as much as the first 2 films'. Under Cons section (1)]
[UPDATE 6: I've found more new extras on disc 6, including new deleted scenes from Aliens. Details in PROS section (3).]

PROS:
1) All four films look very good on bluray, and much better than the earlier DVDs, with the first two films looking the best. Alien almost looks brand new. Aliens still looks its age (sometimes), but it enjoys the single biggest improvement in picture quality in the jump from DVD to bluray that I have ever seen for a classic film (or pretty much any film for that matter). While there are still plenty of shots that still look soft or a bit grainy by today's standards, the entire film looks sharper than ever and the grain is far less distracting. Some sequences, like the marines' initial investigation of the abandoned colony, almost look like they could have been shot this year. The color quality and detail visible on the panning shot from the planet to Ripley's orbital hospital room at the beginning of the film totally blew my mind. Detail and texture are excellent throughout and I saw no signs that DNR had been overused. After experiencing Aliens on bluray, I wonder how I was ever able to tolerate the picture quality on the DVD.
[UPDATE: The Theatrical and Director's cuts of Alien both look equally great. It's my understanding that Ridley Scott made some minor alterations to things like contrast, etc. in the Director's cut, but I frankly didn't notice any difference between the two. I haven't watched the Theatrical cut of Aliens in years, as I much prefer the Extended version, so I may not remember which all scenes were added for the latter. However, I did not notice any correlation between picture quality and whether a scene was in the Theatrical cut or added in later, so I assume that they all come from the same source and are of more-or-less equal quality. If I have a chance to look at it again soon and do notice any differences, I'll post another update.]
[UPDATE 2: I've watched the first 25 minutes of the Theatrical cut of Aliens and can confirm that the picture quality is identical to the Special Edition. In other words, it will cause longtime Aliens fans' jaws to drop off right before they become temporarily blinded by its awe-inspiring glory. This is truly the greatest film restoration I've ever seen prepared for the transition from DVD to bluray. Because of the film stock used, I didn't think it would ever be possible for the film to look this good.]

2) All four films also sound greatly improved compared to the DVD. This is especially true for Alien 3. Dialogue which was hard to make out on the DVD is now much clearer and easier to understand. I did notice some audio sync issues with some of the third film's dialogue, but I think these are misalignments which were already present on previous DVD releases, and may therefore be inherent to the original film.

3) The new extras are extensive and excellent. Within the first couple minutes of sampling the new enhancement pods on disc 5, I learned a couple of tidbits I had been unaware of before. These are a wonderful extension of the already superb making-of documentaries. The MU-TH-UR interactive mode is easy to use and will probably prove helpful to those who are only interested in seeing certain parts of the behind-the-scenes material, but I haven't used it much. I've only sampled a couple minutes of the trivia track portion of this feature (titled "Datastream"), but so far it appears as though it will mostly be a re-hash of material you can find in disc 5's documentaries. The set also includes ALL of the extras from EVERY previous release of these films, as promised (at least as far as I can tell), in addition to the extended Alien Evolution and Alien 3 documentaries.
[UPDATE: The extended Alien 3 documentary includes significantly more footage of Fincher directing on the set (lenghtier character discussions with the actors, etc.) and more detail on the schism between him and the studio that I don't remember seeing on the Quadrilogy DVD. At one point during filming you see Fincher get on a microphone and say, "I can't believe Fox is the number one studio because they're all such a bunch of morons." Interestingly, while some of the new footage does reflect poorly on the studio, I think it also makes it easier to understand why some people had trouble working with Fincher. I personally find this longer cut much more interesting, but it hardly feels like an entirely new, revelatory version. Still, if you love a good behind-the-scenes documentary, the extended cut of "Wreckage and Rage: The Making of Alien 3" may help justify the upgrade to bluray.
By my estimate, disc 5 contains around 17 hours of documentaries, including an hour to an hour-and-a-half of new enhancement pods for each individual film (these are mostly extended interviews and production footage). I couldn't even tell you how many hours of content are on disc 6. So it's understandable, due to space limitations, that some of this material still appears to be in standard def. Although it's in SD, most of it has been enhanced so your bluray player will upconvert it (sometimes beautifully so) to fill a widescreen TV. I find the text slides on the still galleries of concept art on disc 6 (which ARE in FULL HD) much easier to read now. In disc 5's docs, most film clips, production artwork and photos, and many interviews will now fill the screen, while other interview clips appear pillarboxed with new imagery to the right and left instead of black bars (similar to the "Disneyview" feature on the Snow White and Pinocchio blurays, though mostly much less distracting than those were). It all looks good enough that I don't think many people will be too disappointed that some of these extras are still in SD.
BOTTOM LINE: The extras, both new and old, are a substantial improvement over the Quadrilogy DVD set (at least IMHO, your mileage may vary). I doubt many people will feel shortchanged here.]
[UPDATE 6: I've found more new extras on disc 6. There are some deleted scenes from Aliens, at least one of which - featuring Burke in a cocoon - I don't think I've seen before. The Patch and Logos image gallery will be appreciated by folks who love all the costuming/set dressing details. There's a video reproduction of a ride called "Aliens: Ride At The Speed of Fright" which is notable for two things: it's REALLY cheesy, and it features a very young Jeffrey Combs (I think this part is new - I don't remember seeing it on the DVD). The Parodies section is just some Alien-related clips from Spaceballs and Family Guy. You'll also want to keep an eye out for Easter Eggs on this disc.]

