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Jonno

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3-Feb-2006
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25-Jun-2025
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868

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Post
#187754
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/187754/action/topic#187754
Time
Just sent you a PM, tb1971

Triffid seems to have Giger’s Alien and Making of Alien 3 well in hand – I’ll leave him to continue his exchange with you, 8t88, here’s hoping we can end up with a better version of GA.

We now seem to have two leads on a better Aliens: James Cameron… doc. Fingers crossed.

Dead End, huh? Well, I was never crazy about this – it’s not so much a fan film as a large-budget showreel, made by a guy with impressive connections and resources. But if folks want it on the set, we can certainly find room for it…

By the way, I just received a copy of Alien Redux from RIJIR (thanks, buddy!) and had a quick look. It’s not so great technically (non-anamorphic widescreen, stereo MPEG audio ) but it IS very well researched and compiled – I’ll look at it properly tonight to make a proper judgement, but a 145 minute cut of Alien has to be interesting, at the very least!
Post
#187421
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/187421/action/topic#187421
Time
I’m just trying to pin down a running order for the discs – I’m working on the principle that we’ll sequence the elements in film order, unless PAL/NTSC differences force them to separate. A few questions need answering before this can be fully decided:


Giger’s Alien – has anyone seen 8t88’s version yet? PAL or NTSC? Does it offer an improvement over the current versions? If not, I don’t think it’s realistic to hope for a better copy to come along any time soon… the existing transfers, for all their faults, are at least complete and watchable.

Shock & Awe – The ‘Archives’ version still seems the one to use, unless tb1971 can provide an improved version. By the way, triffid, the format on the Archives disc seems to be 14:9 – in the UK, analogue TV broadcasts of widescreen material often use this unfortunate ‘compromise’ format (out of consideration for people with 4:3 TVs). I wish I’d taped it myself, but somehow I missed it at the time…

Aliens: James Cameron Director & Work – Are we still on the Archives version for this?

Aliens: Saturday Night Live – Has tb1971 passed this on to anyone yet? Is it PAL or NTSC?

Making of Alien 3 (UK) – Unless someone wants to go to the extra effort to obtain/transfer this, I think the archives version is ok. Sadly I no longer have my Facehugger tapes, otherwise I would have just gone ahead and done this myself…

Making of Alien Resurrection (Brad Dourif version) – triffid, have you found a version that you like for this? PAL or NTSC?

Alien War / Aliens: Ride at the speed of fright material – as before, has tb1971 passed this on to anyone yet? PAL or NTSC?


Phew. Apologies if I’ve missed anything – do point out anything that is still undecided (PMs are going out to a couple of people on specific subjects).
Post
#185876
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/185876/action/topic#185876
Time
Originally posted by: Ash595
Originally posted by: Jonno
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.



Any news on the Font ?


Oops - sorry I tried to PM you but my PC crashed, and I forgot to try again! Could you PM me your email? I'll shoot something over to you. You're looking for something that matches the word 'Evolution' in the title sequence? The font I have in mind isn't perfect I'm afraid, but it IS very nice - see what you think!

Thanks for the trailers, by the way - they're excellent. Do you mind divulging the source of the Alien DC trailer and featurette? Are they ripped from a DVD?


triffid - wow, good work with the list. The things to discuss now seem to be availability of particular elements - how long should we spend trying to track down the best possible versions? - and sequencing. Ideally we should order the extras film by film, but I feel strongly about separating PAL and NTSC material (rather than converting some of it to create a single format across all the discs).

By the way, I DON'T rate AvP as an Alien film - heck, I don't even think much of Resurrection, but I'm not going to let that get in the way here (individual opinions can easily mess up projects like this, so let's keep something in if there's any doubt!)

One thing I'm not sure of - was there really an AFI DVD on Ridley Scott? Can't seem to find reference to it anywhere...

Post
#185520
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/185520/action/topic#185520
Time
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
Post
#184132
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/184132/action/topic#184132
Time
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 )

Let me know either here or by PM.
Post
#182786
Topic
Info Wanted: Any PLANET OF THE APES preservationists here?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/182786/action/topic#182786
Time

Reading about the new Apes boxset due for release in a couple of months (details here: http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/planet-of-the-apes5.html), it occurred to me that I’ve never seen any additional footage or other rarities other than that included in the official DVDs.

This new set doesn’t appear to add much new over previous releases - just the longer cut of ‘Battle’ and the animated ‘Return to the POTA’.

I remember letters pages from the Adventure comic series in the early 90s, that mentioned bootleg tapes of old featurettes, trailers, outtakes etc. Has all of this stuff now found its way into official discs (like the 2-disc Behind the POTA from Image), or is there still more material to be hunted down?

Post
#182719
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/182719/action/topic#182719
Time
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?
Post
#180946
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/180946/action/topic#180946
Time
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?
Post
#180427
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/180427/action/topic#180427
Time
By the way, has anyone ever attempted a reconstructed Alien? Most of the deleted scenes on Quad disc 2 are 16:9 and 5.1 transfers, since they were originally intended for inclusion in the director's cut. Scott decided against the longer version in the end, but they could certainly be re-incorporated - in fact, there's plenty more bits and pieces that could be cut back in (though with quite a variation in quality - some of the deleted scenes are non-anamorphic, while those included in the laserdisc section are letterboxed 4:3 windowboxed in 16:9! )
Post
#180350
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/180350/action/topic#180350
Time
Update for triffid: I found the original DV tape on which I recorded Alien Evolution, so a new 4.7GB compression is perfectly possible. Any other suggestions (e.g. audio bitrate) before I go ahead and do that?

