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Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco? — Page 4

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Jonno - By the way I can author a menu etc. if you want a shiny front-end for the 4.7GB evolution - unless you can do it yourself ?

Did anyone do "Alien War" when it started up in Scotland or came down to the Trocadero in London back in the 90's ? I did it 3 times, it was without doubt the best movie tie-in "ride"/"experience" whatever you want to call it !

Unfortunately (and alledgedly) someone died during one of the walkthroughs and so it was closed. At least that was the word from one of the "Colonial Marines" that worked there when it was all being broken up and shipped out. A great shame. I certainly had a collection of props and archives to rival the chap on the quadrilogy disc from all of the 4 films !
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You mean you saved some props from this show after they cancelled it?
It is a pity I never been there, I was too young to visit London then. I saw just some short documentary that I downloaded from internet. I never heard about a death in there, I heard that the whole corridors in Trocadero were flooded and thus they decided to cancel Alien War rather than repair it. But this may be an official version for media to cover the real reason...

How about the Shock & Awe with Danny Boyle? You wrote that you repaired the audio-video synchronisation already.


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Triffid

'Smoking or Non-Smoking' is a refence to common dialogue used when offering seating assignments, like at a restaurant. Or when offering someone something.
An example might be - 'Good evening Sir. You'd like a seat? Would that be in the Smoking or Non-Smoking section?'

Aa bit like, when you ask for a burger at Mc Donalds. They always (or used to) ask 'Do you want fries with that?'

I can't actually think of the exact dialogue placement in that scene but that's how I understand it.

All this Alien talk is interesting and an extended cut would be great. Anyone know of a site to look at known and unknown missing scenes?

Cheers
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The Alien Redux version also uses the production audio so the dialog is different in many places.
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Sorry triffid - that should definitely be *it* had a collection of props and archives to rival the chap on the quadrilogy disc from all of the 4 films !

My route to work was through the link between Leicester Square's Trocadero and Picadilly Circus (where Alien War was situated) for the longest time in and around when the exhibit was running and when it was "dark" i.e.closed. I can't ever remember a flood down there - only because it would have impacted on the whole of the bottom of the Trocadero as well as the Alien War section - I certainly think that might be a bit of a bluff to cover the true story ! The sheer intensity of the experience would definitely have caused those "of a nervous disposition" to be taken to a more heightened level shall we say - so I'm inclined to believe the "unofficial" story

Indeed, the sound ad vision of "Shock & Awe" is entirely corrected thanks to good old Womble editor ! Unfortunately the picture is still below-par, but I'm happy to add it to any possible extra disc along with the full Evolution. Let's just see if we can find an un-subbed Giger's Alien and then we'll all be happy ! Though as you say Jiri, that might not be possible - unless someone has some *very* good friends in Prague
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alien War in London..

Yeah, I visited that! It was brilliant! Summer Of 1993. It had a Great litttle "Museum" after you had exited the "experience" too. It was full of real props from all the Alien movies of the time (Ressurrection hadn't been filmed then) I took LOADS of photos and had my photo taken with a full size Alien Queen too! Happy times!


I was shocked when they closed it down as it was one of the best "dark run" things I have ever done.


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Good news, guys

I somehow found time to get the new Evolution transfer done last night - I have copies ready to go! Admittedly it isn't quite 4.7GB (Explorer says it's 4.2GB - but is that out of 4.7 or 4.37GB? I can never remember...)
Anyway, the bitrate is really maxed out (9 Mbit/s average, allowing for audio at 224 Kbit/s) - I couldn't have realistically made it any higher while maintaining DVD-video legality.

By the way, this is just a copy for the purists, and a very basic one at that (just a play all disc, albeit with 13 chapter stops). Meedermow is very welcome to make a menu for this version – I’m going to be making more effort with my own 2-disc collection, for which I have made a slightly smaller version (allowing room for a short excerpt from that ’92 Ridley Scott documentary on the same PAL disc).

So if the following folks would like to PM me their addresses, I’ll get copies sent out to them – whether they redistribute or torrent, it’s up to them! I do have a request of each one – it’s not conditional, I’d just appreciate the extra stuff!

Klokwerk – I’d appreciate copies of your ‘Alien Archives’ discs – I’ll no doubt find plenty of interest there.

Ash595 – Those Galaxy and Beyond trailers would be great.

Meedermow – I’d like to see your corrected version of the Danny Boyle documentary please!

RIJIR – ‘Alien Redux’ sounds fascinating – if you’d like to trade it for Evolution we’ll sort something out.

Triffid – I don’t need anything from you right now, just remember me when the new Giger’s Alien becomes available!


So, Alien War huh? I went there a couple of times! But here’s a tougher one – who else was at the UK Alien Convention in 1993?
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Originally posted by: fezza2000

I can't actually think of the exact dialogue placement in that scene but that's how I understand it.

