***Official ALIEN Director's Cut Discussion and Review Thread*** (1 Viewer)

[WillG]

The thing with the nest scene is that even though it has been stated outside the film that Brett and Dallas were morphing into Alien eggs, just by watching the film, is that completely obvious? Whose to say that they aren't just being cocooned for eventual insemination by a queen. Maybe the soldier aliens originally weren't especially intelligent (although "Aliens" disproves that) and they were just drones doing work for a queen that will never arrive. Who knows really, but it is fun to hear all the interpretations of the Alien and their life cycles

 

[Mike DB]

That's true. Another possibility might be that when only one egg is disturbed and brought to life, the creature that develops can reproduce itself as shown in the first film. Then as more aliens are born, they develop as soldiers and eventually a queen is created to construct the organized nest. This sort of adaptive biology is not that far fetched, it's a lot like how some types of insect colonies can develop and adapt to environmental changes.

 

[WillG]

I guess another possibility is that Brett is indeed morphing into an egg and Dallas is being kept alive and Cocooned to be the eventual host for a new Alien. If that is the case, then Cameron didn't deviate that far off. The concept of cocooning hosts alive for future insemination is still intact. In my opinion, the whole morphing into a egg concept in "Alien" does not make nearly as much sense as the concept of a queen that lays the eggs. How does the Alien get the dead host organisim to just turn into an egg? Does it inject it with alien DNA or something like that?

 

[Alex Spindler]

For whatever reason, I was pretty clearly able to see that the other body was becoming an egg, even with all the cocoon material around it. The shape seemed very distinctive to me. Even in the deleted scene, it seemed clear enough. It also makes a clear sense of purpose to what it does. Those it kills, it uses as material to make eggs. Then it captures so that the new facehuggers have hosts.

 

[WillG]

I was pretty clearly able to see that the other body was becoming an egg

Yes, it did have the general shape of the egg, but it still looked pretty flat against the wall it was suspened on, so it is a bit awkward. But anyway, the more I think about it, I am starting to believe that the addition of the scene was a mistake. I don't have any problem with the scene itself, it did look good in the D.C. but there was just no logical place to put it. There is no airtight logical reason for Ripley to have stumbled onto that room. It would have made more sense if it was placed after Ripley discovered the bodies of Parker and on her way to the destruct mechanism, heard the moaning of Dallas and then found him. Unfortunately, there would have to be footage available to bridge Ripley in a very frightend state running to blow up the ship to hearing Dallas and descending the ladder, probably none existed. On top of that, she would have to be carrying the flamethrower so that the scenes would match. After the detonation sequence was initiated, I also agree, it did not make much sense for Ripley to torch Dallas with the flamethrower when the ship was exploding in minutes anyway, being burned alive is much more of a horrible way to go that instant death in the explosion. I think Ridley has to be aware of all this. No one has had to see this movie as much as he has. He'll say that it was his decision to put it in, because after all this time, he liked having this scene restored, but, come on, there is no way it was completely at his behest. We all know that this legendary sequence was the big slab o'beef for getting people to see this in a theater again. I'm sure Ridley isn't going to say when asked about the restoration of this scene that it was because Fox asked him to do it. Simple saving of Face. And he clearly indicated on the commentary for the 20th Anniversary DVD that he has always been happy with the original cut. Why the 180 within only 5 years when 20 had already gone by.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Exactly. That only really changed for me after seeing the DC.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

For the most part, I think Scott should have left well enough alone and just restored the print (at 4k rather than 2k) and the audio (making it full 5.1 like the 70mm release, but with the fixed audio cues and general digital clean-up) and released it as it originally was since there was little wrong with it in the first place.

Scott is not the same director he was in 1979. Perhaps at the time he was a better[/i] director than he is now judging by some of his latest work. This is in the same vein as what Spielberg did to E.T. by changing the puppet that so many had grown to love and making it so P.C with no guns, etc. The only thing that improved was the bicycle flying parts... that SFX tweek I could stand and the rest I could have done without. Again, Spielberg is a different director now (and perhaps not as sharp either-- except for Schindler's List, which was quite a personal film).

Dan

 

[Stephen_L]

On the question of the self destruct for the refinery ship: most rockets today have a self-destruct feature for the simple reason if the rocket were to veer off course, it could crash into a populated area and wreak havok. The Nostromo is colossal and if it lost control say in Earth atmosphere, it would crash like a huge asteroid. In the event of such a catastrophy, the vessel could be detonated in space and the fragments harmlessly burn up in the atmosphere.

Also, the technology of the Nostromo may be propietary or of security interest to the owner. They may wish to see it destroyed before it might be captured or pirated.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

The starfield on the first shot of the Nostromo arriving at the planet (after the alien transmission in this new cut) has more stars.

Neil

 

[Sam Davatchi]

I just saw this on the DVDFile.

