Five Days With The Alien Anthology – Day Two

After the creeping shadows and invisible threat of the original, James Cameron’s amazing leap-of-faith sequel switches up so much of what made Alien work, hardcore fans must have been dreading its release. As we now know, it was not only a worthy follow up, it proved to be a benchmark in its own right, one of the best, most exhilarating action thrillers in the canon and proof positive that Cameron can tear his way around chase after chase and ambush after ambush without a single wrong turn.

Aliens is a big film. That added S gives us more aliens, sure, but there’s more of everything else too. More characters, more locations, more plot twists, more minutes. But what’s odd for such a packed film, and particularly in this age of after-the-fact home theatre remixes, is how the sound stage on this disc is actually quite frontloaded. Diegetically, the action is going on all around us, but the sound FX mix works largely like a stereo one, making relatively little play with the rear. Instead, the back channels are largely filled with the score. It’s an interesting choice that I’ve seen (okay – heard) a few times now, but always consider it noteworthy. It’s almost literally as though the film is sitting there in front of you while the music is seeping in to the back of your brain. All that matters is that it works – it’s not a strictly “realistic” mix, but hey, you know what I say? Something that rhymes with “shmealism realism”.

James Cameron’s decision to take out his meddling stick and get stuck into the Aliens transfer right up to his elbows was a controversial one and something I’ve already reported on a couple of times. Bottom line, however, is that this new rendition of his extended cut is both the best looking and all round most satisfying version of the film to date. The grain structure has most definitely not been eliminated, just wrestled into order and despite the intrusion of rigid, digital technology, everything still looks organic. All of the shoddy DNR botches we’ve seen so far are looking even more stupid now.

Aliens has been called “the odd one out” before because of its narrower aspect ratio, but each of the four films has some very distinctive visual touches of their own. There’s no such thing as an odd one out in the Alien sequence– at least, not if you discount the Predator tie-ins, and not before the upcoming prequel. That surely won’t feature the steadfast Sigourney Weaver, or even any other presentation of Ripley… will it?

You can catch up now on Day One and my impressions of the Alien disc. Tomorrow, there’s going to be a surprising twist or two when we get to the transfer of Alien 3…

In the UK, Alien Anthology is out on Blu-ray 25^th October. US readers will have to wait until the 26th.