TV And Films

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.