Too bad Scott had to go muck it up with the new "Director's Cut" - and what a cheater! As he reveals in the included liner essay, it isn't a director's cut at all, just a marketing conceit designed to get us to see it again on the big screen. As Scott himself agrees, the original theatrical version is still the best. So stick with the first, and still the best, ALIEN.

I think it sums it up all. No one should touch such a classic movie after all these years. As for me I saw a big publicity banner for the theatrical release of this on the street and didn’t even look at the release date.

 

[Artur Meinild]

This director's cut all seem a little silly to me. In the DVD introduction Scott doesn't even sound really convinced that it's any better. And while they are doing some digital cleanup, why the HELL didn't they remove the box and straighten out the landing lights - you know fix all the completely obvious mistakes and correct the things Scott said in the previous commentary that he would like to fix. If you wanted to see the movie with all its mistakes, you could always see the theatrical cut anyway. Scott mostly seem like a silly old man to me right now... :frowning:

 

[Alex...]

 

[Alex...]

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Always confusing to me, as I thought Ridley said the theatrical cut is his cut and the other cut that exists is just an extended cut and not his preferred cut. So, what are they showing?

 

[TravisR]

Always confusing to me, as I thought Ridley said the theatrical cut is his cut and the other cut that exists is just an extended cut and not his preferred cut. So, what are they showing?

I'm sure they're showing the extended cut but Fox muddied the waters by calling it a director's cut when they released it back in 2003(?).

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I'm sure they're showing the extended cut but Fox muddied the waters by calling it a director's cut when they released it back in 2003(?).

I was excited to see the different cut when it was released but all it really did was show how brilliant the theatrical cut was. Every clip they put back in should have been cut from the film. So, really the best thing about the extended version was it showed how correct they were to cut those bits.

I believe when Ridley discusses the extended version he says "They asked me to put a bunch of material back in and so we cut it back into the film so they could market a different version."

Good idea for fans of Alien, so we could see additional footage from the film but it did not create a better version. I believe the only part that Ridley recut that he liked more than the theatrical was he shortened the exterior flyby of the Nostromo that comes early in the picture. He thought that was too long when he looked at it again. That was what you did in sci-fi back then though, if you built the model you wanted people to get a nice long look at it. Aside from that though, he has always said that the theatrical version is his director's cut.

 

[YANG]

...Aside from that though, he has always said that the theatrical version is his director's cut.

yeah... ... this part was mentioned in the introduction of the 2003 D.C.

...and there was somewhere mentioned that the D.C. is not longer, but in reverse... shorter than Theatrical Cut.

Alien 4K UHD - Sigourney Weaver

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

yeah... ... this part was mentioned in the introduction of the 2003 D.C.

...and there was somewhere mentioned that the D.C. is not longer, but in reverse... shorter than Theatrical Cut.

Alien 4K UHD - Sigourney Weaver

Ridley over time I think came to like to cut his pictures more like his brother Tony. Faster and more cuts, which quite obviously is the more modern way to cut a picture. They held shots a lot longer in the 1970s than they do now. So, I think when he revisited Alien he saw it through the eyes of how they were cutting in the 2000's. So, extended model shots and holding on anything too long probably irked him a bit.

 

[TravisR]

I was excited to see the different cut when it was released but all it really did was show how brilliant the theatrical cut was. Every clip they put back in should have been cut from the film. So, really the best thing about the extended version was it showed how correct they were to cut those bits.

It seems like whenever there's a longer cut of a movie, I like a scene or two and not the other additions. In the case of Alien, I like the scene where the crew is listening to the weird distress signal (even if, unlike when it was a deleted scene on the laserdisc and DVD, it's a sound effect pulled from Star Wars) before they go down to the planet but other than that, I'm fine with the added scenes having remained on the cutting room floor.

The cocoon scene is great on its own but it absolutely stops the movie dead in its tracks when it shouldn't be slowing down so it was best left out.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

It seems like whenever there's a longer cut of a movie, I like a scene or two and not the other additions. In the case of Alien, I like the scene where the crew is listening to the weird distress signal (even if, unlike when it was a deleted scene on the laserdisc and DVD, it's a sound effect pulled from Star Wars) before they go down to the planet but other than that, I'm fine with the added scenes having remained on the cutting room floor.

The cocoon scene is great on its own but it absolutely stops the movie dead in its tracks when it shouldn't be slowing down so it was best left out.

I think there is generally a really good reason scenes were cut and so if you put them back in it probably goes entirely against the logic you used cutting them. If a director is happy with his cut, he was not forced to remove things or had the film taken from him and had nothing to do with the edit, then probably best not to put the scenes back into the film.

Apocalypse Now and the several cuts of the film is a good example. I so badly wanted to see the scenes that were cut. Coppola always talked about the plantation scene but honestly, I think that stops the film in its tracks and really does not work. I love watching the different versions but I think they did get the best cut with the theatrical.

I'll have to think about this, but I would guess there is a film I think was made better when it was recut. I do think that Oliver Stone's second cut of Alexander may be the best cut of that film.