4) The set has a couple of impressive surprises that weren't mentioned in any of the studio press releases I've seen. Disc Unbound is an automatic feature: when you eject any disc from this set, the Weyland-Yutani logo will pop up on screen. You can then insert any other disc from the set and you'll go straight to the main menu - it will skip over all the studio logos and FBI Warning screens, making an Alien marathon slightly faster and less annoying.
I was aware that this set would include isolated score tracks for all four films (as well as alternate score tracks for the first two), but was unaware that you can also access each piece of music in any order from an index which includes even more unused music. I'm not certain, but I think I may have even spotted a couple of Bonus alternate tracks for Aliens that weren't even on the Deluxe Edition soundtrack CD.

5) For those who are hard of hearing, all 4 films and even the extras on discs 5 and 6 include subtitles in around 15 languages, including English and Spanish. Even the audio commentaries have subtitles in multiple languages! Each film also has multiple language audio tracks, though it appears that only the English receives a lossless one.

6) The packaging is the most elegantly beautiful I've ever seen for a bluray set. Inside the slipcase is a hardcover book with each disc held securely within its own page. These pages include photos from each film, as well as some basic info like plot synopses and director's credits. There's also a booklet and insert tucked in the back which explain how MU-TH-UR mode and Disc Unbound work, and list the content on each disc. It also has a note from Ridley Scott filled with tantalizing hints about what to expect in his upcoming prequel. Everyone will be happy to know that the package is very compact and will fit perfectly next to your other blurays. It's the same size as the Close Encounters of the Third Kind bluray, except that the spine is a little thicker since it holds more discs... Read more ›

88 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ultimate Alien set, October 23, 2010

By 

Chris Boylan "MrBoylan" (Astoria, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Alien Anthology [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

The "Alien Anthology" may have taken some time to come to Blu-ray Disc, but it has been worth the wait. We received the set directly from Fox so are able to give readers an early sneak peek. The films themselves are presented in both their theatrical versions and extended "special edition" versions, Even Alien3 comes in a half-hour longer version here, and they've gone to the trouble of re-recording bits of dialog and sound effects to clean up the audio from the restored portion to match the rest of the film. It is nice to have the choice to watch either cut of all four movies, and the SE version of the second film really adds depth to the story and the characters making a great film even better.

Each film gets the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 treatment (the first two films' theatrical cuts are also available in Dolby Digital 2.0 and 4.1 channel mixes). Sound is excellent overall, though perhaps not quite as bombastic as one might expect from such action-heavy titles. It seems like more should be coming from behind us at times, and the low bass rumble of the weapon fire and explosions is lacking ever so slightly in deep extended bass. But these are fairly minor criticisms as the sound is clean, imaging is precise, and dialog is clear and articulate throughout. The video transfers are clearly superior to the DVDs that came before them with rich detail, nicely saturated colors and deep blacks. H.R. Geiger's creepy organic art on the derelict alien ship in the first film has never looked so detailed and powerful and you can practically count the pores on young Sigourney Weaver's face. There are still minor instances of murky blacks, some ringing and softness here and there due to mild use of noise reduction, but overall, the transfers are pristine, considering the age of the films. The first two films, though the earliest, look the most improved here - no surprise considering they have been painstakingly remastered at 4K resolution for this release. Only "Aliens" is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 - nearly filling a standard 16:9 screen with thin black lines at the top and bottom. The rest of the films are presented in a CinemaScope 2.35:1 aspect.

The extras are extensive, to say the least (be prepared to spend some time here), with special features available on each disc, plus two entire Blu-ray Discs packed full of additional extras: one with "Making Of" documentaries, interview segments and behind-the-scenes footage, and one disc featuring the "Archives," chock full of seemingly every last piece of material -- text, still photos and video -- supporting the films and their back story. A helpful "MU-TH-UR" mode (with its own tutorial) is included to help you navigate through the massive amount of supplements - even allowing us to go directly to specific chapters on other discs: just eject one and insert the other, and it will take you directly to the requested material. Pop the original disc back in and the player will remember where you left off, asking if you'd like to resume. A nice feature made possible via BD-Java.

