Ridley Scott's 'Alien' Will Finally be Released in 4K HDR For Its 40th Anniversary (arstechnica.com)
The long wait is over for sci-fi and horror film buffs: the 1979 classic "Alien" will be released in 4K and HDR for the film's 40th anniversary. The remaster will be available on an UltraHD Blu-ray disc. From a report: 20th Century Fox and partners embarked on an effort to remaster the film in 4K last year, under supervision by Pam Dery and Director Ridley Scott. "Alien" was originally shot on 35mm film, and the remaster was made using the original negative. Remastering older films for the UltraHD era has sometimes proven challenging for studios. In many cases, original film masters have degraded, and 4K on a 65-inch TV is adept at revealing graininess and other flaws that result from aged or damaged film.
What is 35mm film really equivalent to when it comes to 4K, 1080, etc? Can the film pick up the detail to translate to HD?
Now the special effects and and rubber alien suit will be very obvious.
But I wonder why its soundtrack will only be remastered in 4.1, instead of 5.1 for the 2003 revision?
Not sure what can be gained here, the first one wasn't that high in action.
ALIENS however should look AWESOME in High Def!
Alien Queen VS Mech Suit!
Tough call. Back in the day the ability for "insecure basement-dwelling neckbeard trolls" to actually communicate with each other was pretty limited, mainly to local newspapers and maybe science fiction/fantasy magazines or perhaps one of the horror magazines or movie magazines. And of course they had editors and limited space for letters.
As someone who saw it when it came out in theaters on post when I was in Germany, having a woman as the strong female lead wasn't even in consideration. It was just a fscking cool movie.
I will say though, that I don't believe (in my limited and young experience at the time) that there weren't any older TV shows or Movies that were being remade back in the 70's where the original lead was male and the remake had the lead as female like Ghostbusters or Carol Danvers. I do recall when Tony Stark in the Iron Man comics was replaced by a black guy and at least in my circle of friends and in the comics letter pages, no one said a thing about it.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Anybody got the 120" TV that will make that 4k worth anything?
It's like we're gearing up for Ray Bradbury's telewalls. I don't want one. Does anyone? Is that a spider drone at my front door? Excuse me while I... LOST CARRIER
I wonder if back then the '70s version of today's insecure basement-dwelling neckbeard trolls were all complaining about a strong female lead, the way they do today about Rey, Carol Danvers et al.
It was so rare that there was not really a reaction -- just a strange detail in already very unusual movie.
Keep in mind that even in the late 80s, Star Trek: The Next Generation, as proto-PC as it was, treated strong women as a bit of an anomaly. Yes, they had Yar, but she was a bit of a weirdo from a psychotically violent planet, thus easily explained away as a bizarre outlier that did not matter to the civilized world. Either Crusher and Troi, as Starfleet officers, could easily have had some very modest degree of martial arts competence, yet they basically fell into the standard helpless female role when it came to fisticuffs.
The first true strong action hero female was Linda Hamilton's jaw-dropping performance as Sara Connor in Terminator 2, released in 1991. Arguably, the character Connor was riding the edge of sanity. And ripped. And hawt. And I am sure the neckbeards found some way to approve of that.
Just what we need. 4K of Harry Dean Stanton standing there in closeup, greasy and sweaty, as the water drips on his face, or Penny's sister blubbering uncontrollably.
They better not "touch up" certain parts of someone's anatomy though.
Anything else?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
As someone who saw it when it came out in theaters on post when I was in Germany, having a woman as the strong female lead wasn't even in consideration. It was just a fscking cool movie.
One of the strangest issues today is the so called "Strong Female Lead". Hollywood brays as if women were not even in films before, and this is some sort of great liberation over evil "white males". I wouldn't have even put that in there, but anyone thinking otherwise needs to research Brie Larson, the racist and sexist female lead in the new Captain Marvel movie.
If you actually have a strong female lead, you don't have to tell people she's a strong female lead. They can tell by watching the movie. Ripley kicked ass, and you cared about what happened to her. Sarah Conners in the first couple Terminators. Gal Gadot was good in WW, even if feminists were enraged that she shaved her armpits. https://www.maxim.com/entertai... Disclaimer - I do like Linda Carter WW better, but no problem if others differ.
