ALIENS is one of the best sequels ever made. It was the first movie in the ALIEN series I watched all the way through, but I did go see ALIEN 3 many times and I did eventually watch ALIEN. THE TERMINATOR is what gave James Cameron his chance to director ALIENS after he was contracted to write the sequel (and 20th Century Fox waited to have him make THE TERMINATOR first and it was very lucky since he didn't have a complete script yet). ALIEN is a haunted house monster movie in space where ALIENS is a combat action picture. Ripley has to face the same danger again on the same planet (LV-426) where all of her troubles started and yet it is worse because no one listens to her at first, but the little girl Newt knows Ripley, company man Burke, and the Colonial Marines could be screwed anyway. It is an intense rollercoaster ride that allows the story and characters to develop with moments that put you through the ringer. I wish 20th Century Fox had taken ALIEN 3 in a different direction than they had (even though I love that movie) and more in the direction of the aborted ALIENS sequel years later being developed by Neill Blomkamp.

THE TRANSFER: The 4K transfer is a major improvement from the blu-ray transfer, but some film purists may not like the majority of the grain has been removed. The transfer has great detail compared to the blu-ray. The color timing is less blue tint like the blu-ray and it is closer to the color of the DVD.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
The blu-rays do hold over all of the previous extras from the ALIEN ANTHOLOGY set.
The first blu-ray has the audio commentary with director James Cameron, the cast and crew. It also has the original score and final theatrical score by James Horner as isolated music tracks. The Special Edition has an introduction by James Cameron.

The second blu-ray has other three hours of extras including the wonderful and extensive making-of documentary- SUPERIOR FIREPOWER: MAKING ALIENS produced by Charles de Lauzirika, The Inspiration and Design of ALIENS featurette, theatrical trailers, deleted scenes, and galleries. Also included in the Ultimate Collector's Edition set is a digital code to download and stream both versions of the movie and the blu-ray of the movie remastered from the new 4K transfer.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Despite whether people think the 4K transfer for ALIENS is the best, I do think it is the best of the three James Cameron 4K titles that were released in March. It is fully loaded with the extras from previous editions and I don't mind that there weren't any new extras due to the wealth of extras already carried over. If you're a fan of ALIENS and James Cameron, this is a must own in your 4K collection. If you think the look of the previous blu-ray is better, you should keep it and still buy the 4K.

This review is ©4-26-2024 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com and avoid ancient derelict alien ships because you don't know what danger may lurk inside.