ALIENS (1986) - 4K UHD BLU-RAY Review

[Music] with the abyss and True Lies only now getting a Blu-ray release alongside a 4K upgrade aliens has had no issues since its release back in 1986 with its home video options it's been available on pretty much every commercial video format and with it now finally hitting 4K Blu-ray fans of the franchise were pretty excited when the news hit the internet but again like the other back catalog titles in Cameron's filmography aliens has gone through that AI treatment to improve the picture but in reality the process of improving the picture has been a bit questionable and the new aliens transfer has raised a number of complaints aliens was a big hit back in 1986 produced for a tight budget back then $18 million recouping over $160 million at the box office and with it being aimed at adults with an R rating or say 18 in the UK it did amazing numbers the film would steer the franchise into the action genre thanks to James Cameron's story of a group of Marines joining Ripley to save the remaining people on LV 426 instead of battling one alien like the 1979 Masterpiece they were up against hundreds and these marines were armed with pulse rifles and smart guns making every action fan dribble with excitement seeing them shoot Sho down the xenomorph it expanded the alien Universe with audiences seeing For the First Time The Queen this change of pace really opened the doors for the franchise to take it in New Directions spawning endless amounts of spin-off media such as Comics toys and video games over the years in the early '90s James Cameron decided to extend the movie with his now preferred special edition cut restoring 20 minutes of material we get to see more of these citizens on Hadley's hope Ripley discovers her daughter had passed away of old age family discover the spacecraft and additional scenes extended throughout the movie this would hit VHS and Laser disk in 1991 as mentioned in my review of the Abyss Cameron had been tweaking the look of his movies since the days of laser disk and the fancy collector's edition box set which was released before THX started supervising transfers looked overly processed with some ghosting apparent due to the old ways of noise reduction and throughout it was very grainy though some scenes in the movie looked great for the time resulting in a inconsistent picture this set is prone to laser rot though the awesome Japanese edition is fine and dandy the theatrical cut would get released a few years later with the Dolby Digital 5.1 track and a THX approved picture which was a big Improvement and I would imagine this transfer would get used for the early DVD releases with the big success of the DVD format the Alien films would get released a number of times with the most popular set being the quadrilogy version from 2003 which had extended cuts of the movies loaded with extra material including the incredible documentaries by char D larica which are still the best coverage on the making of these movies with the arrival of Blu-ray Fox would recycle the DVD set and its truckload of special features but include new transfers of the four films in HD in 2010 and this is where aliens would take on a different look there was controversy surrounding the Blu-ray with its Chang in color the purple lighting design for inside Hadley's hope had been pretty much Zapped out the dark Blues would be lightened as a layer of teal to the color grade would be applied making it the dominant color of the film and there was talk of Cameron Dean noising the picture with the original grain being scrubbed out and an artificial layer of grain applied James Cameron commented about the new transfer and said it's spectacular we went in and completely denoised it deined it upred color corrected every frame and it looks amazing it looks better than it looked in theaters originally because it was shot on a high-speed negative that was a new negative that didn't pan out too well and got replaced the following year so it's pretty grainy we got rid of all the grain it's sharper and clearer and more beautiful than it's ever looked despite these changes if you go back and look at the old reviews everyone rated it highly despite those obvious changes in its photographic look you can see here from the examples from the original 35mm print which is pretty rough but gives you a good idea of how it looked then we have the THX laser disc the DVD the Blu-ray remaster and now the 4K with this new 4k Edition many have questioned if it is from a 4K master or in actual fact the original 2K master from 2010 and and just upscaled with HDR applied and there's new AI tools used by Park Road utilized across the transfer to again sharpen the image with the image scaled up to 4K and a reduction in any apparent noise which seems to be the case you could argue that back in 2010 they did do a 4K master and just down scouted it to 1080P and now I've gone back to the 4K source and applied these new tools but to be honest there isn't much of a leap in quality the old Blu-ray looks a tad better more apparent grain more detail in the face is visible the 4K version has some of the actor's