All this Alien talk is interesting and an extended cut would be great. Anyone know of a site to look at known and unknown missing scenes?


The scene takes place after Ripley cleans Newt’s face. Hudson is sitting in the Operations with other marines looking at the blueprints table. Gorman comes from behind and Hudson greets him with these words. H: „Smoking or non-smoking?“ G: „Just tell me what you are scanning for.“ Burke: „PDTs, Personal data transmitters. Every colonist had one surgically implanted.“
After your explanation it sounds like another Hudson’s joke. He asks him gently to choose a seat in this great restaurant, full of good food, drinks and friendly atmosphere, while they are in this cold end of Universe. It is sarcastic, right?
Two scenes later Hudson finds the PDTs on the screen and he announces this discovery to the others with „Stop your grinnin‘ and drop your linen. Found them.“ I know I am a bit boring and this question does not belong here, but maybe you can explain this sentence (verse) to me too? I promise it is my last question of this kind here!

The unknown missing scenes for Alien: As far as I know, there are none scenes available other than these included in AQ and AL. The scenes from AL and from the LD archive on disc AQ 9 should be the same. I guess that AL ones are better mastered, but maybe I am wrong in this. There are also few shots all over the main documentary on disc AQ 2, probably useless. (And then there are the 100 boxes of unused material found by Scott’s team in UK in 2003 – lucky guys!)
For Aliens: Just the short scene with Newt and Hicks I described a page before, disc AQ 4.
For Alien 3: Few shots in Alien 3 Workprint did not find their way into Lauzirika’s restored maxiversion of this movie. If you do not have the workprint, Alien Legend site has a big archive of scenes from this version at http://www.planetavp.com/al/index2.htm The deleted scenes section was not updated when AQ came out, so have this in your mind while reading it.
For A4: Probably none.



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Originally posted by: meedermow
Though as you say Jiri, that might not be possible - unless someone has some *very* good friends in Prague


You already have one

Giger's Alien without subtitles: Even if you can trace down the original 35 mm movie from the exhibition and pay to a videostudio to make a DVD from it, the quality of the picture will be worse than the quality of the picture from the LD. And I believe that there is just this one version of the LD. Yes, Fox (or whoever owns the rights) can make a new DVD from the master copy, but I do not think we should count on this too much. "H.R. Giger DVD" project is a chance to do so. A chance, nothing more. I do not want to give you a false hope.



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Originally posted by: Jonno

ash595 – Those Galaxy and Beyond trailers would be great.



That is a great and good surprise. I will make a dvd this week and will send it next week. I will add the 2.35 4/3 trailer for the Director's Cut.

I have sent you a PM with my post address.
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A 12 sec low-res shot from „Aliens Ride At The Speed Of Fright“ I mentioned earlier http://www.iwerks.com/tmedia/aliens.mov

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Ok, discs are on the way to triffid, meedermow, Ash595 and klokwerk.

Hope you guys enjoy them, let me know what you think when you've had a look!
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do you want a dvd video or a dvd rom with all the files in different folders, for the trailers ?
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Just to clarify 4.37 gigs versus 4.7 gigs--

When the label on a DVD+R states that it holds 4.7 gigs, that's a load of crap--they're counting a 1000 kilobytes as a megabyte, and a 1000 megabytes as a gig. In reality, its 1024 KB to a MB, and 1024 MB to a GB. Doesn't seem like a big deal, until you encode something to 4.7 gigs in size, and you find that you can't fit in onto a DVD+R.

So always be careful, and use the correct definitions of the terms, as that's what Windows and all the encoding and burning programs use.
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Originally posted by: Ash595
do you want a dvd video or a dvd rom with all the files in different folders, for the trailers ?


A ROM will be fine since I'll be re-compiling, cheers!
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Triffid,

In regard to 'Smoking or Non Smoking', it is Hudson making a joke. Not really sarcastic.
He has people locations on the screen in front of him (like someone would have if they were taking a reservation for an aeroplane seat), he is just playing, being silly, by pretending to be making seating arrangements.

'Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen'
loosely re-worded could be:
'Stop smile(ing) and drop (remove, take off) your clothing'.

I don't know where this line could have originated, however, it would be spoken by a man to a woman before sex.

In the context of the film, it makes no sense. He could have said 'Stop what you are doing. I have a result from my search on this computer. Now we are ready for the next step', Hudson is just trying to use a clever line and be funny. Tough boys always talk about sex etc.

Cheers.
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Also bear in mind with the Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen line - Hudson could be directly referencing the AC/DC song: Shake A Leg. Pretty contemporary for circa 1985 when the film was made, slightly less so for 2179

SHAKE A LEG

CHORUS:
Shake a leg, shake your head
Shake a leg, wake the dead
Shake a leg, get stuck in
Shake a leg, shake a leg

Magazines, wet dreams, dirty women on machines for me
Big licks, skin flicks, trickey dick's are my chemistry
Goin' against the grain, trying to keep me sane with you
So stop your grinnin' and drop your linen for me

CHORUS
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Hey guys, you are wonderful, thanks. This re-wording 'Stop smile(ing) and drop (remove, take off) your clothing' makes me think about the following explanation: Stop smiling because you lost, I am the winner, I found them. And take off your clothes, as they are a part of the (imaginary) stake, the winner takes all. And he probably uses the words from the song to be more funny, to speak in verses like a poet.

