Alien Quadrilogy

Language purists might think that the most alien thing about this nine-disc DVD set is the newly coined word in the title; we’re guessing Fox Home Video didn’t trust its audience to know that four related dramatic works are properly called a tetralogy. But whatever you call it, Sigourney Weaver’s sci-fi quartet (see, there’s another perfectly good word they could have used) gets an almost ludicrously lavish repackaging. Each movie comes bursting with de rigueur extras—mostly behind-the-scenes and visual-effects featurettes. Anchoring the nine discs are two versions of each film—the original theatrical release and a directors’ cut. These are a bit of a mixed bag. The first Alien is a near-perfect chiller, and the 2003 recut by director Ridley Scott may even be leaner and meaner than his 1979 original; it’s actually a minute shorter. On the other hand, James Cameron’s Aliens, the second in the series, throws in a half-dozen flabby scenes that were cut out of the 1986 version for a good reason. As far as the progressively worse Alien3 and Alien Resurrection, we’ll just say that while each had plenty of good moments, watching a new cut that’s even longer is only going to suck away eight to thirty minutes of our lives that we could have spent doing something else. Like spellchecking DVD box sets.