Alien

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This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on November 3, 2003). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

I just got back from seeing the Director’s Cut of Alien — one of my all-time favorite Sci-Fi/Horror films — at the Seattle Cinerama.

The movie, of course, was excellent. The Director’s Cut isn’t that much of a change (I immediately noticed three differences between it and the original version, one of which was footage that’s been known of and previously seen as a “deleted scene” on the original Alien DVD), for me most of the fun was just being able to see Alien on the big screen, as I was far too young to do so when it was first released.

While I enjoyed the movie a lot, this was my first experience with digital projection — and I have to say, I’m somewhat less than impressed. I’m not really sure if this might be a side effect of the size of the Cinerama screen, and whether it might be less visible on smaller theater screens, but I could very easily see a vertical “banding”/pixillation/scan line effect. In shots with a lot of movement it wasn’t very noticeable, but in still shots with strong vertical lines (walls, fixtures, table legs, etc.) it was definitely apparent, and made the image much less crisp than I had expected it to be.

I also don’t know what medium the movies are read from, but I’m guessing it must be some form of optical disc, similar to a DVD (though I’m assuming with much higher resolution for theater projection). AT one point early in the film, there was a slight glitch, and it produced the same “blocking” artifact that can be seen on DVDs if they have fingerprints on them. It was only there for a brief moment, less than a second, but on a screen the size of the Cinerama, it’s extremely distracting.

Even with the slight technical oddities, though, it was a lot of fun.

The rest of this post discusses the various additions and changes in the Director’s Cut from the original theatrical release version. If you want to stay spoiler-free, stop here — otherwise, press on!

The additions I noticed:

  1. After Kane is brought back onto the Nostromo and is in the infirmary, there is a little more business among Ripley, Lambert, Parker, and Brett. Where in the original version we cut to the four of them in the observation area, the new version cuts to just Lambert, Parker, and Brett. Ripley descends from a ladder and enters the shot, and Lambert slaps her and they have a quick scuffle before Parker and Brett pull them apart. Lambert slumps against the back wall, and Ripley crosses in front of her, at which point we pick up where the original version cut in.
  2. When Brett walks into the machine room with the chains hanging from the ceiling, there is a quick shot of Brett from above. It’s subtle, but towards the left of the shot, you can see the silhouette of the alien as it hangs from the chains above Brett. Interestingly, this shot is not included in the original DVD’s special features.
  3. The last addition is the infamous “Dallas cocooned” scene that was present in the extra features of the previously released Alien DVD. To be honest, I’m torn on this addition. The accepted life cycle of the alien has been egg > facehugger > host > chestburster > adult alien, with most adult aliens being soldiers, while one will become a queen and lay more eggs. In Aliens, we saw cocoons being used as a way to store captured prey, either as food or as convenient hosts for future facehuggers, and it could be argued that that is what has happened here — Dallas and Parker have been cocooned for future use. However, when we see Parker, he appears to be becoming an egg — as if he were somehow transforming into a facehugger. I’ve never been totally happy with this (in addition to breaking previous canon, it’s less scientifically plausible), so while it’s definitely cool to see the sequence in the film, I’m torn as to whether or not I really like the addition.

I’m double-checking against the Deleted Scenes section on the Alien DVD I have, and it appears that more of the Deleted Scenes have been added in — I just didn’t realize it as I was watching the film, probably because I’d seen them before on the DVD. These include:

  1. Added: The crew listening to the alien transmission on the bridge of the Nostromo. Interestingly, the audio effects for the transmission are different in the new cut of the film than in the deleted scene.
  2. Partially added: The deleted scene version of the confrontation between Ripley and Lambert is longer than what was added to the Director’s Cut — Lambert’s dialogue describing them pulling Kane up from the egg chamber has been removed.
  3. Left out: A scene I was hoping would be put back in — a conversation in the infirmary after the facehugger’s blood eats through a few levels of the deck plating where Ripley notices a stain on Kane’s lung (the gestating chestburster) — was not added back in. Probably a good idea, as it could hurt the pacing of the film, but it’s still a nice bit of foreshadowing that I’ve always felt was a pity to lose from the finished film.
  4. Left out: An intercom conversation between Ripley and Parker as they harass each other.
  5. Left out: A raucous argument among the crew in the mess hall after Kane’s death, brainstorming on how to capture and kill the chestburster.
  6. Left out: The bloodier version of Brett’s death, where we watch the alien crush his skull as he screams for Parker before it pulls him up into the air shaft.
  7. Left out: Lambert and Ripley’s uneasy reconciliation, where Ripley apparently starts to explore her suspicions about Ash when she asks whether Lambert had ever slept with him.
  8. Left out (for obvious reasons): The only partially-shot action sequence where the crew almost traps the alien in the airlock, only to have it escape, wounding it and spilling more acid blood in the process. As only the bridge “reaction” shots were filmed, I didn’t expect this sequence to be put back in.
  9. Mostly added: There have been a few slight edits to the cocoon sequence. In the deleted scene version, Ripley has a few lines saying that she’ll get Dallas out and onto the shuttle before he pleads with her to kill him. Aside from losing those, the rest of the sequence has been added in its entirety.