In case you did not read it yet, here is a brand new interview with Cameron. He confirms the 4 years old rumor about him and Scott thinking about Alien 5 and in one breath he also adds that this case is closed now.
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=22405
(If I have got a child, I will offer it to him too to force him to rethink his decision...)

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I just began working on a cover for Alien Evolution, the Uncut version. the cover is still a work in progress and I am waiting for receiving the disc from Jonno to complete the back cover.

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/3892/alien3d4oz.jpg

All comments are welcome, of course
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How about - "damn that looks good" !

Personally I'd go with the I of ALIEN being exactly the same as the other 4 letters, I know it replicates the AL()ENS logo a little more (see what I did there ) but personally I think it would be stronger if it matched.

Just a random thought !
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Originally posted by: Ash595

All comments are welcome, of course


Do you ask for opinions? Nice work, both the pictures are iconic in some sense. I think this cover could be totally perfect for - let's say - a collection of Making ofs. But if you ask me, I would prefer something else for this particular documentary. Alien Evolution has its own unique design already, very different from all other documentaries. (I should say it is the only documentary I know that has ANY remarkable design at all.) Moving retro-style backgrounds with cells and strange microscopic and makroscopic details, everything in dark blue, green and violet. So by my opinion the cover should reflect this unique concept, especially when Evolution is the only feature on the disc. The documentary also uses its own font, that can be recreated for the cover.

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Ash595 - that is very impressive indeed (and significantly more tasteful than any official Alien DVD cover from Fox...) Personally, I lean towards more ambiguous imagery for this sort of thing (so I'd be more likely to use your back cover for the front!) but as photographic stuff goes, you've made good choices.

I just got the first of the 'Alien Archives' discs from meedermow (cheers fella!) - the 'Shock and Awe' doc is well worth a watch, particularly as the actual process of making the Alien DC is hardly documented at all in the Quadrilogy.

Just out of interest I had a look at the version of Giger's Alien included on the disc - it actually appears to be a PAL conversion of the NTSC copy I have. I guess the original compiler decided to convert it in order to get it on the same disc as the PAL 'Shock and Awe', but it's at a certain cost to the image sharpness - the Ebay NTSC laserdisc copy is still the best I've seen, no doubt until the official disc suggested by Jiri comes to fruition. I have to wonder though, is handheld 16mm EVER going to look that great?
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Jonno, I received your dvd, impressive image quality. I will send your dvd tomorrow.

here a second draft. I need to find the font for the world "evolution" to match the one on the documentary.


http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/535/alien3d7tg.jpg
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No one mentiones TV SPECIAL: THE SHOCK & AWE - THE RETURN OF ALIEN (24:58), which aired on UK TV to promote Alien DC. Here's the rest of Alien saga rarities I have...


ALIEN

TV SPECIAL: THE ALIEN LEGACY (66:54)

HRT: DELETED SCENES (3:17)


ALIEN: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT

TV SPOTS (3:23)

TRAILER (1:47)

TV SPECIAL: THE SHOCK & AWE - THE RETURN OF ALIEN (24:58)

FEATURETTE (3:14)

MOVIE TELEVISION: YAPHET KOTTO INTERVIEW (0:54)


ALIENS

TV SPOTS (1:03)

HRT: DELETED SCENES (3:50)

HRT: ALIEN LIFE CYCLE (3:26)

HRT: ALIEN WAR (2:18) this is the best movie attraction, ever! (really)

ALIENS: THE RIDE AT THE SPEED OF FRIGHT (8:13) this is complete pre ride $ ride footage from internal use only VHS

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: ALIENSES (4:34)



ALIEN 3

TV SPECIAL: THE MAKING OF ALIEN 3 (22:28)

ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT:
VISUAL EFFECTS (2:07)
CHARLES DUTTON INTERVIEW (1:53)

MTV:
PREVIEW (2:09)
VISUAL EFFECTS (1:42)

HRT: H.R. GIGER (2:35)


ALIEN RESURRECTION

TV SPECIAL: ALIEN RESURRECTION - BEHIND THE SCENES (25:43)

TV SPECIAL: THE MAKING OF ALIEN RESURRECTION (22:43)

FEATURETTE (3:48)

ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT:
LOS ANGELES PREMIERE (1:00)
SIGOURNEY WEAVER & WINONA RYDER INTERVIEW (1:53)

TV SPOTS (1:16)

HRT: ALIEN QUADRILOGY PREVIEW (4:06)