Alien: Special Widescreen Collector's Edition (1979) [1090-85]

Alien (1979) [8760-85]

Is there a difference in video quality? I noticed on the boxed set the video was "digitally transferred" to laserdisc which doesn't make sense to me.

I've not seen either so I can't comment on the quality but "New digital video transfer supervised by director Ridley Scott" just means that the film has been digitally remastered (in a similar way to how they remaster films for DVD now) and then transferred to laserdisc. Back in the day I even had quite a few VHS tapes that had been digitally remastered.

My guess is the more scope on the THX Dolby AC-3 version that was no doubt used for the 20th anniversary edition that gives more image width so go for the THX Laserdisc version. I have the CAV box-set but the R1 = more scope.http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/06718/8760-85/Alien-(1979)

I have the THX Dolby Digital release. Looks pretty darn good.

I'd be wary of the box set simply because of the Aliens: Special Edition from the year before looks like crap despite being a "New digitally mastered transfer supervised by James Cameron."

The widescreen image on the Alien boxed set is way over cropped on the top and bottom and looks ghastly. The THX LaserDisc corrects that but used the 70mm 6-track mix which has the wrong music cues in places and was mixed with very deep bass for screening in Sensurround, which never happened - Fox went with Dolby at the last minute instead of MCA. The incorrect music was due to the fact the the mix was done before the entire score was ready so music from the temp tracks was used in its place. That mix is only on the THX LaserDisc, none of the DVD or Blu-ray releases have it.

The transfer for the Aliens box was done at a less than state of the art facility and as a result was too grainy, so it was run through a noise reduction process, but that softened it too much, so it was run through a sharpening process, which brought out too much noise again, so it got another layer of noise reduction - Van Ling oversaw the transfer and as it was his first, he didn't really know what he was doing, thus the problems. The AC-3 LaserDisc release was a completely new transfer at a better facility and not only corrected the noise problems but fixed the off-center cropping of the image.

Great info. I'll be getting the THX LD instead of the box set.

Well the CAV box-set is good for the extras so might want to look for it going very cheap.

Correct, the box is the only LaserDisc release of the extended version. It was transferred and reassembled in standard definition NTSC, so when they did the later transfer in high definition, there was no special edition footage in high def to recut into the film. It wasn't until the DVD releases that a new transfer of the extra footage was done.

The extras on the box set are excellent. They are all on the Alien Quadrilogy DVD and new Blu-ray in their LaserDisc form, but don't have the ease of access the LaserDisc has - its cool Fox provided the LaserDisc supplements for both films in their LD form so people who have never owned LD can see how awesome it was. So, the box set is well worth having for the supplements alone - and also as an example of a big title that was screwed up.

I've never seen the Japanese versions so I don't know what they look like - I doubt much better because new transfers were rarely done for the Japanese market by that time.

Wait, the extended version? Do you mean the theatrical version? The Director's Cut of Alien is one minute shorter than the theatrical.

We're talking about Aliens, not Alien. The special edition cut of Aliens that the CAV box set contains was assembled in NTSC video for that release - it has about 15 minutes of new footage as compared to the theatrical edition. Until the DVD's were released, the box set was the only way to get the special edition, which was a shame as it was such a bad transfer and cut off portions of the image - the left side, if I'm remembering correctly.

The CAV box of Alien is severely over matted at the top and looks horrible. I can't imagine why they over matted it so severely.