Alien Anthology (box set)

The cover of the 2010 Alien Anthology set.

The Alien Anthology is a 2010 six-disc Blu-ray box set which, for the first time, brought Alien, Aliens, Alien³ and Alien Resurrection to high-definition home video. As with the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set before it, the Anthology was designed to be the definitive collection of the films in the Alien franchise, also including a wealth of bonus materials.

The set contains remastered high-definition transfers of not only each of the four theatrical films in the Alien franchise, but also their respective alternate versions (the Alien Director's Cut, the Aliens Special Edition, the Alien³ Assembly Cut and the Alien Resurrection Special Edition). The set also brings together, for the first time, all of the bonus material from every home video release of the Alien movies up to that point, including materials previously exclusive to the 1991/1992 LaserDisc releases, the 1993 Alien Trilogy VHS set, the 1999 Alien Legacy VHS and DVD releases and the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD set, along with new never-before-seen bonus material exclusive to this set.

Overview

The Alien Anthology set features six Blu-ray discs, the first four of which contain high-definition transfers of the four films in the series in both their original theatrical and alternate versions. For Alien and Alien Resurrection, these alternate cuts are the same as those found on the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy set. However, the Special Edition of Aliens and the Assembly Cut of Alien³ have gone through additional work specially for this set — James Cameron personally oversaw the correction of certain mistakes in the extended cut of Aliens, while for Alien³, some of the original voice actors re-recorded dialogue in several of the added and extended scenes to cover previous poor sound issues.

Disc five contains the extensive 2003 making-of documentaries for each of the films, originally created by Charles de Lauzirika for the Quadrilogy set, newly rebuilt in a widescreen 16×9 aspect ratio (having originally been filmed in 4×3) and featuring newly created title graphics. The documentary on Alien³, Wreckage and Rage, is additionally presented in its entirety for the first time — the version included in the Alien Quadrilogy was cut by over 20 minutes at 20th Century Fox's behest, to remove negative comments about the studio made by the cast and crew. Also included on the disc are numerous "Enhancement Pods", essentially deleted scenes taken from the documentaries, which provide additional depth and detail on the making of the movies.

Disc six contains a wealth of additional bonus material, including all the remaining major documentaries on the Alien series that have been produced — namely The Alien Legacy, The Alien Saga and both versions of Alien Evolution — plus additional videos, still images and script drafts. Virtually all of the special features and supplements from previous releases of the Alien movies (including an archive of the special edition LaserDisc box sets, with all their image galleries and other unique content) are included, as well as new exclusive bonus material. Owing to the increased storage capacity of Blu-ray, the previous five discs of special features from the Quadrilogy set have been condensed to just two Blu-ray discs, which hold approximately 60 hours of bonus video content and over 12,000 still images.

The Blu-ray discs from the Alien Anthology have since been reused for several other releases, including the Prometheus to Alien: The Evolution box set and the individual single-disc Blu-ray releases of each of the films in the Alien series.

Omissions

Several additional bonus features intended for the set ultimately had to be left out. Notably, a single Enhancement Pod from Superior Firepower: Making Aliens, titled "Dailies: James Remar as Hicks", was removed at the request of Lightstorm Entertainment (James Cameron's production company). Had it been included, this would have been the first time footage of Remar playing Hicks was released to the public. It was also planned to have Sigourney Weaver record new audio commentaries for each of the four films in the set, but scheduling conflicts with her work promoting Avatar meant there was no time to record them.

Despite its exhaustive nature, there are several pre-existing bonus items that are not included in the Alien Anthology. These include the Alternate Music & Production Sound audio track for Alien previously included in the Alien Legacy box set, omitted from the Blu-ray due to space concerns. Additionally, four short production featurettes for Aliens ("Grunts in Space", "Behind the Scenes" and profile pieces on Cameron and Weaver) and some unedited Weaver screen test footage was also left out, all of which had previously appeared as bonus material on the DVD release of The Alien Saga.

2012 UK release

The cover of the 2012 Alien Anthology set.

In 2012, the Alien Anthology set was re-released in the United Kingdom only as a budget version. This second set is essentially a stripped-down version of the 2010 release, featuring the first four discs from that set (containing both versions of each of the four films, as well as commentaries and isolated scores), but omitting the two bonus discs of documentaries and additional features. Unlike the 2010 set, all discs are contained in their own separate Blu-ray cases (which are essentially the same as those used for the individual UK Blu-ray releases of the films), held together in an exclusive slipcase.

