I met Michael Biehn at a comic con last year. I had him autograph a picture of Hicks for my brother and took a few pictures with him. We traded a few lines of dialog from this movie and he started smiling. A nice dude and a great day!

It is BEYOND sad how movies today have static menus. It’s like we de-evolved from the original, fun, animated menus of DVDs.

The 4K Blu-Ray is not based on a new 4K scan. For the Blu-Ray in 2010 the negative was scanned in 4K and processed by Lowry Digital and the result was an 2K DI. For Aliens Lowry Digital used their usual process which means that they degrained the movie and then they added a fake layer of grain. Their excuse for that was that they did it to "even out the grain". Some of the Blu-Rays of the older James Bond movies are also based on 4K scans and processing by Lowry Digital. While you at first see a nice minimal consistent layer of grain, there are so many instances of frozen grain especially seen in sky shots. By the time of Aliens which was more then 5 years after the Bond Movie "restorations" Lowry Digital became much better at hiding this process but I saw instances of frozen grain in some close up shots inside the military car when the camera is focussed on Ripley and Burke is seen in the background and on top of him you can then see frozen grain. So on the old Aliens Blu-Ray you really don't see any of the original film grain. It's only a fake layer of grain on top of a degrained picture. But is still looks filmic and much better than the 4K version. So what they did on the 4K is that they used the existing 2K DI and then used the A.I. to create a new 4K DI. So the 4K actually degrained fake grain from a degrained picture. I know this goes into nerdy territory but maybe this might interest someone who is interested in this kind of stuff and I also wanted to share this information so people can understand what the background behind these home video releases are.

Hot take - lower def with grain works well for horror films - it gives them a ‘gritty, rough n ready’ look which works for them. Making them too pretty can reduce the horror ’feel’.

The reason people got m ad at Lucas for changing Star Wars wasn't the updates, it was the fact that he made it impossible to buy the original version. There's no problem doing this kind of restoration, but it's worth keeping the old version available as well.

I saw ALIENS with my Dad in the theaters back then, and will always remember that experience in my heart. He always got ALIENS and other films in the latest media format and I will too in his memory. Always remember him blasting this in surround sound and Raiders of the Lost Ark when coming home when I was older. Recently he passed away from a motorcycle accident. Miss you dad.

My college buddies and I saw "Aliens" opening weekend back in '86. It really doesn't feel like it's been almost 40 yrs. I remember the general consensus before the movie was "it won't be as good as the original." Aliens took us all by surprise and we were riveted to our seats. I don't think any of us were prepared for what we were about to see...even though we saw the trailer. It was mind blowingly AMAZING and we were exhausted when we left the theater. We were so enthralled by this masterpiece, we saw it again the following weekend. Hollywood just doesn't make films like this any more that entertain and captivate audiences on so many levels with practical effects. Aliens is a classic. One of the most memorable theater going experiences in my life...right up there with "Jaws" and "Star Wars". Thanks for your in depth and honest thoughts on the new 4K UHD. It's impressive for sure and I don't regret buying it, but I'm glad to have my 2011 blu-ray in my collection as well.

When I watched the 4K version a few months back, it felt like I was watching actors moving around on sets. I'd never had that experience with any previous version, where I was instead watching characters moving around on far-off worlds.

Another big problem with upscaling and cleaning up these old films with lots of effects means those effects stand out more than they did, especially on the old tapes. My favorite movie as a kid was The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and its CGI, while still incredible, looked pretty much photorealistic on my VHS, because that slight grain and blurriness helped merge the picture together.

for me the grain is part of what makes it so scary and from what i'm seeing here it looks far too polished and hate the teal grading

Bill Paxton screaming, "Game over man! Game over!" is forever etched in my brain.

Video games are starting to look realistic, while current movies with their overuse of CGI, or upscaled classics are looking more like videogames.

I prefer the 1999 DVD colour shade the best, not blue not teal, just normal. It would be a cool feature to choose what colour shade you prefer in the settings.

I grew up with a black and white telly I found on the street. Aliens looked incredible on it.

