Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Winona Ryder

Director: James Cameron

Summary: Boxset of all 4 volumes of the ALIEN saga: ALIEN, ALIENS (a previously unreleased special edition with nearly 20 minutes of additional footage), ALIEN 3 and ALIEN RESURRECTION.

Boxset of all 4 features in the ALIEN quadrilogy. The ultimate sci-fi/horror series, ALIEN: Director Ridley Scott's breakthrough film, an immensely successful blend of horror and science fiction. Starring Sigourney Weaver as warrant officer Ellen Ripley, the crew of the space cargo ship Nostromo land on a moribund planet in response to a faint SOS. Inside a crashed ship, the crew members come upon strange pods...ALIENS: Ripley, the sole survivor from the first film, is awakened after 57 years of drifting through space, her stories disbelieved by Company executives who tell her that the alien's planet is now inhabited and colonized. ALIEN 3: David Fincher's debut as a director, ALIEN 3, picks up almost directly after the events in ALIENS, finding Ripley frozen in suspended animation as her ship crashes on Fiorina 161, a prison planet. Trapped on a barren planet with convicts and no weapons of any kind, Ripley soon realizes that an alien was also on the ship and has survived. ALIEN RESURRECTION: The fourth installment of the wildly popular series, a drop of Ellen Ripley's blood spawns a part human, part alien Ripley clone. Now that Ripley is dead, the clone has fallen into the hands of government scientists who want to harness the Ripley clone's breeding powers.

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The Alien Quadrilogyis a nine-disc box set devoted to the four Alienfilms. Although previously available on DVD as the Alien Legacy, here the films have been repackaged with vastly more extras and with upgraded sound and vision. For anyone who hasn't been in hypersleep for the last 25 years this series needs no introduction, though for the first time each film now comes in both original and "Special Edition" form.

Alien(1979) was so perfect it didn't need fixing, and Ridley Scott's 2003 Director's Cut is fiddling for the sake of it. Watch once then return to the majestic, perfectly paced original. Conversely the Special Edition of James Cameron's Aliens(1986) is the definitive version, though it's nice finally to have the theatrical cut on DVD for comparison. Most interesting is the alternative Alien3(1992). This isn't a "director's cut"--David Fincher refused to have any involvement with this release--but a 1991 work-print that runs 29 minutes longer than the theatrical version, and has now been restored, remastered and finished-off with (unfortunately) cheap new CGI. Still, it's truly fascinating, offering a different insight into a flawed masterpiece. The expanded opening is visually breathtaking, the central firestorm is much longer, and a subplot involving Paul McGann's character adds considerable depth to the story. The ending is also subtly but significantly different. Alien Resurrection(1997) was always a mess with a handful of brilliant scenes, and the Special Edition just makes it eight minutes longer.

On the DVD:Alien Quadrilogyoffers all films except Alien3with DTS soundtracks, the latter having still fine Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation. All four films sound fantastic, with much low-level detail revealed for the first time. Each is anamorphically enhanced at the correct original aspect ratio, and the prints and transfers are superlative. Every film offers a commentary that lends insight into the creative process--though the Scott-only commentary and isolated music score from the first AlienDVD release are missing here--and there are subtitles for hard of hearing both for the films and the commentaries.

Each movie is complemented by a separate disc packed with hours of seriously detailed documentaries (all presented at 4:3 with clips letterboxed), thousands of photos, production stills and storyboards, giving a level of inside information for the dedicated buff only surpassed by the Lord of the Ringsextended DVD sets. A ninth DVD compiles miscellaneous material, including a Channel 4 hour-long documentary and even all the extras from the old Alienlaserdisc. Exhaustive hardly beings to describe the Alien Quadrilogy, a set which establishes the new DVD benchmark for retrospective releases and which looks unlikely to be surpassed for some time. --Gary S Dalkin

Aspect Ratio:	Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Alien Legacy Featurette, Original Trailers, Interviews, Behind The Scenes, Photo Galleries, Original Storyboards, Isolated Original Scores, Alternate Music Track, Deleted Scenes, Extra Footage
Year:	1979
Release Date:	May 15, 2000
Runtime:	528 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	00083 D V D
Keywords:	Alien, Box, General, Wide, Screen, Gift, Set, Legacy, Horror, Occult, Sci, Fi, Collector's
Genre:	Horror/Occult