A Few Words About A few words about...™ Alien Anthology -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Lord Dalek]

Originally Posted by Chas in CT
I'm sure that somewhere in these threads is the answer to this question, but I'm going to take the lazy way out and ask it anyway:

After acquiring the Blu-ray set, if one has reasonable expectations of being a completist, is there any reason to hang on to the Quadrilogy (or the equivalent individual releases)? If memory serves correctly, the 20th anniversary DVD of Alien is necessary for the extra alternate soundtrack (?), and I think someone said the Alien Saga DVD has a little more than was ported over.

Obviously, one reason to retain them is if you need to play DVDs somewhere, but I'm declaring that a non-issue for me at this point, and I just want to be sure I'm not going to kick myself later for some reason once I've sent the Quad to a good home.

Everything that was on the Quadrilogy (including the stuff that was supposed to be but wasn't due to censorship/technical glitches) is on here.

The only reason I'd see to hold on to it is the documentaries are in 1.33:1 full frame (as shot) where as the Anthology reframed nearly everything to 1.78 (the Bob Burns piece remains full frame for some odd reason).

 

[Charles Smith]

Aw, crap. I hate the cramped framing those things usually end up with. But I think this time I need to suck it up and deal with it. I've got too many duplicates of various things as it is.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

You know, I didn't realize Ridley Scott has been looking to do an Alien prequel -- not until I looked more carefully at the booklet included in the boxset.

I guess if an Alien prequel does happen (and it sure sounds likely) and turns out to be a good one come summer of 2012, we may end up looking at another potential boxset re-dip come holiday shopping season at the end of 2012. I hope they'll at least fix up the CGI/SFX some more for the recut/extended version of Alien[SIZE= 9px]3[/SIZE] -- just got around to watching that one on BD.

_Man_

 

[AlexS2]

Eh, I doubt it, at the very least I wouldnt double dip.

Those movies obviously won't feature Ripley, so might as well not include in this set.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by ManW_TheUncool
You know, I didn't realize Ridley Scott has been looking to do an Alien prequel -- not until I looked more carefully at the booklet included in the boxset.

I guess if an Alien prequel does happen (and it sure sounds likely) and turns out to be a good one come summer of 2012, we may end up looking at another potential boxset re-dip come holiday shopping season at the end of 2012. I hope they'll at least fix up the CGI/SFX some more for the recut/extended version of Alien[SIZE= 9px]3[/SIZE] -- just got around to watching that one on BD.

_Man_

He is making both prequels in 3D, the first one is due out in 2011 and the second in 2012.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder
He is making both prequels in 3D, the first one is due out in 2011 and the second in 2012.

TWO???

OYYY!!! Sounds like Scott has been infected by Lucas/PJ-itis...

_Man_

 

[robbbb1138]

I don't think they'll double dip the Alien movies on Blu for when the prequel(s) are released on video (still very skeptical those even happen, especially with Scott directing rather than producing...), but that would seem like good timing for the separate releases of the movies that a lot of people are waiting for (possibly to coincide with the theatrical release and tossing in some Movie Cash).

 

[TravisR]

I haven't seen anyone post them yet but the Easter eggs are all on Disc 6,

1. The crew and cargo of the Nostromo egg: in the Alien section of the disc, go to Pre-Production, go down to Cast Portrait Gallery and push right.
2. The Alien life cycle: in the Alien section of the disc, go to Production, go down to H.R. Giger's Workshop and push right.
3. A Boy And His Powerloader: in the Aliens section of the disc, go to Production, go down to Production Gallery and go down to Final Fight And Finale and push right.
4. the David Prior featurette: in the Alien Resurrection section of the disc, go to Production, go down to Production, go down to Production Image Galleries, go down to Extracting The Queen and push right.

 

I'm having problems with the sound on Alien. My amplifier doesn't play DTS HD Master, so it "down-scales" the sound to regular DTS.

Aliens sounds fantastic, but when I play Alien, I have to have the sound way turned up - and sometimes it even sounds as if there are no sound at all.
I haven't watched my old Alien dvd in a long time, but I don't remember Alien beeing this quiet in passages (so quiet it takes me out of the film). I thought about contacting Amazon with a faulty disc, but the thing is - I'm not sure it is faulty just because I have to turn the sound up more than on the other discs.

Have any of you guys experienced something similar?

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by Jesper Blædel Pinholt Hall
I'm having problems with the sound on Alien. My amplifier doesn't play DTS HD Master, so it "down-scales" the sound to regular DTS.

Aliens sounds fantastic, but when I play Alien, I have to have the sound way turned up - and sometimes it even sounds as if there are no sound at all.
I haven't watched my old Alien dvd in a long time, but I don't remember Alien beeing this quiet in passages (so quiet it takes me out of the film). I thought about contacting Amazon with a faulty disc, but the thing is - I'm not sure it is faulty just because I have to turn the sound up more than on the other discs.