9 thoughts on “Alien”

  1. Yeah, but keep in mind that the digital projection you saw was a digital version of a very old film. If you have a chance to see a digital film in a digital projection, i.e. Matrix Revolutions or Star Wars II, the effect is rather remarkable: it’s like watching a motion picture-sized DVD, the picture is so crisp.

  2. Hey – I was just talking about this with Joe at the Museum this afternoon, and I mentioned the sound on the explosion at the end – something i do NOT recall in the initial version. Considering the famous tagline, “In space no one can hear you scream,” I think it’s definitely possible that the explosion audio was added, and as an SF guy I like it better without. What’s your recollection?

    Also, I’m pretty sure you missed this in last week’s mayhem, but I bet you will appreciate it:

    http://mike.whybark.com/archives/001006.html

    I DID notice that in this film, they spelled it Weylan Yutani, and never say the name. I spotted it on screen twice – on the beer and on a data display screen.

  3. I always remembered there being audio during the refinery explosion (and I actually just checked my DVD — no doubts about it, the sound effects were definitely there in the original, too, though they may have been “amped up” for the rerelease), mostly because it always amused me somewhat that there were three distinct booms. I was never sure if that was supposed to be three separate explosions as different parts of the refinery went up, or if it was just repeated to drive it home that yes, it really did explode. Either way, it always seemed like overkill.

    I wouldn’t mind at all if it were a silent explosion, but then, that level of realism in sci-fi films is rarely seen.

    The “press release” is great. Nicely done!

    Have you ever explored the Anchorpoint Essays? I find them fascinating, but they haven’t been touched in a couple years. I e-mailed the listed site admin to see if I could find out if they’d been abandoned, but haven’t heard anything back yet.

    And you definitely got me on the missing “d” in Weyland-Yutani. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that next time I watch it. Watching Aliens yesterday reminded me of a Cameron-ism that I’d forgotten, though — Ash is referred to as a “Hyperdyne” model android, when Ripley, Burke, and Bishop are discussing him in the mess hall just after coming out of cryosleep. Made me laugh when I heard that again…it’s not exactly the “Cyberdyne” of T-2, but as they’re both Cameron films, I somehow doubt that that was an accident.

  4. Am I the only one who noticed the parts cut from the
    director’s edition?

    Before going in the air shafts, Dallas talks to mother to
    get her opinion of the plan.

    When Ripley confronts Dallas in the corridor she asks if he
    shipped out with Ash before, and his answer is also cut.

  5. A friend and I went to see it on the big screen, too; already owning the DVD at home, I mainly wanted to see it big and fat and projected.

    But as happens with pretty much every time I watch it, I am confused over some backstory — any chance you can provide an educated guess? Or the answer?

    What does the landing party find when they go exploring on the planet? Oh, I know there’s a ship and the warning beacon and the nestful of eggs that starts the whole chain, but who is sitting in that chair, fossilized? Are we to believe the ship is an alien ship that had been traveling and crashed, or that the ship was run by some other life form which in its turn was invaded by aliens, the pilot killed (if that is who is sitting in the chair), the ship crashed, and the aliens just started nesting, waiting to be discovered?

    I guess I ask because whatever/whoever is sitting in that chair seems to have been chest-burst, which leads me to think it’s not an alien (unless they do that to their own kind). And the beacon wouldn’t have been a warning one if it had been an alien ship. Which fascinates me: Are we supposed to believe there is another intelligent life form which the series has never explored?

    Maybe the Predator is what was driving that ship all along, and it’s a longstanding grudge, hence the upcoming movie.

    Any thoughts?

  6. Aahh — you’ve just touched upon one of my favorite aspects of the Alien series, in that for all we’ve learned about the Aliens over four films, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

    Here are the most common/popular theories regarding the derelict ship and the “space jockey” discovered by Kane, Lambert and Dallas (copied from section three of the Alien FAQ:

    Theories regarding the derelict space craft and its fossilized pilot (from the movie _ALIEN_).

