Sounds cool! I'd love to hear her thoughts on the other three films more in depth. If I recall, Charlie and Co. only had a narrow window in which to interview her for the Quadrilogy set and her interviews from Resurrection came from 1997. I doubt she'll get commentary tracks all to herself which begs the question: what's the plan?

Will they be splitting up the (crowded) commentaries into two sessions: cast and crew? Are they bringing in more of the actors to do commentaries who weren't interviewed the first time around? Besides, she and Ridley already did a commentary for the first set so who knows?

As I've mentioned here before, I wonder what else they can add to this set. Other than the complete Ridleygrams gallery, Ridley's original 1999 DVD commentary, and the Alien Legacy documentary... maybe we'll get a commentary with film/music historians Nick Redman, Jon Burlingame, and Jeff Bond, along with an isolated score in DTS 5.1 (at least for Alien). Maybe we'll get reprints of the original Cinefex and American Cinematographer articles. Maybe trivia tracks.

After watching the Blade Runner features, it would be cool if they did a "Fans and Filmmakers" tribute piece putting the films in their proper historical context with reflections from other writers, directors, and critics. Or a featurette about the merchandising (similar to the piece on the Planet of the Apes disc). Or tributes to crewmembers who have since passed away (Jerry Goldsmith, Adrian Biddle, Stan Winston, Alex Thomson).

And of course, I would flip if: a.) we got the unedited Alien 3 documentary, and/or b.) they got some of the Alien 3 actors to come back and loop their dialogue for the extended version, and/or c.) Fincher joined the party.

I know I'm just setting myself up for a disappointment, but I, too, would really like to see something more done with Alien 3.  I understand how miraculous it was that we got the assembly cut in the previous set, and I do appreciate the work that went into it.  Nevertheless, how cool would it be to have the original actors, or even some decent soundalikes, brought into the studio to loop the additional dialogue, or to have Fincher put together a proper director's cut?

I'll probably buy this when it goes on the cheap, the extras would have to be amazing (uncut doc being one of them) for me to buy this on release.

Why is it doubtful she'd have a commentary to herself?  I could understand Sigourney not wanting to do it solo, but if any of the actors were to do one solo, it would be her.

I look forward to having Alien & Aliens on blu.  I've done a communist thing and made Alien 3 a non-existent film.  Not because it's a bad film, but I think it totally betrayed the fans of Aliens in the first 10-15 minutes.  When I want to go slumming I'll watch Resurrection.

Did I read that right, all the extras from Quadrilogy plus more.

Quote:
I don't know, it was just something I thought of.  And according to the Bits, ALL of the extras will be carried over. I assume that applies to disc 9 as well (the Bob Burns featurette, the Alien Evolution documentary, trailers, TV spots, comic book gallery, and LD archives).

Is Weaver going to do them in character?!  Who does she think she is, Robert Downey Jr.?

I know it will never happen but I'd like the option on Alien 3 to watch the extended version but with the dog burster sequence instead of the ox and the theatrical ending. Those are the only sequences I dislike in the extended cut and while I can live with the ox I really hate the chestburster-less ending and its annoying to have go to the menu and switch to the theatrical cut when once Ripley does her swan dive.

That's pretty much how I feel.  For me, the series starts with Alien and ends with Aliens... and that's it.

Could they release a First-1/2 Quadrilogy?

I would personally love to see cast commentaries for the first two films. Can you imagine getting John Hurt, Ian Holm, Tom Skeritt, Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton and Weaver on the first and Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Carrie Henn, Jenette Goldstein and Paul Reiser on the second? Amazing, if they could swing it.

 

Didn't we pretty much get that the first time around? Alien had Skeritt, Cartwright, and Stanton along with Weaver (recorded with Ridley Scott) and Hurt (recorded solo). And Aliens had Paxton, Biehn, Henriksen, and Goldstein with Carrie Henn (and her brother on the extended version) recorded separately.

I mentioned this elsewhere and Mr. Lauzirika said it would be easier said than done but worth considering... I asked if they would split the commentaries for the Blu-Ray release. Since they're pretty crowded on the Quadrilogy set, we could theoretically get the following:

(again, this is what I would do - nothing is set in stone!... and this is assuming there's enough interesting material to fill in the gaps)

 

For Alien:

-Ridley Scott (original 1999 commentary)
-Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver (from the Quad)
-Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt (from the Quad) along with Weaver's new comments
-Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett, and Terry Rawlings (from the Quad)

For Aliens:
-James Cameron (from the Quad)
-Gale Anne Hurd, Stan Winston, Robert Skotak, Dennis Skotak, and Pat McClung (from the Quad)
-Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, Bill Paxton, Carrie Henn, and Christopher Henn (from the Quad) along with Weaver's new comments

For Alien 3:
-Alex Thomson, Terry Rawlings, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., and Richard Edlund (from the Quad)
-Paul McGann and Lance Henriksen (from the Quad) along with Weaver's new comments

-(in Fincher's absence, they could get James Swallow who wrote Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher)

For Alien: Resurrection:
-Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Herve Schneid, Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., Pitof, Sylvain Despretz (from the Quad)

-Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, and Leland Orser (from the Quad) along with Weaver's new comments (maybe they can get Winona Ryder to join her)

I'm currently in the hospital as part of a NASA study so I have the time to work this all out. That's my excuse.

