The documentary "Alien: Evolution" follows the history and production of the wildly successful (well, in the 70's and 80's, anyway) "Alien" franchise, and offers quite a bit of amusing and interesting information about the making of the first film, and, to a lesser extent, the sequels made in later years. The show is hosted by Mark Kermode (also of "On The Edge Of Blade Runner" fame), who narrates the whole show, and is on hand to give little quips about the production of the films.
The documentary primarily deals with the 1979 original masterpiece, and Ridley Scott, Dan O'Bannon, Sigourney Weaver and other participants are on hand to talk about their experiences making the film. Of course, where the real meat is (and is something that wasn't included on the cut version of the doc on the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set) concerns the making of Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. Granted, all of the participants in the Aliens interviews have nothing but glowing praise for the film, but when you get down to the later entries, people have some surprisingly interesting things to say, including H.R. Giger, who compares the alien suit design in Alien 3 to a piece of excrement, and Lance Henriksen talking about how the third film destroyed all the work that was put into the first two entries, it sheds a whole new perspective on what it was like for the cast and crew to experience these films.
It is understandable that Fox would want to cut these offending bits (seeing as how they cut an hour of candid footage of David Fincher out of the Alien 3 Special Edition documentaries), so they recut the film and had it focus on the first movie instead. I don't believe this was a wise move, and I think that if the studio heads have a chance, they should release this documentary in it's original form for everyone to see.
Bottom Line: I am giving this a 9 out of 10, because, as it is, the documentaries featured on the Alien Quadrilogy set actually have better in-depth coverage of the same material posted here, but not everything. If you can find it, the documentary airs on television sometimes. Watch it if you get the chance.
The documentary primarily deals with the 1979 original masterpiece, and Ridley Scott, Dan O'Bannon, Sigourney Weaver and other participants are on hand to talk about their experiences making the film. Of course, where the real meat is (and is something that wasn't included on the cut version of the doc on the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set) concerns the making of Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. Granted, all of the participants in the Aliens interviews have nothing but glowing praise for the film, but when you get down to the later entries, people have some surprisingly interesting things to say, including H.R. Giger, who compares the alien suit design in Alien 3 to a piece of excrement, and Lance Henriksen talking about how the third film destroyed all the work that was put into the first two entries, it sheds a whole new perspective on what it was like for the cast and crew to experience these films.
It is understandable that Fox would want to cut these offending bits (seeing as how they cut an hour of candid footage of David Fincher out of the Alien 3 Special Edition documentaries), so they recut the film and had it focus on the first movie instead. I don't believe this was a wise move, and I think that if the studio heads have a chance, they should release this documentary in it's original form for everyone to see.
Bottom Line: I am giving this a 9 out of 10, because, as it is, the documentaries featured on the Alien Quadrilogy set actually have better in-depth coverage of the same material posted here, but not everything. If you can find it, the documentary airs on television sometimes. Watch it if you get the chance.