    Perhaps the species that was transporting the eggs mirror the human errors of judgement (made mostly by the Company) that were to follow. Perhaps this species, like the Company, thought they could lower their guard, treating the aliens like a commodity. Maybe their now dead/mute state indicates where the human race might be heading as a result of the company’s “financial” venture.

    The species piloting the derelict craft were aware of the dangers of the aliens, this is why they submersed the entire colony of eggs under the blue “film”. When the film is broken, it would trigger an alarm (sort of like a laser-operated security system) and they’d know that there was motion in the “cargo”.

    Suggested by an old draft of the _ALIEN_ script: the derelict craft landed on LV-426 to make repairs, a silo of eggs (on the planet) was discovered by the space jockey species and they got infested. The hull full of eggs is in fact the crew of the derelict after being transformed into the eggs (as shown in the Brett-egg scene edited out of the _ALIEN_ theatrical release)

    The derelict ship transported something else than the eggs. For instance, it carried food, like meat, or animals. Somehow the pilot got impregnated with an alien chestburster and just before it hatched, the pilot set down on LV-426 (he didn’t crash land because of the valuable cargo) and recorded the distress signal. It put it on the air, and died when the chestburster broke free. This chestburster got down, and grew into an alien. This alien made an egg from the storage down below, a queen-egg. It hatched, and a queen alien arose. This queen alien started to produce eggs from the stored food/animals. The blue mist was conserving the food/animals, but was now used to conserve the eggs. The full-grown aliens died, but the eggs survived over the centuries.

    The aliens already *are* biological weapons that were developed by the pilot’s race and that he transported, probably to use them in some long-forgotten interplanetary war. (They would kill everything on a hostile planet, die when there’s nobody left and leave a full complement of new eggs … kinda like the neutron bomb, only biological and self-replacing.)

    Of course, these are all only theories, and there are no true answers. My personal favorite is the last (Aliens as biological weapons developed by another alien race).

  7. I would like to comment on what Mike said about digital cinema…

    The age of the film does not have anything to do with it..
    The stereotype that the old films look fuzzy and bad has been made
    because of the bad transfers and bad copies…
    the old films (from 70’s and 80’s) look as good as todays films…
    the only difference is in the look that the stock gives,
    the colors have different look…todays are more smooth.
    The resolution of the image has been improoved slightly.
    But that is not the point since todays digital cinema can not
    show all the detail that is recorded in film negative,
    even if the negative is 20 years old..
    Alien was shot on kodak eastman 5247 100T which would need
    about 3K (3000 horisontal pixels) projection for all the little detail to be viewed.
    (todays film stocks would need about 4K (4000)horisontal resolution)
    Of course this refers to the original negative,not the print.
    And the projector that it was projected with probably has
    about 1.5K resolution plus it was viewed on a large screen.
    that is why it looked bad.

    Ok then,about the matrix revolutions…
    it is not a digital film,it was shot on super-35 and later optically printed to anamorphic 35mm..
    only the effects are digital.

    Star wars episode 2 was shot on digital.

    If a digital film looks better on digital projection than
    film that was shot on film stock,it is a result of a bad transfer
    because the film is esentially better in qualitty than
    HD digital video.
    the resolution of HD video is 1920×1080
    and the resolution of film is much higher,it can
    go up to 4000×3000 when converted to digital files.
    Plus the digital video has 10-bit color information(per chanell)
    while the film needs 15-bit per color information for all the colors
    to be capture,that results in way more natural image.

    If film is handled properly it looks awsome.
    even if it was shot 20 yeas ago.
    just wait and see a digital projection of Star wars episode 4
    in the future (George will revisit the original trilogy once again,
    digitize the image)
    and you will se how a 25 year old film can look
    better than episode 2.Trust me.

  8. Mike —

    I never thought to check for an Alien FAQ, which means I’m not nearly as Internet-fluent as I’d thought. Thanks much for posting that — I figured it couldn’t have been a topic only I had considered. And it brings up even more plot ideas I’d never thought of….

    Thanks!

    –Randee

  9. knowing what we know from alien vs predator that had to be a predator ship like the end of the movie suggest i mean they left and took the alien with them

    how did the company know about the events of the predator movies

    and how did they know what happened to the aliens to allow the company to look for them in alien they acted like the company knew about the eggs and thats why tried to send them there and later cover it up

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