Regarding trailers (for Alien, at least), the Quadrilogy has complete sets, but for some reason the trailers that were previously included on the laserdiscs (and the PAL VHS tapes I had!) haven't been duplicated (or even re-linked) in the main trailers section - you have to go into the laserdisc archives for these (such as teaser 2 without the movie footage). They are all fullscreen, so it sounds as if the additional Galaxy and Beyond versions would make an important contribution if some of those are widescreen.

Of course, there are also 30- and 10-second TV versions but these are also included in the Quad.

Ok, I'm going to look through everything that's been mentioned here and try to draw up a contents list for my compilation discs - I will of course only be looking for materials not commonly available, with the possible exception of the Galaxy and Beyond trailers.
Post
#177919
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/177919/action/topic#177919
Time
Triffid: Yes, my copy of Evolution is pretty much a first gen recording. I don't have the disc with me here so I can't check the individual file size, but I do recall setting the compression to max out the DVD-R, factoring in perhaps 10-15 mins of trailers and interviews. So we're looking at a likely average rate of 6.5 Mbit/s as opposed to 8 Mbit/s (and I'd normally avoid setting the average so high anyway - might just be our local players, but they can often choke on too high a bitrate from a DVD-R).
There's a TINY chance I might still have the original tape, but it will be quite some time before I can check that for you, sorry!

I like the idea of making a better Giger's Alien transfer. A guy on the Home Theater Forums would frequently mention GA in the run up to the Quadrilogy's release... the hope was that it would be included in its entirety, he even offered Fox the use of his LD to master it! Needless to say, that didn't happen (though I think they use several clips in the disc 2 documentaries).

Ash595: I'm certainly interested in those trailers - will contact you via PM shortly.

digitalfreaknyc: Happy to make your acquaintance - I'm enjoying your Blade Runner enormously! I do have my own copy of In The Teeth of Jaws actually - taped in 1998 (probably on a mono VCR, I'm afraid) and transfered a bit more recently. No idea how it will compare to other versions, but you're welcome to a copy - will speak to you via PM once I've checked it's worthwhile.

klokwerk: Sounds like there's some stuff on those discs not found elsewhere (I never saw the Danny Boyle doc, for one thing!) Will be speaking to you too...

Ok, I'm going to be out of contact for a few days but if anyone wants to request (or offer) anything, feel free to PM and I'll get back to you asap. Cheers!
Post
#177653
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/177653/action/topic#177653
Time
Hi folks, sorry to have been slow with the replies - net access is a bit intermittent at present...

Ok, here's a bit more about what I've got:

Alien Evolution:
This is my own transfer from a digital UK broadcast (I'm in the UK, in case that wasn't clear!) It was initially taped onto PAL DV as a 4:3 recording of the receiver's 16:9 output - squeezed, in other words. I subsequently encoded this and authored a simple DVD-R with some other odds and ends (it was early 2003 IIRC, and I wanted to backup some of the laserdisc stuff which of course ended up in the Quad set anyway).
I'd rate the picture and sound 8 (bearing in mind the digital broadcast origin, which doesn't always equate high quality!)
The 4:3 squeezed image resizes itself just fine on my widescreen set, and if a 16:9 flag could be added to the main video stream it would play as 16:9 anywhere (including PCs) - I just haven't really had a reason to re-author the disc as yet.

Giger's Alien:
This is an Ebay job - a DVD-R containing both Giger's Alien and Giger's Necronomicon. It's a 'DVD_VIDEO_RECORDER' volume, so I'm guessing the seller just plugged his Japanese lasers into the DVD recorder to achieve this (it's NTSC with Japanese subs of course).
I don't have the disc to hand right now, but from memory it's a serviceable picture - maybe a 5 or 6.
A short while ago I used Womble to isolate Giger's Alien as a separate stream... my plan was to combine both these programs on one disc but the PAL/NTSC difference would mean converting one of them, which I wasn't too happy about. Anyway, I can supply the Alien bit on its own if required.

I think the most satisfying solution would be to distill two discs from the available materials - one PAL, one NTSC (I also have an 'Alien' section from a BBC Scott documentary, broadcast in about 1992 - would fit on the Evolution disc nicely). If the owners of other elements are willing to supply them, I could put these together and distribute (or pass on masters for torrenting)? Just a thought.
Post
#176860
Topic
Idea & Info: a Preservation of Alien Evolution doco?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/176860/action/topic#176860
Time
Hello chaps!

I think I might be able to help out with one or two items mentioned here. I have copies of:

Alien Evolution (16x9 PAL from UK broadcast)
Alien Legacy (PAL)
Also the original 1979 'Giger's Alien' documentary (about 25 mins long)

I'm not into the whole torrent thing, but I'm happy to do trades by mail - does anyone have the Alien Saga stuff available?