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After discovering fan edits about 6 years ago and being an occaisonal lurker on these forums, I've finally decided to pluck up the courage and make one of my own. Obviously only a complete idiot would start off with an edit of their favourite film involving a number of changes relying on complex visual effects that they have no experience with at all? Right? Ladys and genetlemen, I am that idiot.
Aliens is probably my favourite film, I've been completely in love with it and the franchise as a whole since seeing it as an 11 year old. Watching it on VHS it was totally immersive. But as release formats have improved, screens have got bigger and I've devoured every bit of behind the scenes info that I can, there a few cracks around the edges that threaten to take me out of the experience at times. As a result and inspired by the likes of Adywan's Star Wars Revisited and Krausfader's Terminator Enhanced, I've decided to do a polish of a few scenes of this phenomenal film.
My plan is to use the Blu-ray from 2010 as my main source, fixing goofs and trying to improve those special effects that haven't aged as gracefully.
I'll also be doing a bit of a colour regrade. For its Blu-ray release the colour palette was (somewhat infamously) completely changed as James Cameron is fond of doing. A lot of these changes I don't mind however the effect on skin tones etc show where this taken too far.
A fan editor by the name of Yaht did an edit incorporating footage from an HD broadcast to create an open matte version of the film with a subtle regrade that maintained the new palette overall but reigned in some of the most excessive teal for a really nice final result. I'll likely use this as a guide for my regrade rather than trying to emulate older releases which were more faithful to the theatrical release.
I plan to release 2 versions of the edit. While both will incorporate the technical fixes and the regrade, one will otherwise be (basically) frame for frame the special edition. The other will be what I will call the Less Hope edition.
This will remove the scene of the Jordans discovering the derelict but maintain the scene where the Hadleys Hope administrators discuss Burkes orders. I like the extra world building of seeing the colony as a bustling place and think it makes it subsequent fall even more tragic while maintaining some of the mystery that the Special Edition lacked. The pan down to and focus on the Weyland Yutani crate ('building better worlds') I feel provides a perfectly acceptable point to cut back to Ripley on Gateway Station.
I plan to remove Hudsons 'knives and sharp sticks' speech on the drop ship. Bill Paxton generally did a fantastic job with his over the top performance as Hudson but this scene just goes a bit too far in my opinion. We've already established Hudsons character and the general over confidence of the marines on the sulaco. This scene is redundant in terms of character bulding, is a bit annoying, over does the cheering oafishness of the marines and also includes a visual goof where Hicks changes from being awake to asleep and back again which would be very tricky to cut around.
Other than that, I'll likely tighten up the scenes where the marines first explore the colony as some of the extra special edition footage negatively affects the pace.
Planned technical fixes:
Remove the scratches on the table during the knife trick scene. This was already significantly improved for the Blu-ray release but I plan to remove the scratches entirely in order to maintain continuity. I believe that in the future they have table tops strong enough to resist metal knives.
Fix the speeded up footage employed during the knife trick. Most of the cast did a great of staying still but Al Matthews (Apone) clearly didnt get the message and ends up thrashing his head around wildly during part of the sequence. This was a pain to fix. Its only 22 frames long but involved removing Apone from each frame. I took a section of 6 frames where he's a bit more still and used DaVinci Resolves interporlation feature to slow this down by a factor of 4 and then cut these franes back in. It was a pain because of how much Bishops arm moves during the sequence so there are shots where more of Apones face should be visible than was available in the shots that I was cutting in but I think I've made it work. And its less than a second long anyway.
Going to try and improve the transition of the matte painting to the live action photography during the pan in the hanger bay, mainly by colour correcting the 2 different elements to improve continuity.
As Spunkmeyer is loading missiles into the drop ship with the power loader a section of wooden rafters of the incomplete roof of the set is visible in the upper left corner so I'll insert a set extension to hide this.
The composite shots of the sulaco are great, the drop ship ones not so much. Don't get me wrong, the shots of the dropship where its filmed against a minature hold up brilliantly, it's just when compositing was used. To that end, I'll be tweaking all of the composited dropship shots to try and reduce matte lines, improve colour matching and black levels to help the shots of the ship look a bit more integrated with the background.
The mission time read outs on the marines helmet cams are all over the place. I'm planning to edit these for continuity but I'll be honest there's loads of them and the variable static/interference might make this just too much of a pain in the arse. I'll see how I get on. Might just get AI to do it for me in 10 years time.
Similarly there is a 'J' missing from Vasquez's helmet cam footage as they enter the hive.
When Ripley is driving the APC after getting the marines out of the hive theres a reverse shot as shes about to drive over a xenomorph. As it would have looked ridiculous played backwards, this is the only shot which doesn't have any fire on the side of the APC. I've been experimenting with trying to comp some fire in but the fog in this scene is making it particularly tricky to make this look convincing. I'll keep plugging away at it.