Colour grading is soooo important. When I first watched The Crow, I watched it on VHS on a small cathode ray TV. Many, many years ago :) I was blown away by the red hue. Then, when I got it on DVD, and improved my TV, I realised that it was the old TV that was faulty. I still have nostalgia for that Red hue :)

I was lucky enough to stand next to the original Alien Queen prop used in Aliens during a film memorabilia tour and I was struck with how purple/blue shades the Queen is in, and those clear glass like teeth are really impressive as with all the little details on the body inspired by Giger’s art.

I Remember the first time I saw "Aliens". It was sometime in the late 80s. I was browsing the TV guide. You know the paper ones back in the day.... I was between 8-10 years old. I saw this long stretch blocked off for this movie called "ALIENS". I read the description and was intrigued. I went into my mother's bedroom and asked her if I could watch the movie. I'll never forget the look of unpleasantness that came over her face. And in a very Stern voice she said "All right. But if you have nightmares I don't want you coming in here crying to me. Do you understand?" The level of seriousness in her warning puzzled me at the time. I then proceeded to sit down and watch the network broadcast premiere. Now that included the deleted tunnel scene from the theatrical release. Which at the time I didn't understand why I could never see that scene again when watching the VHS at my friend's house. And it was a really cool scene and I didn't know why I was missing. Regardless the next day at recess me and my best friend met up on the playground and we immediately started talking about this movie and from then on till the end of elementary school we included colonial marine vs aliens make believe into our play. Pulse rifles and all. Love those things. If you can't tell by my screen name, movie had a little bit of an impact on me. 🫡

I despise this kind of approach to remastering. Just present a faithful 4k scan of the original release. I don’t want the image reworked to look like a modern digital film.

The 1999 DVD still has better / more realistic colors. Look at Newt: In the 4K version she looks green lol

The colour grading is the biggest problem for me. I much prefer the original Blu-ray, but loved seeing the colour of the DVD that you presented... I think I'll have to pick up a copy of the DVD after seeing this video!

I'll never forget when my older brother bought the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set. You can tell a lot of love went into the menus, features and even the box design itself. I remember watching the director's cuts of the original three movies all in one sitting, more times than I can count.

Xenomorphs caught in 4k?

My biggest gripe is actually that it looks too bright. But that can be easily fixed with tv settings.

I think the same thing happened with Batman '89 in 4K. It became more "teal" and they changed the sound effects. But it looks glorious. Also, Predator in 4K is miles away and beyond the god-awful Blu-Ray.

You didn't mention the laserdisc version, which I had transferred to high grade VHS because I was in high school and couldn't afford a laserdisc player. Back then it was all about the extra footage and that's the version I've seen the most, my old laserdisc to VHS transfer.

I want the quality to be like I still feel im part of the film. But not that I feel like im there in the studio with the actors !

The obsession with removing film grain is sad. Film grain is charming. Moreover it adds this unconscious chaos and naturalness to every frame. It feels more alive. Steady your eyes on an object for a prolonged period of time, youll notice a subtle 'visual snow' - everything has a subtle vibration and color movement. Film grain captures that feeling. Digital removal makes things far too organized and clean. Filmakers fixate on the perfection of a frame instead of the feeling of one now it seems.

Real optical film grain is a gift, I love the texture it adds to images.

Thats why multiple fan scans of theatrical 35mm prints are floating around. All the original grain, color timing and details remain. They're beautiful.

The problem with these more "naturalistic" colour gradings and visual noise-cancelling, particularly for those of us who grew up in the CRT days, is they take the once grand cinematic look of the original movies - that can only really be achieved by being shot and shown on film - and make it look like a daytime soap opera

The "pinkness" you refer about regarding the DVD is actually a magenta dominant, a catastrophic issue that plagued 99% of all telecine transfers in the LaserDisc/VHS/DVD-era. These original movies were shot on 35mm and never featured that hue when originally projected in theatres. Yet, sadly, fans of many properties keep referring to the DVD-era transfers of these classics as "original", and point their finger in anger at many impeccable HD transfer for simply restoring the original filmic tones and white balance inherent in analog film. Granted, many digital restoration sourced from OCN had trouble in capturing the original warmer tones without overdoing it, due to both limits of digital grading and actual costs, as a "separate elements within the frame" grade is extremely laborious and expensive, but even those flawed ones were more failthful to the original presentation than old magenta-looking home-video transfers. The latters also look ghastly from an aesthetic point of view, but that's another matter.

