While still unconfirmed at this point, it appears Ridley Scott’s Alien will finally be released in 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray on April 26th 2019 – Alien Day. Czech retailer FilmArena has posted numerous listings for various Alien 4K editions, to be released at the end of April 2019.
FilmArena have been pretty accurate so far as they tend to get word from the movie studios when films are released in 4K as they create exclusive steelbook versions etc.
What else is special about 2019? It’s none other than Alien’s 40th Anniversary in May so all signs are pointing to Alien Day for its official 4K release. Other Alien 4K listings include Lenticular, 3D, Steelbook versions and an “Alien Maniacs” Collector’s Box including all the different versions of it. You can see the various artwork below – bear in mind it’s subject to change for other regions.
Alien 4K Artwork
No other details about the sets are known but I expect it will be something special. The makers put in a huge amount of work remastering the film when they brought it to 1080p Blu-Ray in 2010. Alien is still one of best transfers out there. Maybe too good as the jump to 4K might not be as beneficial as say, James Cameron’s Aliens. Considering how much darkness there is in Alien, it will still benefit from HDR grading to get even darker blacks.
Alien 4K Steelbook Version (Front)
Alien 4K Steelbook Version (Back)
As for the other films – Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection, there is still no word on those coming to 4K any time soon. They did an amazing job at creating the Quadrilogy and the Anthology sets so I do wonder if they’ll go back through the archives and create even more brand new featurettes. I’ll guess we’ll have to wait and see what 20th Century Fox announce.
"Alien is the first movie of one of the most popular sagas in science fiction history,
and introduces Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the iron-willed woman destined to battle the galaxy's ultimate creature.
The terror begin when the crew of the spaceship Nostromo investigates a transmission from a desolate planet
and makes a horrifying discovery - a life form that breeds within a human host.
Now the crew must fight now only for its survival, but for the survival of all mankind."
Release date is April 1st.
It might well be.
https://media.giphy.com/media/UU40dom8T8yAg/giphy.gif
Wonder what colours we'll be getting in the machine shop room with this restore? I still think Alien's Blu-ray transfer is phenomenal but I'm curious to see how much better it can get. Very tempted to upgrade everything to 4K soon.
For example as good as it was, there was still a bit of black crush (very important for a film like this) going on with the blu-ray version. Most people probably don't even remember HD VHS because it lasted all of five minutes, but being on tape it had less compression and there was more shadow information than the blu. I'm sure you can find it out there if you're interested.
I'm sure they did put in a lot of work but it suffered a touch in the final transfer or encode.
Ha, I was wondering why the grammar and spelling was so flawless!
Yeah, it kinda jumps out at you. I just thought it was a placeholder.
#FakeQuotes
I didn't post the news. It certainly is, though.
Or they could just get me on editing and you'd all get the best cut.
The image they're using on that cover is actually a crop from one of Alien: Isolation's promotional images:
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/gallery/albums/games/aisolation/promo/promo008_Amanda_Ripley.jpg
Perhaps one day they'll release a version of Alien 3 that gives viewers the ability to choose their preferred scenes from both versions and combine them into a viewer preferred cut.
it'll probably be exactly the same colour timing etc in 4K.
He could surprise us and release a wax sculpture mess with digital transformations.
(Judgment Day 4K)
A3 is anyone's guess, I'd want a new intermediate cut with fixed compositing.
(More on the side of the Assembly Cut, trim some of the fat.)
Keep AC opening, Ox, "Raise his servants to redemption." , Golic releasing the beast;
& remove the egg shot.
More complex than that obviously, but that's the basics of it.