StarThoughts said:
I am pretty sure that the AC-3 track on Alien is a straight transfer of the 70mm mix and not a new mix. It was a selling point on the LD when it came out — granted, there wouldn't be split-surrounds, but the front separation (which was quite significant in this movie), discrete surround and dedicated bass channel would have made it worthwhile.
Not arguing with that - the qualities of the Alien track are well established - we're talking about the Aliens mix right now.
On that point though, I've just gone back to Alien briefly and found these comments about the mix from the old thread:
It seems that Alien's 6-track mix did have split surrounds, and a close look at the AC-3 version would seem to bear this out (there's not a wild difference between the two rear channels, but it's there). I wonder why those lists didn't pick up on that? Anyway, Aliens is likely to be a great deal more straightforward due to its vintage (not many soundtracks were pushing the technical envelope at this point in time).