Alien: The Film

Obviously I forgot to mention that actual movie itself; instead, I focued lightly on its technical merits and comparisons to high definition. Alien is a fantastic film. It's one of those movies that makes you appreciate cinema, and for those lucky few, you have heard me mention that before. Sometimes you can just walk away from a movie and you have gained reassurance that not everything that comes out is crap anymore.

For these older movies, it's a slightly different feeling. It reminds you of how good cinema was, and lets you hope that more good movies can come out. Alien is full of great scenes and great acting. A great story to tie it all together with some timeless special effects and you have yourself a masterpiece.

Do you need to be reminded of the scenes? The Alien-busts-out-of-the-guys-stomach scene? Brilliant. Just how horrifying would it be to witness such a thing in real life? And to top it all off, and the height of your disbelief, the alien scurries off with such speed that you just can't help but be in awe of, and then immediately terrified as you now know this thing may be difficult to catch. Unfortunately the scene almost finishes out comically, as I had a smile on my face as the alien raced off. I'm willing to chalk it up to greatness though: the scene was so perfect I couldnt' help but smile.

Other great scenes of course include the cyborg freaking out, and the fact that it is a young Ian Holm doing the freaking. The discovery of the eggs: brilliant. The Alien sleeping: beautiful. Making flame-throwers in minutes: great. And of course being trapped in the air ducts with the unholy beast is just classic.

The special effects are notable too, as they don't seem to have aged poorly at all. Thanks to the use of animatronics, miniatures and beautiful sets, the effects are seamless and we don't suffer from any real terrible green/blue screen effects. Non of this CG crap that can be horribly distracting just a few years after release; this movie has pure class.

When it all comes together it's easy to see why this would spawn so many sequels, paradies and homages throughout pop culture. The second movies, Aliens, stands on its own and creates a genre on its own, and makes it easy to forget the original and how different it was. More horror, shock, and awe. In a time where monster movies will throw in as many nasty creatures as possible, you have to remember that it's not necessary: Alien is not plural for a reason.

Alien

If the last thing I wrote about was Tiger Woods '08 golf, then we have a lot to catch up on in the video game world. Since then I've purchased and been thoroughly playing PGR4, Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero III, not to mention a PS3 thrown into the mix. But you can hear about that later. Last night, I watched Alien, and it was great experience.

The first time I saw Alien was most likely the only time. It had to be at least ten years ago. When the special collector's editions of the movies arrived on DVD I quickly nabbed Alien and Aliens, recognizing that they are great films. Of course, Aliens received a lot more spins, and honestly, I don't think I ever put the DVD of Alien in once. Last night was the first.

I was nervous because it is a standard-def DVD and I have since moved on to high definition. I have a modest collection of HD movies now and have been letting the DVDs collect dust, or have been selling them off. But the good films, and nice special editions I have kept. With nothing in the HD world of interest, it was time to check out the PS3's ability to upconvert and play a DVD on my hi-def TV.

And I was impressed. I haven't really watched a movie upconverted (aside from those odd HD movie channel showings) so I wasn't expecting much. But I was really impressed with the film-like nature of the presentation; while the level of detail was somewhat lacking, there was no artifacting or other visual distractions that often plague DVDs when blown up to fifty inches.

The biggest thing I notice while watching high definition movies is the "film-like" smoothness of the image; I don't get the same feeling when watching a DVD on a standard def television, so it was suprising that I was getting the feeling while watching Alien that I do other HD movies.

In any event, I really believe that the quality of the film was also due in majority to the transfer and the effort that went into the DVD. These movies have always looked good on DVD, so it shouldn't be a big surprise that they would continue to look good. I guess my expections for DVD have just been lowered too much, and my eyes spoiled by HD. I look forward to spinning a few more movies on DVD, and who knows, maybe I'll just start renting DVDs again for the movies that are not available in HD yet.