I realized what gets messed up through remastering. The motion blur of movements gets lost if not replaced with stuttering frames. It feels off to not see that slight blur when someone is moving through the scenes.

To me DVD had the best color grading. DVD: Natural with vibrancy Blu Ray: As stated the blue addition is much. 4K: Drab which tends be the trend on a lot of 4K releases for some reason. Flesh tones superior on DVD.

Seeing the grain was the first thing that impressed me when seeing my first 4k movie. Grain is a character of a movie of its time and that is what I want to see.

The main problem is the extreme combination of ultra sharpening of the parts in total focus and over bluring the parts next to them which are just slightly out of focus. Maybe your eye doesn't realise it, but the brain does. I can't watch a movie like that, a DVD would be a more satisfying watch than this.

It's too smooth really

3:05 Side note, but I still get a chill watching Ripley "lock in".

7:53 The word you're looking for is "magenta". Old Kodak Eastman stocks until the Eastman EXR series had a lot of it in their color matrix. It's not considered pleasing because of the way it tints mid-tones, from furniture to caucasian skin-tones. It could be particularly nasty on the latter with people of ruddy complexions (or people whose face had turned red because of fatigue\stress). Kodak moved more and more towards a "warm neutral" look with the following lines of stocks and modern restorations of several movies usually switch it with orange for white skin tones. In the old days people paid less attention to this sort of things because colors on film prints tended to shift (you cannot have two prints that look exactly the same with the classic photochemical process), more so if the prints were from later generations.

I'm just going to add some grain to my digital copy... will take a long time to render though lol!

We went from blue washing to green washing. Space is COLD the blue was also a character. The movie is gritty and it should have kept some of it however I'm it is a pleasing addition to any existing collection

Never cared for what I always referred to as the cyan blue wash over many modern films. I like the simple blue hues and natural fleshtones of the older version. I have a version of photosensitive epilepsy where not just flashing lights but too much clarity in a film will trigger a response. I don't have full on seizures I just get a bit stressed and hyper then have to take a break, get some fresh air and see natural sunlight. Cameron and Scott films were always a challenge so I'll keep to the safer bit of grain. No-nos are cgi flooded films like the Transformers where there's just too damn much visual info on the screen.

As a design/art school grad, film grain doesn't bother me, intellectually I understand it as a characteristic of the original media the art was created with. I'm just glad Camron didn't regret not having a bombastic animated musical number in the first act 🤣

I had the privilege of watching Aliens in the theatre on its initial release as a 15 year old teenager. The effect it had on me (and my friends) cannot be underestimated. I already loved Alien and I was expecting something similar with Aliens. As everyone knows, although set in the same universe, the pace of Aliens was cranked up x 100. We’re all used to this kind of tempo now, but at the time, it was groundbreaking. I watched it in lLondon’s Leicester Square too (the theatre had a state of the art sound system for its time) and this of course added to the experience. I’m still waiting for an Alien movie to match Aliens, but it hasn’t happened yet. Fingers crossed for Romulus.

I'd take a little celluloid noise over heavy handed DNR any day, I'd even say it's a textural element that I miss, analogous to the pops and crackles of vinyl recordings. We forget how much warmer VHS and early DVD color gradings were for these movies so your side-by-side was a bit of a shock to me. Anyone who has done any significant digital restoration work will attest to the unsettling 'ship of Theseus' aspect of the process - reconstructing things that are lost with things that never were. Each time these reissues happen I'm grateful to folk like you, watching out for such things and drawing our attention to it.

The version that I grew up with and watched unto infinity as a kid was actually the special edition before it was called the special edition. A family friend had a laser disk player, and regularly copied movies onto VHS and send them to people. One of those was the Special Edition of Aliens, or at least the same cut of the film. This was in the early to mid 90s. I remember being very sad when the tapes (cuz it had to fit on two VHS tapes) got ruined and the friend was unable to find the Laser Disk again to recopy it (he sent us, like, 4 different copies of the theatrical version like "was this it?"). Was really stoked when the Special Edition actually came out and I could finally see my favorite version of my favorite film again.