In the next shot the window of the APC which was just smashed by an alien has magically repaired itself. I've comped in some broken glass.
When Gorman gets knocked unconscious the actor falls over with his eyes open, almost deliberately looking. I'll try and close them for him.
During the scene where the drop ship crashes there's a very obvious distinction between the live action foreground elements and the rear projected crash footage. The colour correction for the blu ray makes the issue even worse. I've rotoscoped out the foreground element and am colour correcting the background to imprive integration and punch up the explosion
The sentry gun scenes have a few issues. Guns C and D shouldn't have 500 rounds at the start of the scene due to the test firing done when they were being set up - I'll change the initial read out to 490 and adjust subsequent footage to match.
There are numerous recycled shots of exploding aliens from the hive scene cut into this sequence. It kind of works if it's your first time seeing it but is very distracting once you're familiar with the film. I'll look at ways to maybe alter the background or flip the shots or something to make the recycling of footage less obvious/incongruous
When Hudson shoots out the window to the med bay during the facehugger scene, I'll remove the visibly ejecting cartridges. The ammo for the pulse rifles is specifically said to be caseless.
When the facehugger jumps on Ripley in the med bay theres a fantastic shot combining different pieces of footage to create the effect. While all the furniture position stays consistent, the lighting changes between the shots. This had already been massively improved for the Blu-ray release but I've tidied up the shots a bit more to eliminate some remaining inconsistencies.
While escaping in the ducts and Vasquez is firing her pulse rifle, the confined space makes the ejecting casings particularly obvious so I'll edit these out.
When the alien rises out of the water behind Newt you can see the wires that lift the tail - I'll get rid of these.
After Ripley exits the colony with an injured Hicks and they meet up again with the Bishop the scene is really out of focus - presumably a production issue. I've played around with the trial version of AVC labs video enhancer which does improve the shot a bit. I'll be honest i dont really want to spend £200 on some software for 1 10 second shot so I'd be grateful if someone could maybe help me out with this one!
Improve the compositing as the dropship flies towards the atmospheric processor.
When Ripley has finished tooling up as is about to get lift out of the lift the pulse rifle shows 42 (the same prop was used as in the scene where Hicks teaches Ripley how to use the pulse rifle - the reduced ammo count makes more sense in that shot) rather than 95 so I've corrected this.
At some points while searching for Newt the pilot light on her flamethrower goes out and then instantly reignites for the following scene. I'm planning to comp in a flame element here.
During the scene in the queens chamber there are random elements of damage to the image and visible explosive charges in the model of the egg sac as it blows up, I'll sort these out.
At one point, the front part of the queen puppet has slipped exposing the metal substructure so I'll hide that. In the same shot the queens head has gaps so you can see the bright white background through it - I'll fill these in.
There's quite a bit of rear projection in this sequence. The heavy grain and lack of detail in these elements is a bit distracting so I'll try and improve this.
When the alien warrior jumps along the corridor (God this is a great shot) the wires are clearly visible but have been easy enough to edit out.
Once Ripley and Newt have gone up the lift and are on the platform there are again some rear projection scenes which stand out. There's a shot zooming in on them which is particularly off putting. I'm not sure if its the altered paralax or the lack of smoke compared to the other scenes but I'll try and tweak this.
The shot of the dropship rising up behind them is a moment of relief/triumph undermined by the rear projection again so will tweak brightness/contrast of the dropship to improve integration and make the scene look less flat.
Tweak the conpositing as the dropship flies away from the exploding facility.
Remove the wire visibly pulling out the tail from Bishop's chest.
Remove any wires visible during the power loader/queen fight.
When the power loader falls into the air lock theres an insert shot showing the light on top of it smashing before it magically repairs itself by the next shot. I'm tempted to just cut this shot as the other footage suggests the power loader just falls straight into the air lock without hitting the side anyway and trying to digitally disguise the light breaking in this shot will be...tough.
Insert a shot of an egg being ejected from the queen as she falls into the airlock to explain the presence of the egg in Alien 3. I'm kidding! I'm kidding!
In the airlock there are multiple shots where the end of the queens tail is missing. I'd love to be able to replace this but due to the movement of the tail I don't think a 2d element will suffice, in which case I'm potentially looking at having to sculpt, animate and composite a 3d model. I've played around with Blender before so...maybe??
When the queen is finally ejected onto space, I hope to track in a image of the airlock which matches better the live action footage rather than the non specific red blob used. Tone down the animation of the queens little t-rex arms as she spins towards camera. They just look a bit silly.
I've been working on and off for this for a while now so some of the changes have already been completed (will add some comparison shots in subsequent posts). As you can tell, my lack of experience means that I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to complete all of my planned changes but I'm happy with things so far and will give it a bloody good go.