It is high time that Hollywood stop acting like they are embracing racism and sexism. Just because the object of your hatred and vilification is white males, one does not eliminate racism and sexism by becoming a racist and a sexist. And a stronf female lead isn't whining, and inserting your political views into the movie.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Alien: engineers could have been good. Unfortunately, we got Prometheus.
...Newt shoots first.
The idea that the computer/sci-fi nerd type guys had or have any issue with strong female leads in principle is just SJW hysteria. The film and/or marketing having a very specific agenda, and/or the film being legitimately terrible, is what causes the backlash against some films. There's a long list of other movies besides the ones you mentioned that have strong female leads and lack the "omg all these sexist fragile men with their toxic masculinity just hate these strong womyn taking their place!!!" bullshit. Even recently: the reaction to Rogue One and its female lead, and Last Jedi and its female lead, were absolutely nothing alike. Because there was one fairly decent Star Wars movie without a ton of 'this is a social justice achievement!' talk, and one pretty poor excuse for one, which also involved people making it clear that if that's how you felt, it was because you were a sexist and racist white man, and white men are terrible; from the Twitter mob up through Kathleen Kennedy.
The permanently-offended social justice mobs can't tell the difference between when the criticism is 90% 'this movie is bad and promoting your obnoxious ultra-PC agenda made it worse' for some movies, but actually just limited to a few alt-right trolls who really are misogynists writing sexist screeds with other movies, and 90% really enjoyed it. All the same to them. Oh you don't like Last Jedi? Sexist! You only think Black Panther is 'good' instead of 'the biggest cultural moment evar!!!eleventy!'? Racist! Actual reasons for the opinion are irrelevant, something made abundantly clear.
Oh you don't like Last Jedi? Sexist! You only think Black Panther is 'good' instead of 'the biggest cultural moment evar!!!eleventy!'? Racist! Actual reasons for the opinion are irrelevant, something made abundantly clear.
I, for one, never make assumptions for merely disliking or liking any movie.
But I have seen enough "actual reasons" provided to know with certainty there are quite a few sexists and racists, and then a huge bunch of fellow travelers who enthusiastically agree and are too cowardly to name a reason why.
Walk like a duck. Talk like a duck. Consequences.
If ever someone asks me "what is Slashdot? How do I get started?" I will send them to this thread to get them caught up with the most important topics.
I like how you call her Ellen Degenerates. That's very classy.
Either Crusher and Troi, as Starfleet officers, could easily have had some very modest degree of martial arts competence, yet they basically fell into the standard helpless female role when it came to fisticuffs.
It's been decades, and I remember Troi being fairly useless (even as an empath!), but I have vague memories of Crusher having a couple ass-kicking moments. Tasha Yar was strong, Ensign Ro as well, but there was a gap of about 5 seasons between the two of them. Then again, I seem to recall Wesley and LaForge being pretty useless in any (non-phaser-related) fight. Worf and Riker were the action guys, and Picard sometimes got in some licks since he's the lead.
The first true strong action hero female was Linda Hamilton's jaw-dropping performance as Sara Connor in Terminator 2,
Linda Hamilton was pretty amazing in that film, no doubt. She was the real Terminator.
But I will certainly give first props to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in Aliens(1986). Towards the end of that movie, she is basically a more believable Rambo and a woman whose maternal instincts lead to her physical strengths, not her anti-masculine weakness.
... from old 35mm and 70mm analog film to state from experience that even if this remaster is done with lots of effort from the original negative, it will not reveal any details you could not see on a 1080p remaster.
Even the better examples like the 35mm "Rambo First Blood" or the 70mm "2001 - A space Odyssey" remasters do not get anywhere near a modern digital 4k camera recording.
You wouldn't. Obviously.
This is information for people who are interested - collectors, fans of the franchise, sci-fi and horror fans with high end home cinema systems etc. Casual movie fans are not the target audience of a special edition.