Customer Reviews

Species Trilogy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I haven't actually gotten the box set yet so my star rating is
arbitrary, but in response to the question of which versions are
in the box, the answers are Species:SE and Species III:Unrated
according to MGM's website.
- [...]
And there's a 4th/bonus disc not mentioned (as of 09/20/05) in Amazon's summary:
Bonus Disc:
- The Origin featurette
- The Concept featurette
- The Discovery featurette
- Designing a Hybrid featurette
- HR Giger At Work featurette
- Species II: Eve of Destruction featurette
- Species III: Genesis featurette
- Species Alternate Ending

STOP! If the title of this review sounds bad, stop reading and find a serious movie. However, if science running amok, aliens and eye candy sound like fun read on. Species is a three movie set with a filler DVD of maybes. H.R. Giger did the design of the alien and the special effects while not great by today's standards are very good.

The first move, SPECIES is the best of the group. The cast is excellent actors, all being second leads or the starts buddy. Michael Madsen, a great tuff guy actor, is the government fixer. Forest Whitaker, one of America's best actors, is the empathy. Ben Kingsley, always an excellent performance, feeds Madsen some great one-liners. Natasha Henstridge provides the eye candy as the alien driven to reproduce. For the type of film, this is a five-star movie and great fun.

SPECIES II was released three years later, with Michael Madsen, Marg Helgenberger and Natasha Henstridge, repeating their roles from the first film. The producers continued to cast top quality actors in almost all the roles. The story is a continuation of the first movie with a couple of new twists. The dialog starts to slip and gore is used as a substitute. The special effects are above average, with the ending making the movie. This is a three or four-star film depending on how much you liked the first film.

SPECIES III was released nine years after the first film. While providing a continuation of and ending to the story, the film is a cheap knock off production. The producers stopped using quality character actors and went with inexpensive. The dialog drops badly and the story line has real problems with reality. However, they do answer questions raised in Species II and that makes it worth watching. This is a two or three-star movie depending on how much you like the first two.

Is the series worth it? Yes, if you like movies with mad scientist, aliens & eye candy. Overall, I rate this three and a half stars, which Amazon rounds up to four.

This box set includes the first 3 species movies all in good quality and anamorphic widescreen. The trilogy also includes a bonus disc which goes behind the scenes of all 3 films. Now how good are they? Well if you are expecting a masterpiece like alien or a solid action flick like predator than this is not for you. But if you want to sit down and have a good time making fun of cheesy looking aliens who all they want to is mate than look no further this is trilogy is for you

SPECIES (1995)-R-WIDESCREEN (2:35:1)
The first one in the series is the best one; it begins with a laboratory experiment gone wrong. From that experiment we are given Sil a beautiful seductive female alien in the outside but a tentacle ugly alien in the inside. The movie is cheesy but can be taken seriously at some points.

MY PERSONAL RATING: 2 ½ OUT OF 5

SPECIES II (1998)-R- WIDESCREEN (1:85:1)
The first sequel falls down into oblivion; it has no real plot, things just randomly happen, and because the movie lacks real plot it all gets substituted with gore.

MY PERSONAL RATING: 1 ½ OUT OF 5


SPECIES III (2004)-UNRATED- WIDESCREEN (1:77:1)
The second sequel does some improvement over the second but don't expect much. it continues where the first one left of, with the body of eve being loaded in to the military truck for further investigation. It still bad and corny and at times suffers from bad lighting.

MY PERSONAL RATING: 1 ½ OUT OF 5

OVERALL BOX SET RATING: 3 OUT OF 5

If crazed scientists and unrealistic plot lines combined with great special effects are your bag, then the Species Trilogy is worth your while. H.R. Giger designed the alien and the special effects are done realistically. Very little CGI stuff here so the Species flicks look like real movies, not glorified cartoons.

The first movie, Species is a pretty decent film. The cast is somewhat of a mixed bag. Hack actor Michael Madsen is cast as the government fixer. Forest Whitaker, an up and coming actor provides a sympathetic figure. The always great Ben Kingsley provides some great one-liners to lighten things up a bit. Natasha Henstridge gives the best performance of her career as a genetically engineered "human" beauty. This is a fun flick.

Species II is a continuation of the story with a somewhat higher level of acting and scientifically implausible script. The special effects even better than in the first. This is a rare sequel that is even better than the original.

Species III is the worst of the trilogy. It provides a poor finish to the trilogy's story and the movie as a whole is awful. The producers opted for cheap actors and even worse special effects. The script takes what was already a scientifically implausible scenario and brings it past the point where the suspension of disbelief ends.

As a whole, this is a moderately worthwhile trilogy in that it does offer some mindless escapism and unintentional laughs. Its best to rent out one of the Species flicks first before deciding on whether or not to buy the trilogy as a whole.

Anyone who has the Predator series and the Alien series, must have the Species collection. I also have a few other collections that are not as closely related, but these three concepts are the best of the 'other worldly' maximum bad aliens. I actually believe the best acting preformances of all three collections are in the Species set. It is an easy collection to watch, like I do, annually. It doesn't get old.

This is well worth the investment . I had to sell one of my Kidney's to purchase this but it was well worth it. So refinance the house if you have to , this won't be available for much longer.

Easily worth Amazon's current asking asking price of $26,457.99. Ask anyone. This is the real deal in bargain bin prices. I'd say Grab 2, but only one's left in stock, as these are selling like hotcakes!

Of course, you could get this from Amazon Marketplace for about $8 shipped. Also quite tempting.

The entire trilogy of "Species" held such a tremendous potential to be a great sci-fi set of films, and go down in sci-fi history as one of the greats of all time. But, the screen writers, director, and producers instead went for flash-in-the-pan sensationalizm and totally forgot about putting any real effort into the "sci" of sci-fi. There were so many self-made contradictions within the story line, and outright anti-scientific foolishness, that these errors almost totally destroyed the films' worth. The saving grace of the films is that the storyline - as hard as the makers of these films tried to trash it - still came through as moderately entertaining, and the female nudity in the films was indeed exquisite; some of the absolute best female nudity you will ever see in any film. These two factors saved it from being a "1", and boosted the films to getting a 3 star rating from me. It's a good set of films to have on in the TV room during a party, but for "great" movie entertainment, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Species is a great alien movie and i think that this would be a great boxset in any dvd collection!!!!!! The movies keep you on your toes the whole time and they are great to watch over and over again!!!!!!

Will this giftset include the Special Edition of Species 1, and the Unrated version of Special III?