July 1999

Alien: 20th Anniversary Edition
Reviewed by Doug Schneider
DVD Format

Overall Enjoyment:
Picture Quality:
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Starring Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm

Directed by Ridley Scott

Theatrical Release: 1979
DVD Release: 1999
Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen

Hindsight is always 20/20. It's already been 20 years since this science fiction/horror masterpiece first ran in the theaters. Looking back at the '70s, there are two movies that, to me, elevated the horror genre and are worthy of the respect they still get today. William Friedkin's religion-based The Exorcist arrived in 1973, and Ridley Scott's space-based Alien closed the decade in 1979. I was 12 when I first saw The Exorcist and 15 when I saw Alien. The Exorcist quite literally scared the hell out of me, like it did many others. Alien was scary too, but it was not fear that I remember most about it; it was the visual impact of the film, with its breakthrough cinematography, special effects and one of the most memorable movie monsters put on the screen. Alien was successful enough to spawn a series of four installments. Unfortunately, despite the strong James Cameron-directed sequel that followed the original, the final two films, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, suffer badly in comparison. With each successive film, the alien itself seemed far less scary and was almost comical near the end.

Alien takes place in the future as the cargo-spaceship Nostromo heads back to earth. Its crew, asleep in a space hibernation, are awakened by the ship's computer as it discovers what it thinks is a distress signal from a nearby planet. Part of the crew leaves to investigate the cause of the signal while the remaining crew onboard discovers that it was not a distress signal, but a warning. Pretty soon the crew on the plant confront an alien life-form of the unfriendliest kind.

Ridley Scott's direction is sure-footed and exact. He patiently builds the suspense amidst wonderfully constructed sets of the ship and the planet that the alien inhabits. The effects are surreal and haunting, and the lighting techniques used have become Scott's trademark. Surprisingly, the look of the film is as "real" or better than many of special-effects-laden movies we are seeing today. In the past, without computers to make their effects, good filmmakers used skill in only showing what they could show realistically. I remember at the end of Alien having a pretty good overall picture of what the alien itself looked like as a whole, but not quite. The camera cuts in close, putting the viewer right next to the beast and never really showing the size or the exact look -- it always seems to be lurking in Scott's shadows. This approach doesn't rob the viewer at all because in the following installments when we do see the alien in its entirety, it does not seem quite as scary. Is it because we've seen the alien already that the fear is lessened, or is it because when the creature is placed fully on the screen with nothing to hide, it doesn't seem as invincible?

The cast is very strong, and today it is enjoyable to see veterans like Tom Skerritt, John Hurt and Harry Dean Stanton in more youthful roles. Of  course, one of the most brilliant moves was casting Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the first modern-day female action star. Risky at the time? Likely.   But it shows the vision that the creators had when they made this film.

DVD is still an evolving technology, and extras provided on each disc are getting better all the time. At first, Boogie Nights, Austin Powers and Out of Sight were my favorites in this regard. The new El Mariachi/Desperado, with its filmmaking lessons, is splendid too. Alien raises the bar a little more. It has splendid graphics used for menu navigation that brings the viewer to director's commentary; artwork with conceptual drawings of the alien, sets, etc.; numerous deleted scenes (including one that I feel should have been left in the film -- where the alien nest is shown); and a couple outtakes that appear to differ from deleted scenes in that they look like they were dropped from the film earlier. The transfer to video is very good, with excellent contrast and color rendition. The sound, now mixed in the Dolby Digital 5.1 format, is good but not noteworthy despite bearing the THX certification. Although clean with easily discernible dialog and impressive bass at times, it does not have the impact, clarity and separation of some of the better movies today. This is the only real flaw to an otherwise outstanding release. Regardless how high the bar eventually goes, as of June, 1999, Alien is one of the very best DVD productions on the market.

Alien is available separately and as part of a four-DVD set called Alien Legacy.  Legacy includes the four movies, collector cards and another disc that is supposed to have more behind-the-scenes information (you have to mail away for this disc and it is reportedly only available in Canada and the US).  However, since the price of the set does not give the consumer that much of a break, the extra stuff is not that enticing (at least not to me), and mostly because the final two installments of the film are just not that good, I opted to buy only the Alien and Aliens titles separately and leave the boxed set for the diehards. Alien is not just my favorite of this series, it's one of my favorite movies of all time. And it's now a DVD release that you must own.

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