Most or all of those actors impress me as people with something to say, except for Stanton.  I've listened to him before and he doesn't seem to articulate to me.  There's also an issue of having too many.  If they were to assemble a cast commentary by splicing them together, I've never found that to be very successful.  But that's just MHO.

I am very much looking forward to this release.

Well that would certainly be novel. If they had the actual Ripley record commentary tracks I might listen to them, otherwise I'm not interested. Just give me the movies.

I thought this was relevant:

"Dan O'Bannon - Screenwriter behind Dark Star, Alien, Total Recall, passes away... In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Cry..."
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43415

Yes, very relevant to Alien fans.  I did not know this. The article speculates that the disease might have been an inspiration for the Chestburster.  Tough way to get inspiration.  RIP Dan.

It's been a rather bleak weak in this regard.  Dan O'Bannon, Jennifer Jones and Roy E. Disney.  May all rest in peace.

It may seem silly, but I hope they carry over the extra from the original ALIEN DVD release that got nixed in the later releases. That would be the production audio track. It was really interesting to hear the on set audio.

I wonder if Alien will include the original effects and starfields.

I think it's looking more and more likely that we will see the Alien series on Blu sometime before the Avatar Blu-ray release. My guess is April or early May right before a mid-Mayish Avatar home video release.
Same studio releases both.
Actor/director connection (Weaver/Cameron in Aliens)
So you kind of have a tie-in even though they have nothing to do with each other.

Just my thoughts.... 

I probably posted this in the wrong thread before.  For those interested,  Sigourney never recorded the new commentaries due to conflicting schedule.

 

I'm very saddened by this.  I would have loved to hear her thoughts about the four films.  I still have the Alien Anthology pre-ordered, and If if I haven't heard such great things about the quality of the films I would have canceled on first word of this.  Oh well...in a perfect world I guess.

 

Seems like that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Sigourney is present on the cast commentary for "Alien"

For my money, she should still record them when possible, and they could offer them as downloads.  I would happily pay a few more bucks to have that ultimate extra feature.

Yes, but from my understanding the purposed commentary for the new set would have been Sigourney alone.  No one to interrupt or change the direction of a commentary as group commentaries often do.  Films 2-4 were much more Ripley specific, and just the idea of Weaver(especially on Aliens) tell what it was like from her perspective would have been fascinating.  I know  audio commentaries are often very average with a few interesting facts here and there, but on one of my favorite films this was my holy grail of audio commentary tracks.  

Great idea.  Hope Fox thinks the same.

I'd love to hear her thoughts too. People living in the UK might remember Dennis Pennis... Well, Ms Weaver was the only celebrity - the only one! - I saw on that show who was a match for Dennis's sarcastic jibes (he dresses like a clown, talks like Woody Allen on speed, and pretends to be from the BBC - asking people like Steve Martin why he isn't funny anymore, and to his face); she really went up in my estimation after that encounter - feet planted firmly on the ground and all that.

I would have liked to hear her commentary but when I first heard this news, I did how wonder if she'd be able to fill over 8 hours of time. Alien was over 30 years ago and Resurrection was nearly 15 years ago so between it being that long ago and with that much time to fill, it seems like there would have been alot of long spaces of silence or she'd start repeating herself or making the boring "Working with Ridley (or Jim or David) was amazing"-type of comments.

This comes out tomorrow but there are no reviews. I find this a tad baffling. Or maybe it's NOT coming out tomorrow because Best Buy didn't advertise it in the Sunday circular. Maybe it's one of those releases that studios don't think need to be marketed?

Our reviewer didn't get his boxset until this past Friday which is why reviews are late because the review copies are arriving late to the reviewers.  With this much bonus material and four movies to boot with alternate versions, it's going to take some time to do a review on this boxset in the right way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crawdaddy

^ The Bits has their review up.  There's also one at Big Picture Big Sound.  (A simple Google search will turn this one up.)  DVD Beaver has one up, too.  So that isn't entirely correct. 

I always thought that they would either bring in other people to fill in any gaps (other cast and/or crew they missed the first time around) or that they would cut Weaver's comments into the existing commentaries, at least for Alien 3 and Resurrection (the tracks for Alien and Aliens are too crowded as it is!).