faces looking too waxy in places despite the sharpness level boosted the HDR grade makes the 4K image too bright in areas it again looks too clean taking away that filmic look and coming across as if it was shot on digital cameras upscaling 2K Masters to 4K is very common on Blu-rays as a lot of movies are rendered out in 2K especially many modern ones as a lot of them are not shot natively in 4k and often 3.5k or less so the cost of rendering CGI heavy movies for example in 4k is very costly and more timec consuming so they often stick to 2K and the master is exported at that resolution so for its 4K release it's just upscaled with some handy tools used to increase the resolution without losing too much detail in regards to the sound they have taken the previous 5.1 mix which was mostly very front heavy not taking much advantage of the rear channels and upgraded it to Dolby Atmos there is an option on the theatrical cut for a 4.1 surround sound mix which was very welcome the previous 4K release of alien also had a 4.1 mix which is my preferred choice and Aliens also has a 2.0 stereo mix so a great variety of sound options available for those audio enthusiasts the extras from the old releases are ported over though not all of them but the ones that are most important I.E the documentary Superior Firepower which gives you everything you need to know on the film totaling over 3 hours long the only new extra feature is an interview with James Cameron lasting around 31 minutes as he explores the design of the film which details his experience seeing alien for the first time in 1979 and how he got the job on the sequel and started sketching out his ideas and Designs a great interview with Cameron which appears to have been shot back in 2016 as it uses Clips on the old Blu-ray for reference material with the abyss and True Lies being more recent with their interviews as they make use of clips from the 4K remasters if you already own the old Blu-ray it's not worth the up upgade to 4K honestly I was surprised by the many glowing reviews for this new remaster on the popular Blu-ray websites and even on YouTube I think the transfer from 2010 as highlighted earlier is better with its color balance and detail it's not so bright and clean as the 4K version and despite the shifting color from its original theatrical presentation to a more cold blue design it's far more consistent in quality compared to this apparent upscale so overall disappointing the AI tools applied are certainly not as aggressive as True Lies but they shouldn't have been appli applied in the first place it exhibits no real benefit to the picture making it appear more digital and less natural than the old version out of the three new remasters True Lies is the worst with aliens taking second place with the abyss on top so I'd certainly recommend people upgrade their old copies of the Abyss on DVD to 4K but I wouldn't bother with the other two only get aliens if you are a big fan and collector but watching it for the first time it didn't well me at all and left me underwhelmed watching Ridley Scott's alien on regular Blu-ray and then viewing the four K version it felt like a big leap in quality but with aliens I felt like I was watching the old Blu-ray with the brightness and sharpness turned up with noise reduction applied ultimately it didn't really appeal to me I love aliens and Own It multiple times on the various video formats possibly too many copies and with this probably being the last time it's released on a physical format it's a shame it's turned out like this aliens in my eyes should look a bit Rough and Ready it fits with the rich textured production design of twisted metal pipes and grated floors and the baron Wasteland of LV 426 that's why I'm more than happy to stick the old laser disc on from time to time alen should not have this clean and sterile look to everything oddly the laser dis and DVD are the closest to how it originally looked and even those versions with their colors were also tweaked back then but his HD and 4K versions are so radically different when you compare them to the original 35mm print scan but this is how James Cameron wants his film to look so you have to respect that but it's still annoying I would recommend you save your money and stick to the the old Blu-ray but if you are desperate to upgrade wait for it to drop in price but just remember it's not much of an improvement it's more of a step back in areas than a step forward in presentation hope you enjoyed the video don't forget to click the like button and hit the Bell to be notified of my latest reviews big thanks to my patrons and YouTube members for supporting the channel if you want to get involved and gain access to exclusive videos and take part in q&as follow the link below

Channel: Oliver Harper

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Keywords: aliens, aliens 1986, aliens 4k, aliens 4k clip, aliens 4k review, aliens 4k bluray, james cameron aliens, aliens special edition, oliver harper aliens, oliver harper retrospective

Id: Mi0w8nxy-bA

Length: 9min 51sec (591 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024