All comments of encouragement/suggestions will be very gratefully recieved. We have such a fantatsic community on this website and I can't wait to be a more active member of it.
Aliens is probably my favourite film, I've been completely in love with it and the franchise as a whole since seeing it as an 11 year old. Watching it on VHS it was totally immersive. But as release formats have improved, screens have got bigger and I've devoured every bit of behind the scenes info that I can, there a few cracks around the edges that threaten to take me out of the experience at times. As a result and inspired by the likes of Adywan's Star Wars Revisited and Krausfader's Terminator Enhanced, I've decided to do a polish of a few scenes of this phenomenal film.
My plan is to use the Blu-ray from 2010 as my main source, fixing goofs and trying to improve those special effects that haven't aged as gracefully.
I'll also be doing a bit of a colour regrade. For its Blu-ray release the colour palette was (somewhat infamously) completely changed as James Cameron is fond of doing. A lot of these changes I don't mind however the effect on skin tones etc show where this taken too far.
A fan editor by the name of Yaht did an edit incorporating footage from an HD broadcast to create an open matte version of the film with a subtle regrade that maintained the new palette overall but reigned in some of the most excessive teal for a really nice final result. I'll likely use this as a guide for my regrade rather than trying to emulate older releases which were more faithful to the theatrical release.
I plan to release 2 versions of the edit. While both will incorporate the technical fixes and the regrade, one will otherwise be (basically) frame for frame the special edition. The other will be what I will call the Less Hope edition.
This will remove the scene of the Jordans discovering the derelict but maintain the scene where the Hadleys Hope administrators discuss Burkes orders. I like the extra world building of seeing the colony as a bustling place and think it makes it subsequent fall even more tragic while maintaining some of the mystery that the Special Edition lacked. The pan down to and focus on the Weyland Yutani crate ('building better worlds') I feel provides a perfectly acceptable point to cut back to Ripley on Gateway Station.
I plan to remove Hudsons 'knives and sharp sticks' speech on the drop ship. Bill Paxton generally did a fantastic job with his over the top performance as Hudson but this scene just goes a bit too far in my opinion. We've already established Hudsons character and the general over confidence of the marines on the sulaco. This scene is redundant in terms of character bulding, is a bit annoying, over does the cheering oafishness of the marines and also includes a visual goof where Hicks changes from being awake to asleep and back again which would be very tricky to cut around.
Other than that, I'll likely tighten up the scenes where the marines first explore the colony as some of the extra special edition footage negatively affects the pace.
Planned technical fixes:
Remove the scratches on the table during the knife trick scene. This was already significantly improved for the Blu-ray release but I plan to remove the scratches entirely in order to maintain continuity. I believe that in the future they have table tops strong enough to resist metal knives.
Fix the speeded up footage employed during the knife trick. Most of the cast did a great of staying still but Al Matthews (Apone) clearly didnt get the message and ends up thrashing his head around wildly during part of the sequence. This was a pain to fix. Its only 22 frames long but involved removing Apone from each frame. I took a section of 6 frames where he's a bit more still and used DaVinci Resolves interporlation feature to slow this down by a factor of 4 and then cut these franes back in. It was a pain because of how much Bishops arm moves during the sequence so there are shots where more of Apones face should be visible than was available in the shots that I was cutting in but I think I've made it work. And its less than a second long anyway.
Going to try and improve the transition of the matte painting to the live action photography during the pan in the hanger bay, mainly by colour correcting the 2 different elements to improve continuity.
As Spunkmeyer is loading missiles into the drop ship with the power loader a section of wooden rafters of the incomplete roof of the set is visible in the upper left corner so I'll insert a set extension to hide this.
The composite shots of the sulaco are great, the drop ship ones not so much. Don't get me wrong, the shots of the dropship where its filmed against a minature hold up brilliantly, it's just when compositing was used. To that end, I'll be tweaking all of the composited dropship shots to try and reduce matte lines, improve colour matching and black levels to help the shots of the ship look a bit more integrated with the background.
The mission time read outs on the marines helmet cams are all over the place. I'm planning to edit these for continuity but I'll be honest there's loads of them and the variable static/interference might make this just too much of a pain in the arse. I'll see how I get on. Might just get AI to do it for me in 10 years time.
Similarly there is a 'J' missing from Vasquez's helmet cam footage as they enter the hive.
When Ripley is driving the APC after getting the marines out of the hive theres a reverse shot as shes about to drive over a xenomorph. As it would have looked ridiculous played backwards, this is the only shot which doesn't have any fire on the side of the APC. I've been experimenting with trying to comp some fire in but the fog in this scene is making it particularly tricky to make this look convincing. I'll keep plugging away at it.
In the next shot the window of the APC which was just smashed by an alien has magically repaired itself. I've comped in some broken glass.
