Ash 595 - that's looking good. There's a font I think might be useful, but I need to find it - will get back to you tomorrow.
tb1971 - Some of that stuff sounds very interesting indeed (though I'm not sure what 'HRT' signifies - other than Hormone Replacement Therapy...) Is this a compilation that you obtained, or collected by yourself? I'd extend the same offer to you as I have to others here, which is a copy of my Alien Evolution transfer - hoping that you might see fit to contribute some of your items to my work-in-progress compilation (which will be made generally available if anyone's interested )
Wow. tb1971, you have lots of great stuff. If you contribute to this project we could make a 3-Disc set of extras for the Alien quadrilogy that aren't available elsewhere.
To contact me outside the forum, for trades and such my email address is my OT.com username @gmail.com
Thanks for kind words! I've been collecting stuff since early 90s, and I found pride in my collection even though I think is just a surface scratch. Living in a small country doesn't really give you access to all the media hype in say, US & UK. I'd be happy to share my stuff in order to make this collection a worthy addition to quadrilogy set. Ash595, contact me so we can arrange exchange of materials. By the way, HRT stands for Hrvatska Radio TV (Croatian national TV) and it denotes previews it featured in various film shows. I've been on "alien war in London" several times and it really is the most realistic film attraction ever made. You run & sweat with colonial marines, people get snatched by aliens and quite real sence of thril land fear is generated. After I got used to it I scared some girl improvising a facehugger on her shoulder, grabbed my friend for a foot and provoked a reflexive slapp on my face... I've heard about (real) US marines picking a fight during attraction with (fake) colonial marines and people throwing up afterwards. Too bad it closed. I've heard the place flooded and insurance money was good and basicaly no need to reopen it, They should have open one in Japan. On the other hand "Ride at the speed of fright" in San Francisco is cheeesy simulator ride (with even cheesier acting), but it does feature aliens style cinematography (in IMAX format) and sets.
klokwerk - no problem, meedermow's kindly sorted me out with both discs so don't worry about it.
A general (and possibly dumb) question - is the 2003 Alien Director's Cut trailer included on any disc? Can't seem to find it, other than on the Quicktime site...
Ah, thank you sir! We're looking at at least 3 discs now (unless we DL one of them, which I'm a bit cautious about). Still less than that Blade Runner set they're talking about though...
to Klokwerk, Meedermow, Ash595: Hey people. I just watched Jonno's Evolution. I am not a video expert as you are and I would like to know your professional opinions. For starters, it it the best version out of the three I have now. I watched it on a small screeen (PC monitor) only, so I cannot be sure how it looks on a big TV screen. As far as I can say now, I think that it is almost as good as the official Quadrilogy version. Sharp and clean picture, high quality 16:9 transfer, perfect sound. Some dark or glossy surfaces seem to vibrate a bit, but I did not notice any serious problem at all. How about you?
to everybody: I am performing an intensive search for more videos. Current status:
Positive - I found a girl who taped "Director and His Work" documentary back in 1986. She promised to find the tape for me.
Negative - I contacted an editor of "Making of Alien Resurrection with Brad Dourif". He is not willing to help, unfortunately. My copy of this documentary recorded from Sci-fi Channel is not the best, but we probably have no other choice.
Unknown - The guy who owns Aliens CBS cut did not answer to me yet. Trying to PM him again.
Undecided - I have an opportunity to buy Alien 3 Workprint. I already got one from eBay, but it is just a VCD version. I do not know if I should spend my money for another copy (which can be worse than mine, no chance to compare).
off topic: Jonno and tb1971, can you tell me how did you find „Evolution doco“ thread? You both came in the right time. It surprises me. Were you looking for a forum like this intentionally? I am new here, too. I was searching for info about Indiana Jones laserdiscs and Google found Originaltrilogy for me. And when I noticed this long abandoned Alien thread, I thought it could be nice to revive it. I had no idea that it can work so well.
Jonno - your other archives will go out tonight, though if Triffid is hunting down another "Director and His Work" documentary - I'm sure that will be better than the one I found, the last 30 seconds and credits are missing and the quality could be better.
*REALLY* impressed with the "new" Evolution that this thread has brought to fruition ! It is interesting how everyone seemed to gravitate towards it at the same time, but I guess that was meant to be ! The picture is definitely as good as I saw it during the broadcast - sound wise, spot-on.
I'm trying to throw together some kick ass menus, a la Mother booting up, but the time that this takes could well be prohibitive. As I've discussed with Jonno and agree with him, just plain, classy menus would probably be most de riguer. I'm happy to help in anyway I can. I'm sure Ash595 will be able to wrestle up some kick-ass cover/s so we all seem to be playing to our strengths.
Welcome tb1971, a valuable addition to the team as triffid before you ! You sound like you have some wicked material and it was great reading your memories of Alien War. God, I want to do it again NOW !!! I'm presuming Mark Kermode is walking through Alien War at the start of the documentary ? If the "insurance" story is to be believed then surely they could have set up elsewhere just as easily, the queues were always snaking around the bottom of the Trocadero and it was always fun to wait for people to explode out of the final hatch and normally land in a huge heap on the floor having gone through the "experience". I now distinctly remember the lift finale and the dropship - IT WAS SOOOO GOOD ! I remember a friend I took to it (having done it myself) who thought the Aliens were some kind of hologram or projection - so I made sure he was in the seat in the dropship where he was most sure to find that *not* to be true !