Have any of you guys experienced something similar?

Have you tried selecting any of the different audio options on the disc, Jesper? And comparing them to what you are hearing now?

And, when you say your amp "doesn't play DTS HD MA and it downscales to DTS"...have you tried actually selecting the regular DTS soundtrack in the audio options?

Your player can't decode DTS HD-MA either? If not, you're kind of behind the eight-ball as so many movies now are bring produced with DTS HD-MA as the only uncompressed audio option.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but I don't have the discs in question.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Have you tried selecting any of the different audio options on the disc, Jesper? And comparing them to what you are hearing now?

And, when you say your amp "doesn't play DTS HD MA and it downscales to DTS"...have you tried actually selecting the regular DTS soundtrack in the audio options?

Your player can't decode DTS HD-MA either? If not, you're kind of behind the eight-ball as so many movies now are bring produced with DTS HD-MA as the only uncompressed audio option.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but I don't have the discs in question.

I think one of the advantages dts-hd master audio has over dolby is that if the receiver is old and it cannot play the lossless track then it will play either a core 1509kbp/s dts track or a 754kbp/s dts track ( usually 1509kbp/s ) - I also think Alien does indeed have some quiet moments so what Jesper is hearing is likely normal and just part of the soundtrack.

 

Have you tried selecting any of the different audio options on the disc, Jesper? And comparing them to what you are hearing now?



And, when you say your amp "doesn't play DTS HD MA and it downscales to DTS"...have you tried actually selecting the regular DTS soundtrack in the audio options?



Your player can't decode DTS HD-MA either? If not, you're kind of behind the eight-ball as so many movies now are bring produced with DTS HD-MA as the only uncompressed audio option.



I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but I don't have the discs in question.

Unfortunately there is no option to select a Dolby Digital 5.1, but there is the original 4.1 option. But I suspect, that this is the same core track that the DTS reverts to, because it sounds about the same to me.

i know I'm behind the curve - believe me - I would love a new amp that could play uncompressed sound and all the new HD formats, but it's not in the cards right now, so this will have to do for now.

I think one of the advantages dts-hd master audio has over dolby is that if the receiver is old and it cannot play the lossless track then it will play either a core 1509kbp/s dts track or a 754kbp/s dts track ( usually 1509kbp/s ) - I also think Alien does indeed have some quiet moments so what Jesper is hearing is likely normal and just part of the soundtrack.

Yes I believe this is true - It plays about 1500 kbps, so I gues it does revert to the core dts track.

Thanks anyway - looks like there is no fault with the disc after all.

 

Double post

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by Jesper Blædel Pinholt Hall


i know I'm behind the curve - believe me - I would love a new amp that could play uncompressed sound and all the new HD formats, but it's not in the cards right now, so this will have to do for now.

I'm in exactly the same boat. I'm using an entry level Sony receiver which I probably purchased back in 2001 (the year I joined this forum). It wouldn't know what to do with these new audio formats. So, I've been using the 5.1 analog connections to get the benefit of the uncompressed audio tracks on the HD discs.

Some day.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I can not wait to upgrade from my dvd set of these movies! I am glad that this set of movies looks really good and that they did a good job on the transfers. Hopefully the economy picks up so I can get back to building my HD collection and upgrading my HT to a projection set up to enjoy HD movies on a 100" - 120" screen. I bet that the Alien movies would look great on a nice big projection screen.

 

[Sam Favate]

After a couple of months of checking out bits and pieces of the set, I was able to watch the first film straight through without interruption this weekend. Stunning blu-ray treatment in every frame. It's hard to remember what the film looked like on the big screen when I saw it in 1979, but I can't imagine it looked better than this (and I watched on a 108 screen via projector). There will no doubt be another version of the Alien films on BD in a box set when Ridley's prequel(s) is(are) released, but this release will be one of the most important blu-ray releases ever, as it sets the standard that other great film series will have to meet, and that includes Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and so on. Looking forward to going through the other films and those 50 hours of extras over the next few months.

 

[Bob Cashill]

ALIEN ANTHOLOGY Blu-ray is up at Amazon for $70.

 

[Rob Mac]

Picked it up today at Costco (in Canada) for $49.97.

 

[goteam007]

Are the commentaries the same between both the theatrical cut and extended cuts? Or do I have to listen to both to get all the information?

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by goteam007
Are the commentaries the same between both the theatrical cut and extended cuts? Or do I have to listen to both to get all the information?

As far as I know, the commentaries are the same or rather, they didn't record two tracks. There's differences between the cuts obviously (so they don't talk about the opening colony sequence with Newt's family on the theatrical cut of Aliens for example) and maybe there's a few differences between scenes that are in one version and not the other but I doubt there's many like that.