At least one commentary track is available for each film ("Alien" has two), with every director but David Fincher (Alien3) participating in the commentary fun. All four films also have isolated score tracks (in Dolby Digital 5.1), so you can appreciate the nuances of the film's scores without any distracting dialog or sound effects. Although much of the supplementary materials used here are re-purposed from earlier home video releases (DVD and laserdisc), we found many new and extended interview segments and snippets we'd never seen before. I'm sure die-hard fans will find hours of enjoyment in the set, and the audio and video quality alone is worth the upgrade. I know I can never go back to the DVDs. Highly recommended!

UPDATE (10/24): Some early purchasers and reviewers have noted some compatibility issues with the set and certain hardware. We've tested the disc with twelve players so far (OPPO, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, Philips, Toshiba and Sony), with mostly minor compatibility issues noted. On the OPPO BDP-83, the "Director's Cut" of "Alien" begins playing zoomed in with only the top left corner of the image visible. Hitting "Menu" then "Play" restores the image to its proper size. Also a Samsung BC-C6900 plays Ridley Scott's intro video to the Director's Cut of "Alien" squished to 4:3 (should be 16:9). Similarly a Philips BD-P7200 played the Ridley intro in a tiny window at the top of the screen, but the film itself played fine in both versions. But otherwise every player we've tested seems to play the set without issues. Some players are extremely slow to load the disc (particularly older players), but this is to be expected from such a BD-Java-heavy title. BD-Java can use quite a bit of on-board memory and processing power once you get fancy (and boy are these discs fancy!). We've tested the set on the following players: Panasonic DMP-BDT350, DMP-BD85, DMP-BD60, DMP-BD70V and DMP-BD35, Samsung BD-C6900, LG BD390, OPPO BDP-83, Sony PS3, Sony BDP-S350, Philips BD-P7200 and Toshiba BDX3000.

Please note: a more extensive review is available on our web site at BigPictureBigSound dot com, and a discussion of the compatibility issues is available on our forum.

50 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect except for the packaging and some minor details, October 28, 2010

By 

John S. Harris "The Voice of Reason" (Memphis, TN) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Alien Anthology [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

Others have said it and I will reiterate it here. The discs are packed VERY securely in book form in this set. They require more than a little effort to extract them from their nesting places. I for one would not have considered the use of a more traditional disc storage system to be in any way a lesser value in either aesthetics or quality. Truth be told, I am strongly considering buying one of those multi-disc or 6-disc cases available from online sellers and keeping my anthology Blu-ray discs in those simply for ease of repeat access.

Once you get them out, however, hold on to something because you are in for a long and exhaustive ride through the "Alien" universe. There is so much content that one could feasibly collapse from exhaustion if one tried to take it all in as rapidly as possible. And how enjoyable would that really be, eh?

Picture and sound quality for all the movies exceeds any and all previous release versions and formats, in some cases by a country mile. And if the only way you ever saw these movies was on VHS or TV, you really haven't seen them yet. Chances are that most people who bought the DVD set "Alien Quadrilogy" (the entire contents of which are reproduced here and often improved upon) back when it was released in 2003 did NOT have a high-definition TV at the time. Those TV's were still fairly new and VERY expensive back then. Nowadays, a great many of us own the hi-def TVs that are today an essential part of the new Blu-ray "Alien Anthology" viewing experience. You can now watch the same content as before except in substantially better video/audio presentation and on a TV screen that embraces and serves the newer, higher technology.

In the first film, "Alien", I did notice that while the visual detail inside the ship is much greater, certain scenes seem a bit darker and the detail is more difficult to see than in other DVD versions. In particular, Kane's descent into the cave, exterior shots of the Nostromo, and the attack on Brett are all a bit darker. I can not tell you if it matches with the original release (and later DVD versions had the brightness tweaked a bit) or if something else is to blame.

But moving on: In case you missed the memo, there is a truckload of new stuff in this anthology that was NOT included (or even yet produced) in the Quadrilogy. Even more content, better technological presentation, and (for many of us) finally on the hi-def screen we wish we had seven years earlier. You are a winner on every front.

My only other complaint is about the size of the text in some of the special features menus. It is very, very tiny. I have a 32-inch screen and the text appears so tiny on it I have to literally put my face up to the screen to read it. But that is not unique to this Blu-ray set. I've seen it on other Blu-rays too, such as "District 9". I have no idea how this micro-text trend started or why.