I found "evolution" thread trough Search Category option inside the forum, and the forum itself after extensive googling for indiana jones documentaries
Originally posted by: tb1971 I found "evolution" thread trough Search Category option inside the forum, and the forum itself after extensive googling for indiana jones documentaries
Really? Did you really came here from the same reason as me? Unbelievable. Congratulations.
to Meedermow: So my opinion on Jonno's Evolution was correct? No "buts"? Maybe our meeting here is a coincidence, or maybe some Alien god sent him to us. That is why I'd like to know how the two guys got here...
What do you think about the Alien 3 Workprint? Even if there is the restored Quadrilogy version, I believe that the old stolen version of unknown origin is an important part of Alien movies history. And I am always looking for better copy. How about you? Are your copies ugly too? Here are four samples in their original resolution 352x240 (it is a VCD, not a DVD).
Hmmmmmm, doesn't look great, though obviously hard to tell without seeing it ! What are the specs of the other version that you've been offered ? Just a VCD port to DVD, or something better ? Is there a financial burden that you'd have to carry on this ?
Certainly no "buts" for me on Jonno's conversion. I really don't think it could be better bar a digital recording from the source...
Originally posted by: meedermow Hmmmmmm, doesn't look great, though obviously hard to tell without seeing it ! What are the specs of the other version that you've been offered ? Just a VCD port to DVD, or something better ? Is there a financial burden that you'd have to carry on this ?
Download the picture and switch to full screen. It is bad. Ebay, winter 2002/2003, 40 dollars. I never saw it before, thus I did not care about money too much. Now the situation changed, the Quadrilogy version is cool and I will spend more money on the other version only if it is significantly better. I just sent these photos to the man for comparison. I think he will make a DVD-R from his VHS. Of course not for free. That is why I am trying to ask you first. If somebody have a good copy already, I can save money.
Edit: This one is available for anybody, of course.
Originally posted by: triffid to Klokwerk, Meedermow, Ash595: Unknown - The guy who owns Aliens CBS cut did not answer to me yet. Trying to PM him again.
If anybody is well-known in the CD trading arenas (OT.com being more of a DVD-trading community) it might be cool to track down the complete scores for all 4 films. I have the complete scores for 1, 3 and 4 - but they're all MP3s. Still, I suppose they'd be better than nothing. If I were to ever get the complete scores in actual lossless format I'd probably create isolated score tracks for the movies.
To contact me outside the forum, for trades and such my email address is my OT.com username @gmail.com
Originally posted by: suntech Well If he does not PM I have it.
Omygod! Welcome, my hero. I am pretty sure he got my two messages. But he does not want to answer for some reason. What is the quality of your copy, please?
Update: I just got his answer: Hi, well wow, that list was made yages ago. I haven't actually think I have that VHS anymore. I'll have a look but I think I gave it away.
That's a bummer, triffid - here's hoping suntech can help us out!
By the way, to answer your question, I found my way here after hearing about the new Blade Runner transfer (via another forum) - Google brought me to the Blade Runner thread, and when I had a look around I found this one too! It was a good find for me, since 'Alien' is my main obsession - just happy to help others who are as keen as I am.
Actually I'm surprised that a better transfer of Evolution didn't exist before - I can't believe I was the only person in the UK to do a good quality recording, though I'm clearly the first to find you guys! Fingers crossed now for the other stuff we're waiting for...
klokwerk, I think the scores for the first two films are fairly easily available - Aliens has been released complete (I believe) on a 'deluxe edition' CD, and of course Alien already has two isolated scores on the original DVD release. Alien 3 only had the one CD release though - are your MP3s from some sort of extended version? I'd be very interested to hear about those if so - Elliot Goldenthal's music is perfectly suited to the film(s), and I'd have much preferred that he scored Resurrection too, rather than the quite generic music that John Frizzell composed. In my opinion
Ok the good news 1st. It is a master tape and it is about almost 20 years old. I recorded it from the broadcast. That's the good news. The bad news is that it is almost 20 years old, it is fragile. I recorded it at EP speed not planning to keep the tape but just to time shift. It's on Goldstar Brand (Now called LG) which was not known for Quality. Since it is from Broadcast (I did not have cable at the time) the picture is not Crystal Clear but compared to most of what I have seen around it is not bad. At least it is a master 1st gen copy. The other problem is the Audio. It was recorded on a VHS Hi Fi Deck but that deck is history. Today when I play that tape back in HiFi on the decks that I have, it will not track properly with out too much distortion. So I may only be able to dupe it in Mono. I have 6 vhs units and have tried it on 4. So Far none of the units I have will play the tape in HiFi with out distortion (A perfect example of why you should only record stuff in SP mode) . I have 1 more HiFi vcr to try before I give up a HiFi Dupe. I will try my other deck today. Let me know if you are still interested.
I'd say that's all pretty much goods news suntech ! The fact you've still got it and its first generation is a major step in the right direction. Let us know how your other deck goes. Mono would be better than nothing ! Many thanks for bringing your tech to this thread
I have had the same issue with EP recordings. I have a tape of an actual broadcast from an old show called Mad Movies where they change the audio of movies. It was Night of the Living Dead. And my copy looks a bit rough even though it is right from broadcast. My copy of Aliens CBS is probably the same. Have never checked it though.
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