ALIEN: The Archive (Mark Salisbury, September 2, 2014)

[Corporal Hicks]

My copy arrived at the end of last week. I've read up until the end of Alien 3 so far. By and large there's not much we didn't already know - which I think is going to be the case - but it's an attractive book. It's nice to have all four films together in one book but I just feel like there's much more they could fit in here. I still think we need proper in-depth books for the individual films.

I've seen a couple of nuggets I hadn't seen before such as the Derelict model in Aliens wasn't actually the original. How I'd thought it was the one from Bob Burns collection but this book is claiming it was an original model built based off Giger's old designs. I'm pretty sure this is wrong...?

Archive also talked about Fincher having an epic story idea for Alien 3 including lots of Aliens. I hadn't seen that before.

Some of the concept art for Ward's version I hadn't seen before which was nice as it's Alien 3 I'm always interested to see more of.

Some errors are starting to bug me though - general spelling errors, Dylan instead of Dillion, things like that.

[HuDaFuK]

Some errors are starting to bug me though - general spelling errors, Dylan instead of Dillion, things like that.

The Resurrection section seems to be the worst offender. Clearly someone thought the third and fourth films were actually one and the same because there are three or four pics from Alien 3 erroneously mixed up in there.

[Quarax]

These sold out super fast. The Sigourney one was in stock just a few hours ago for £150.00. I wonder if the one I linked a while ago was just an unsigned version.

http://titanexclusives.myshopify.com/products/ridley-scott-alien-the-archive-the-ultimate-guide-to-the-classic-movies-limited-signed-edition
http://titanexclusives.myshopify.com/products/sigourney-weaver-alien-the-archive-the-ultimate-guide-to-the-classic-movies-limited-signed-edition

[Corporal Hicks]

The Siggy one held on for quite a few days actually. I love the new covers. But I don't care enough to spend that much money for a signature on a book I've already got.

[Corporal Hicks]

I finally finished this book the other night and read the Alien Resurrection section. A few errors in here which I've passed along. But I oddly enjoyed reading it. I hadn't been in a rush to read the last section because well...Resurrection. However, I found myself enjoying it and getting along with the information. Of all of the films AR is probably the way I retain the least information of but I'm very tempted to rewatch the special features on the Anthology now.

It does feel like Mark Salisbury put less effort into this section though - only a page looking at the design for the Alien, the errors. Felt very phoned in.

Over all, I enjoyed the book. It was nothing ground breaking, nothing that you couldn't get from Charles' wonderful documentaries. But if you'd rather have read than watched, then there's nothing wrong with the book. It's certainly an attractive package but nothing worth bending over for.

[HuDaFuK]

Of all of the films AR is probably the way I retain the least information of but I'm very tempted to rewatch the special features on the Anthology now.

I actually enjoyed the AR features virtually as much as those for the other films, even though the movie itself isn't anything like as good. Sylvain Despretz in particular gives some interesting commentary. He certainly doesn't hide the fact that he dislikes how devolved the original Alien creature design had become by that point. I think one of the Enhancement Pods is just him talking about how shit the Resurrection Aliens were compared to the preceding ones (although he puts it slightly more eloquently than that )

[Corporal Hicks]

I very rarely watch anything to do with it. It's just my bias coming through but I'm going to give the features a go soon. The book was really interesting and it was strange seeing Pierre say just how much control he had over the film and yet, whilst I love his films I dislike how this one turned up. Makes me curious to go back and see just how it was made.