And not to sound petty, but in some portions of the bonus content there are pages with text describing the pictures or slideshows you can watch, and they include some minor punctuation errors and syntax issues. Not everyone will notice or care, but I did and do. It just looks a little unprofessional, IMHO. If "unprofessional" is too harsh a description, I'll offer "less than perfect" instead. Again, these are minor points and are probably of little or no consequence to most viewers. But now that I've spotted the errors, I will think of them every time I think of the product.

And in the bonus content for "Aliens" you can learn the first and middle names of the Nostromo crew in the bios generated for that movie's boardroom scene (as seen on a screen behind Ripley). Lots of detail is thrown in, including the individual crew members' birthdate, education, training, and service records. The writing style in the bios makes me cringe just a bit, but I'm a little oversensitive about that kind of thing. And the photos of the crew members look like movie studio publicity shots instead of worker I.D. photos (guess why?), but maybe I'm being too picky. You decide.

[End of nitpicky rant about an otherwise stellar product.]

Thinking about giving this as a gift this holiday season? Give it to a young person because one will need quite a bit of time to watch, read, and experience every last bit of this "working vacation in a box". The task of watching the whole thing seems so massive it makes my head hurt a little to think about it. Ridley Scott's promised prequel will probably be in the theaters before I can finish this "Alien" marathon.

Is it a good value for your money? In terms of volume of content, absolutely. I can't think of a movie or movie series that has been as extensively chronicled and augmented for home video format as this one. If the high price unnerves you a bit, consider it a very small price to pay considering how much legwork and how many man hours went into producing the set, and that you didn't have to lift a finger to help. Hee hee!

Will the price eventually drop a bit? Maybe, but probably not any time soon. You will probably be able to get a discounted used copy soon enough but it would devalue the project and product as a whole if the new copies were marked down by the studio any time in the foreseeable future. Hope for it, but don't count on it.

Wish you could just buy one or two of the movies in Blu-ray format and not have to pay for the ones that aren't your favorites? There is every reason to believe that the individual films (or more likely just the first two) will SOMEDAY be released for separate purchase. But given the way the bonus content is tied into the set as a whole I suspect you would not get this proportion of it in an individual release, though that may or may not be important to you down the road. For the set to REALLY stand up over time, the bonus content has to be enjoyable enough to merit repeat viewings, and much of it is. I suspect that the first wave of eventual single-film Blu-ray releases will have only a tiny fraction of the film-specific content available here.

For the more casual fans of the "Alien" series, you may be inclined to wait for the single-film releases anyway. There certainly would be a demand for those and no doubt the suits at Fox have anticipated it. But they also want to get the appropriate amount of shelf life and reputation out of this new multi-disc set. So once again for you patient hold-outs out there, hope for it but don't hold your breath.

One only hopes that the massive amount of content here doesn't amount to "Alien" overload and make us too weary of the saga and its elements to get excited for Ridley Scott's planned prequel (which as of this writing looks like it is tentatively moving forward but not without some stumbling blocks).


Finally, a little history and perspective on the price --- Back in the early and mid 90's, long before Special Edition DVDs were ubiquitous, a small but devoted and merry band of us videophiles owned laserdisc players and cheered about the advantages of the laserdisc's presentation quality advantage over VHS. Twentieth Century Fox released Special Edition laserdisc collector's sets of both "Alien" and "Aliens", and we collectors had to shell out about a hundred bucks per movie for those. They were chock full of bonus content and had vastly superior picture and sound for the day, but we sure paid through the nose to find out.

Just a few years later we could get on a single DVD and for about twenty bucks what we paid five times that for earlier, and that was to get 3 or 4 large discs that still couldn't offer us uninterrupted playback of the movies. This new "Alien Anthology" Blu-ray set is selling for less than we paid for the laserdisc collector's sets 15-17 years ago, offers about ten times the bonus content, looks and sounds infinitely better, and does not for ONE MINUTE make us regret the double-dip purchase (or by now, the quadruple- or quintuple-dip, considering the numerous release formats). If anyone has the right to grumble about the price, it is us. But we won't. We're definitely trading up.

The "Alien Anthology" is the new standard for content volume, value, and for the time, love, and care that went into its production. Putting this set together took years and a heck of a lot of work. It is award-worthy.

And as in life, timing is everything. I pre-ordered this set and it arrived at my house on the release date. Within a day, Amazon offered it in a combo deal with Michael Mann's "Last of the Mohicans" Blu-ray for the exact price I paid for the pre-order. Darn the luck!