When Gorman gets knocked unconscious the actor falls over with his eyes open, almost deliberately looking. I'll try and close them for him.
During the scene where the drop ship crashes there's a very obvious distinction between the live action foreground elements and the rear projected crash footage. The colour correction for the blu ray makes the issue even worse. I've rotoscoped out the foreground element and am colour correcting the background to imprive integration and punch up the explosion
The sentry gun scenes have a few issues. Guns C and D shouldn't have 500 rounds at the start of the scene due to the test firing done when they were being set up - I'll change the initial read out to 490 and adjust subsequent footage to match.
There are numerous recycled shots of exploding aliens from the hive scene cut into this sequence. It kind of works if it's your first time seeing it but is very distracting once you're familiar with the film. I'll look at ways to maybe alter the background or flip the shots or something to make the recycling of footage less obvious/incongruous
When Hudson shoots out the window to the med bay during the facehugger scene, I'll remove the visibly ejecting cartridges. The ammo for the pulse rifles is specifically said to be caseless.
When the facehugger jumps on Ripley in the med bay theres a fantastic shot combining different pieces of footage to create the effect. While all the furniture position stays consistent, the lighting changes between the shots. This had already been massively improved for the Blu-ray release but I've tidied up the shots a bit more to eliminate some remaining inconsistencies.
While escaping in the ducts and Vasquez is firing her pulse rifle, the confined space makes the ejecting casings particularly obvious so I'll edit these out.
When the alien rises out of the water behind Newt you can see the wires that lift the tail - I'll get rid of these.
After Ripley exits the colony with an injured Hicks and they meet up again with the Bishop the scene is really out of focus - presumably a production issue. I've played around with the trial version of AVC labs video enhancer which does improve the shot a bit. I'll be honest i dont really want to spend £200 on some software for 1 10 second shot so I'd be grateful if someone could maybe help me out with this one!
Improve the compositing as the dropship flies towards the atmospheric processor.
When Ripley has finished tooling up as is about to get lift out of the lift the pulse rifle shows 42 (the same prop was used as in the scene where Hicks teaches Ripley how to use the pulse rifle - the reduced ammo count makes more sense in that shot) rather than 95 so I've corrected this.
At some points while searching for Newt the pilot light on her flamethrower goes out and then instantly reignites for the following scene. I'm planning to comp in a flame element here.
During the scene in the queens chamber there are random elements of damage to the image and visible explosive charges in the model of the egg sac as it blows up, I'll sort these out.
At one point, the front part of the queen puppet has slipped exposing the metal substructure so I'll hide that. In the same shot the queens head has gaps so you can see the bright white background through it - I'll fill these in.
There's quite a bit of rear projection in this sequence. The heavy grain and lack of detail in these elements is a bit distracting so I'll try and improve this.
When the alien warrior jumps along the corridor (God this is a great shot) the wires are clearly visible but have been easy enough to edit out.
Once Ripley and Newt have gone up the lift and are on the platform there are again some rear projection scenes which stand out. There's a shot zooming in on them which is particularly off putting. I'm not sure if its the altered paralax or the lack of smoke compared to the other scenes but I'll try and tweak this.
The shot of the dropship rising up behind them is a moment of relief/triumph undermined by the rear projection again so will tweak brightness/contrast of the dropship to improve integration and make the scene look less flat.
Tweak the conpositing as the dropship flies away from the exploding facility.
Remove the wire visibly pulling out the tail from Bishop's chest.
Remove any wires visible during the power loader/queen fight.
When the power loader falls into the air lock theres an insert shot showing the light on top of it smashing before it magically repairs itself by the next shot. I'm tempted to just cut this shot as the other footage suggests the power loader just falls straight into the air lock without hitting the side anyway and trying to digitally disguise the light breaking in this shot will be...tough.
Insert a shot of an egg being ejected from the queen as she falls into the airlock to explain the presence of the egg in Alien 3. I'm kidding! I'm kidding!
In the airlock there are multiple shots where the end of the queens tail is missing. I'd love to be able to replace this but due to the movement of the tail I don't think a 2d element will suffice, in which case I'm potentially looking at having to sculpt, animate and composite a 3d model. I've played around with Blender before so...maybe??
When the queen is finally ejected onto space, I hope to track in a image of the airlock which matches better the live action footage rather than the non specific red blob used. Tone down the animation of the queens little t-rex arms as she spins towards camera. They just look a bit silly.
I've been working on and off for this for a while now so some of the changes have already been completed (will add some comparison shots in subsequent posts). As you can tell, my lack of experience means that I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to complete all of my planned changes but I'm happy with things so far and will give it a bloody good go.
All comments of encouragement/suggestions will be very gratefully recieved. We have such a fantatsic community on this website and I can't wait to be a more active member of it.
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(as do the rest, but the flying/crashing bits always looked noticeably “model-y”)