One of the interesting things about the human mind is the low quality games I grew up playing now look amazing in my head. Our minds fill in the blanks and creates detail that never existed. When I recently revisited those old games I was shocked how much detail was missing that I had created in my mind. So when you look at someone else's recreation of a movie, game, or other IP and add detail that was never there, it's new content that you have to agree or disagree with in your mind. If you like YOUR version (in your mind) better, than you may not like the 4K remaster! But for the new generation of alien fans who may not have ever seen Aliens, they're going to love it regardless.

I always thought the blue hue was James Camron signature from True Lies, Terminator 2, Titanic, to even Avatar, etc. You usually see them during night scenes.

On just a casual observation of the side by side comparisons, I'd say that the Blu-Ray seemed to have more detail overall. Certainly it had more contrast.

I literally would restart my vhs-to-vhs "copy" of Aliens as soon as it ended when I was 15. Countless viewings, and I never tired from them. The picture quality never fazed me, and never thought about how video quality for movies would improve in the years to come. With that spirit in mind, I love the picture quality of this 4k edition. From its sharpness and its colors, it was amazing to see how far home video has come since my days watching my cassettes. I will not give up a single copy of this film in all its formats.

Remember my dad coming back from the video rental store when Aliens first came out. I was about 11 and was a school night. We stayed up late to watch it till about midnight. Thought it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen and one of my most membered awesome nights with my dad on one random Wednesday night.

DVD version seemed to have the best colours to me. I'm old school, watched this on VHS on shitty old CRTs countless times and still only have a dvd version...like vinyl with music, I prefer the 'noise', the grain, the imperfection as it was my initial experience and also it made it grittier, more real.

That transition from vhs to dvd was mind blowing at the time. I remember watching X-Men on my pc as my first DVD, up close on my little CRT monitor and being blown away by the detail.

I like the simpler menus on modern blurays. I often found DVD's and early blurays littered with lots of excessive animated menus, repeated studio logos, piracy warnings, adverts and such. Back in the days of Blockbuster Video, I'd rent DVD's and have parts of the unseen movie spoiled by the big scenes appearing in the background on the main menu. I like the simplicity of it booting straight to a menu where I can pick my preferred audio format and film version (where options exist) and on with the show. Having a pop up menu without pausing the film is also great :)

My brother and I must have watched our VHS copy thousands of times after school! The scene where the marines first get ambushed became so degraded, it was pretty much just white noise haha

This "restoration" reminds me of the expectation of digital sharpening in cameras, specially DSLRs until only recently. ALL came with that friggin' moire filter which softened the image to prevent said patterns but then required said digital sharpening which added fake contrast with softening. One thing that people forget is that the eyes are trained to pick out patterns. So when this is done, these things pop out more than what you're actually watching. Film grain being analogue, meant it was an imperfect pattern, so therefore just became a comfortable staple. Digital tools (and the people that use them) forget that you NEED IMPERFECTIONS to negate this recognition of patterns. Life normally has these imperfections and nothing is perfectly symmetrical unless honed in with a microscope or looking at inorganic material. When it comes to looking at people and manmade things, there is always an indiscernible imperfection in everything. This is why CGI is so noticeable, even when using AI. Until they start doing studies with the brain and our eyes along with AI enlisting indiscernible patterns, these kinds of "restorations" will look fake and remove actual detail. It's what happens when your R&D gets too stuck in the details and in the micro instead of pulling back to look at the macro. Pun intended, to look at the BIG PICTURE instead.

Great video, thanks. Is the lack of grain the same as with digital audio compared with LP record?

I think it says something that nearly 40 years after the original film, even with the film grain stripped away and even more detail visible than ever before, the effects and props and set design still hold up just fine.

"Teal" Haha, yeah, now its Green-Ray!!!

One day they will do a virtual release where you can stand in the same room while its happening lol.

Anyone remember LaserDisc? One of my friends owned laserdisc version of Aliens with all the deleted scenes and i was so envious of him😅

We still need a proper game sequel to Alien Isolation!