Contents

Disc 1: Alien

• 1979 theatrical version
• 2003 Director's Cut with Ridley Scott introduction
• Audio commentary with director Ridley Scott, writer Dan O'Bannon, executive producer Ronald Shusett, editor Terry Rawlings, and actors Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton and John Hurt
• Alternate audio commentary with Ridley Scott (theatrical cut only)
• Final theatrical isolated score by Jerry Goldsmith (theatrical cut only)
• Composer's original isolated score (theatrical cut only)
• 7 deleted and extended scenes
• Deleted footage marker (Director's Cut only)
• MU-TH-UR Mode interactive experience with Weyland-Yutani datastream

Disc 2: Aliens

• 1986 theatrical version
• 1992 Special Edition with James Cameron introduction
• Audio commentary with director James Cameron, producer Gale Anne Hurd, Alien effects creator Stan Winston, visual effects supervisors Robert Skotak and Dennis Skotak, miniature effects supervisor Pat McClung, and actors Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, Carrie Henn and Christopher Henn
• Final theatrical isolated score by James Horner (theatrical cut only)
• Composer's original isolated score (theatrical cut only)
• 16 deleted and extended scenes
• MU-TH-UR Mode interactive experience with Weyland-Yutani datastream

Disc 3: Alien³

• 1992 theatrical version
• 2003 Assembly Cut (restored version)
• Audio Commentary with cinematographer Alex Thomson, B.S.C., editor Terry Rawlings, Alien effects designers Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr., visual effects producer Richard Edlund, A.S.C., and actors Paul McGann and Lance Henriksen
• Final theatrical isolated score by Elliot Goldenthal (theatrical cut only)
• 31 deleted and extended scenes
• MU-TH-UR Mode interactive experience with Weyland-Yutani datastream

Disc 4: Alien Resurrection

• 1997 theatrical version
• 2003 Special Edition with Jean-Pierre Jeunet introduction
• Audio commentary with director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, editor Hervé Schneid, A.C.E., Alien effects creators Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr., visual effects supervisor Pitof, conceptual artist Sylvain Despretz, and actors Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon and Leland Orser
• Final theatrical isolated score by John Frizzell (theatrical cut only)
• 11 deleted and extended scenes
• MU-TH-UR Mode interactive experience with Weyland-Yutani datastream

Disc 5: Making the Anthology

• The Beast Within: Making Alien
• Superior Firepower: Making Aliens
• Wreckage and Rage: Making Alien³ (restored version)
• One Step Beyond: Making Alien Resurrection
• Enhancement Pods
• MU-TH-UR Mode interactive experience to access and control Enhancement Pods

Disc 6: The Anthology Archives

• Alien
  • First draft screenplay by Dan O'Bannon
  • Additional deleted scenes
  • Sigourney Weaver screen tests
  • The Alien Legacy documentary
  • Experience in Terror documentary
  • Trailers and TV spots
  • Further images and videos
• Aliens
  • Original treatment by James Cameron
  • Additional deleted scenes
  • Trailers and TV spots
  • Further images and videos
• Alien³
  • The Making of Alien³ documentary
  • Trailers and TV spots
  • Further images and videos
• Alien Resurrection
  • First draft screenplay by Joss Whedon
  • HBO First look: The Making of Alien Resurrection documentary
  • Trailers and TV spots
  • Further images and videos
• Anthology
  • Alien Evolution documentary (2001 original TV version)
  • Alien Evolution documentary (2003 Alien re-edit)
  • The Alien Saga documentary
  • Aliens in the Basement: The Bob Burns Collection documentary
  • Further images and videos

Other contents

• MU-TH-UR Mode Viewer's Guide

Trivia

• Reception to the Alien Anthology set has been overwhelmingly positive, with many reviews praising its treatment of the films themselves and the huge volume of in-depth special features it contains. Some have even cited it as the Blu-ray set by which all others should be judged.
• Among the material released for the first time on the Anthology set, perhaps the most notable is a deleted scene from Aliens where Ripley discovers Burke inside the Atmosphere Processing Plant, cocooned and impregnated with a Chestburster, whilst searching for Newt. For years, still images of the scene had been in circulation, but the Alien Anthology set represents the first time this footage has been available for fans to view.

External Links

• Official website (now a redirect to the Alien Facebook page)
• Alien Anthology at Amazon.com
• Alien Anthology at AvPGalaxy.net