Why would ANYONE want to watch a 4 and half hour documentary about a SciFi movie from the 80s....
Cos the movie in question, is James Camerons ALIENS.... and the documentary.... IS ALIENS EXPANDED
This is a difficult one to review cos I'll say right off the bat, this is not a documentary for anyone who's not a HUGE fan of Aliens.
So, rather than a full on review of the documentry, I'll say this is more of a recap / rundown of ALIENS EXPANDED
Its made by the folks at CREATOR VC , who have been making deep dive movie related documentaries for a few years now (I think 'In search of tomorrow' was a kickstarter project from a few years ago, that's when I first saw their work')
Ian Nathan is credited as writer / director, himself a former editor for Empire Magazine (so, a huge film fan himself)
Style wise, it doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, it's a standard documentary approach. Talking head interviews mixed in with footage from the film, behind the scenes stills and video, its a tired and tested docu technique, and the films doesn't feel the need to go crazy with anything experimental style wise.
But its not archive interviews, its all fresh interviews filmed specifcally for this documentary, everyone from James Cameron to Sigourney Weaver , producer Gale Anne Hurd ... and what feels like every living cast member. They're all in here. As well as folks like James Dyer from Empire Magazine
It is FULL of great tidbits and stories from cast members and crew....
Structure wise, again, its sticks to the tried and tested formula of film documentary, by going through the process of making the ALIENS, from conception, to writing, pre production, filming, post production, to its eventual release
The interviews with the cast and crew are neatly woven into each other and there's a pretty cool graphic user interface style type thing that helps with the structure.
As we get the actual filming of the movie, theres almost a sub-structure to it where the audience is taken through the events of the movie, focussing on each characters death as it happens, with the cast talking about each of their own death scenes
The glee in Jeanette goldstiens face when she talks about her (admittedly epic) death scene , is kinda charming to see.
03:18:40
Off the top of my head, memorable moments from the doc would be....
Paxton tribute very touching 02.26.50
(his absence from the interview segments is sorely apparent)
Lance Henrikson chat about bishop is oddly moving
BILL PAXTON DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE KNIFE TRICK! 01:10:03
(vertical clip?)
Same set apparently used in Batman 89
1:44:47
Pic of Ripleys daughter was Weavers mum
James Remar originally cast as hicks! Replaced during shooting cos he got busted for drugs
(2:10:23)
Tea lady story
02.37.00
(fun fact, at the time I pre ordered my copy, sigourney weaver hadn't actually been confirmed)
Thats kinda the exciting thing about being part of a crowd courced movie like this, you're almost part of the movie making process, as a reward for your pledbe (your pre order) , not only do you get a copy of the fim (and any other goodies that you may have pre ordered like posters, T shirts, Blu ray copy) you also get your name in the credits....which is.... pretty cool.
The unique thing about this documentary, and about this team, is they're completely independent, and the funding for the movie is crowd sourced,..... which basically means its funded by the fans.
The filmmakers take pre orders from fans, so fan pre pay for the movie, and that pre order money is actually how the filmmakers pay for the making of the movie
So they're not beholden to the movie studios, or PR companies or anything like that, which means you get a fair amount of info that you're not gonna find on any film studio produced 'making of' featurette on the DVD or Blu ray
Overall it doesn't come accross as gratuitously self congratulatory.... It's just people talking about how much they love the movie... How much they loved making the movie.....
03:59:40
Gorman actor "it's 1am, I gotta get up early.... But I'm only an hour into aliens and I HAVE TO watch it....
Never a a truer word spoken
7 Oscar noms! Including beat actress for sigourney
If you liked the recent ROBODOC documentary, this is in a similar vein....
One thing I think that would have been beneficial would have been to nreak the file up into chunks or chapters.
As it is, the digital download is just one unbroken 4.5 hour 16gb file
(the blu ray will perhaps be chaptered, but that hasn't arrived yet)
That being said, I thouroughly enjoyed sitting down to enjoy almost 5 hours of amazing ALIENS anecdotes
So yeah.... As I said at the start.... This isn't for casual viewing.... This is for the DIE HARD MILITANT ALIENS FANS.
If that sounds like you.... You'll LOVE this documentary.
The next documentary from these guys is gonna for John Carpenter's THE THING..
I've already pre ordered that, I'll put the link in the description....
Thanks for watching folks.... I'll catch you on the next video 👾 🔫