I have Manos: The Hands of Faith on Bluray. On it, they included a "Grindhouse" version. This is simply just the raw scan of the film print. No clean-up or anything. It's all there, warts and all. It's there as an extra along side with the cleaned version. I do wonder if it really would be that much of a hassle for distributors to make something similar. Just a straight scan of a release print. Set white and black levels overall and do NOTHING else. Don't even paint out the reel change marks. I would so love it if that started to become a thing for home video releases for the extras. It's practically a free extra. And nowadays, it's basically only us strange film fans who even bother to buy the physical releases anyway, so why not cater to that crowd and let the streaming services have the ultra cleaned versions. I mean. I did stumble over a raw scan of Aliens on a pirated encode, but it had some strange framerate issues. Also. I'm pretty sure I have heard Cameron say it was supposed to look like a vietnam movie. So it was shot on 4 perf super35 (making it strange that home video was cropped before the widescreen remaster) instead of the anamorphic systems used on the other entries. The rough grain was a feature, not a bug. :/

I watched this film a week ago 4k, found myself blown away at what I saw, spent allot of time looking at the background of the film for the first time. Absolutely loved it, I also have the Criterion Collection Laser Disk. Remember seeing this film in the theatre 1986, what a ride it was! In my world this is the "best" movie sequel of all time!

I read somewhere that Cameron chose to use the lower quality film stock as he felt it was more forgiving re special effects. Scott used a far superior film, and his HD releases of Alien and Blade Runner absolutely walk all over Cameron's from the same era. Same as with all of Cameron's films - Terminator 1 & 2, and the Abyss. I think it was just a poor choice on Cameron's behalf.

I watched the 1989 Batman VHS so many times that we broke it. Good times. Also, my father thought it was a good idea for me to watch Aliens back when I was about seven years old. For years afterwards I couldn't go down a dark hallway. Thanks, Dad.

Anybody know what the background soundtrack is at 10:20 ? I recognize it but can’t remember what it’s from.

As filmmaker AND Alien fan I have come to love film grain. Now that I'm middle-aged maybe it's nostalgia, but super sharp modern digital imagery makes me sad, grain makes it feel alive (to me), and I almost always add grain simulators to my projects to try to recapture that analog feel I like. While Cameron is chasing ever sharper images (Avatar) its refreshing to see the beauty of the Dune films and others in modern times that are carefully considering grain as an artistic element even with digital all of the digital tools available. Thanks for the vid!

There's noticeable image improvement over the VHS, but between DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K, I'm hard pressed to see if it's worth it to purchasing these higher definition media.

People just don't understand how much DVD, and Blu-Ray (when done right and not just "upscaled") changed history---those formats were revolutionary.

Your first movie on a DVD, back then, is like my first movie in 3D, Avatar - incredible just because of thinking or feeling that I could somehow enter the "fish tank" of the movie shown in front of me...and Avatar was colourful too

Does anyone know if the 30th anniversary bluray from 2016 is the same as image the 2011 one mentioned multiple times in this video? Thanks!

Unfortunately Disney followed through with their intent to no longer support physical releases in New Zealand and Australia. So no more Marvel movies, no Indiana Jones 5, no Prey, and, most insanely, no James Cameron 4k releases. (If we don't end up getting Alien Romulus, I'll be so pissed!)

I was 16 when Aliens was released on VHS in February 1987, I flocked to Hastings Music, Books, and Video and rented a copy. I then duped it. I went from VHS to Betamax and back to VHS. I then wore that cassette out over the next few years. The jump to DVD was glorious. I don’t love the overly blue tone from 2011. I also don’t love the digital smoothing or the AI smoothing we have now. Aliens DOES NOT need tweaking. Tweaking veers into revisionism after a certain point. Many filmmakers cannot help themselves. The grain is necessary. Computer interpolation is actually interfering with legacy of this film. RMB, one of Bill Hunt’s buddies likes the new version. I normally agree with RMB about a lot of things. I cannot agree with him here. Incidentally, he’s covered it on his channel The Burnettwork.

7:30 I saw Aliens in the theater multiple times. The "teal" is how it's supposed to look. You can see it in your VHS clips but with the other colors punched up for cathode tube.

Like any remaster in the video game industry they should give you an option to revert back to the original picture so in essence with the special edition you have the original format and remastered format. Then everyone’s happy..

Released 22nd April on Amazon here in the UK.

It's not teal... it's the addition of Yellow tint to the scan... blue and yellow is green, or teal in this case. Yellow tint brightens and carves out shadow detail at the sacrifice of color grading.

Any idea what version is being shown on April 26th at AMC? Ridley and the Romulus director are doing an interview before the screening.

Great video ! 👍Obviously I'm only seeing this on a youtube video and on a "not 4K, not HDR" monitor but I don't like the colour changes 😞I'll be wanting to rent this one and see what it looks like for myself before I decide on making a purchase I think.

There's another good reason not to want physical media to go away: The re-editing of films to remove parts that current day forced-sensibilities doesn't like, effectively undermining and reducing the experience of the films (at a minimum).

I felt the color grading on the 4K Lord of the Rings trilogy went too far, especially in forced HDR and making the overall lighting too bright and too daylight. Helms Deep is like high noon.

My first viewing of Aliens was late night on a tiny kitchen TV. It was terrifying.

Has Cameron tweaked the background when Bishop is doing the knife thing with Hudson? When the film is obviously sped up, I seem to remember Apone and Vasquez heads moving very quickly in the background. But on the 4k it doesn’t look as so noticeable. Or is it just me being old?

I’ve always been a bit 50/50 on 4K releases of older movies. I think the extra detail etc strips away a layer of movie magic/sheen. Sets become very obviously sets made of plywood, polystyrene and fibreglass. Props lose weight etc 🤷🏻‍♂️ meh

I've still got my Alien Quadrilogy ofwhich i paid £80 for when it first came out years ago, i'll stick with that.

I updated the original Alien (1979), and the upgrade was significantly better. I’ve been hesitant to upgrade Aliens, because I didn’t want to lose my previous copy. The 4K Alien is definitely eye opening when you first see it. I know this is going to come as a shock, but the original Ridley Scott film has always been my favorite film of the franchise.

Did they do anything else to the movie? Did they do any wire removal? Like how they fixed the hole in the floor for Lance Henriksen.

Aliens is my favourite movie of all time, I’ve seen it close to 200 times. I own every version, and, to me, each new release was better than the last, and this is no exception.

"Aliens" was the first DVD I ever watched, as well as being the first DVD I ever bought. The DC VHS was also the first VHS movie I ordered through the mail. I agree with your take on seeing the DVD after wearing the VHS copy out watching it over and over...

I love the grainy look of the DVD and early 4K releases.

I do photo restoration. AI does a great job but I often have to reintroduce grain. There are grain filters for specific film types /eras. Also color pallet filters based the same. You would think same could be done here.

Aliens is my favorite movie. It blows all modern sci fi movies out of the water. 80 and 90 and early 00 were best years for movies.

Yeah no. There should have been no compromise. They should have made a new scan from the original negative without the use of AI and DNR. I can't control what James Cameron wants to do with his films but I also don't have to accept or "adjust" to the way he wants them to look

I thought you would mention the ending fight with the queen alien mother very visible plastic wires were digitally removed and updated graphics for the space station etc..

On VHS I always found there were scenes where you couldn't see anything when there was red light. it wasn't untiI got my original dvd copies that the quality was watchable.

Screw the young audiences, they grew up watching TikTok and UKposts videos on tiny screens. On the 4K the faces look fake after the degrain AI process. I love film grain. I LOVE me some grain. Takes me back to the cinema. James Cameron should know better than trying to appease to the TikTok generation.

The characters all look like they're standing in front of a green screen, rather than the set, is the sense i get when watching the clips.

Its wild to me that Aliens is almost 40 years old! I mean, 40 years back from 1986, one of the top movies was The Big Sleep!! As a kid, I thought that was ancient!!!

I have the Alien Anthology Blu Ray collection and have the 4k Alien release that is amazing. I am considering getting 4k release of Aliens as that is one of my favorite movies of all time. I have a 77 inch OLED so need to know if worth upgrading from my Blu Ray version or wait for a 9.99 BF sale down the road

great video! you did a good job presenting all the different viewpoints on the 4k release so everybody can form their own opinion.