A first for me: A Movie Blog

Simply put, I love watching movies as well as collecting movies.  Whether I am watching the movie the first, second, or tenth time, I always manage to find something new, perhaps a new nugget of information or even piece of trivia.

Collecting Movies has always been a challenge especially in this day.   Do you collect the physical or digital?  Which is better?  How do you avoid buying something you already bought?

So many questions with a multitude of answers.

Before we get started, I suppose I should tell you about myself.   I started collecting movies in the early 1990’s with VHS movies.   At one point, I had around 50 movies which was a lot in those early days of being a videophile.   Flash Forward to 1999, I got my first DVD player (Sony) and in 2011 my first bluray player (Panasonic).    After seeing some of the extra features or listening to commentary that DVD had to offer, my collection started to grow.   This does not even include those DVDs that were offered as TV on DVD (which are not being discussed here).  Bluray movies initially offered better visuals at 1080p but some of the extras remained the same (ported over from earlier DVD release).

As of this writing, I have over 1000 DVD’s which does not include the TV on DVD and over 500 Blu rays (again, does not include TV on Blu).

As of this writing, I have not bought a 4K player (although I do have a OLED 4K TV) and still debating when it would be a good time.

Why movies? Why a movie blog?  Why not?

Furthermore, why not talk about movies with theatre release date information (as well as home release).

But wait…..there’s more.

How about discussing movies that were double dipped and perhaps compare what is the best option.

What is “Double Dipping”?

Double Dipping is the practice of re-releasing a movie on a format that it was previously released on.   At times, similar or extra content is released as well.

In other words, this introduced a new pain to the collector wallet.

But wait…there’s more. That can be discussed at a later time.

The biggest problem about starting a movie blog is what movie should I bring up first.   It should be easy as 1-2-3 or A-B-C.   Hey wait, let’s start with A.

A L I E N – the title itself was something of a mystery.

The trailer created for it was bold.  Prior to it’s release date on May 25, 1979, there was something very unknown of this film except that there were established actors / actresses and an actress who was an unknown (but whose performance gave momentum to other roles that spanned over two decades).

This movie was coming out after George Lucas’s epic Star Wars in 1977 but it was not just categorized as a “sci-fi” but a “sci-fi horror”.

Not much is given away during the trailer but the title of the movie is slowly created one line at a time (this is done at the top of the screen during the opening credits).   First there was an I, then vertical lines in L and E.  The drawn out title continued with a forward slash (A) and a slash for the N.  We the audience were captivated (thought we knew the movie we were seeing was ALIEN, the title looked like   /  I  I  I  \.

It was only then lines were slowly added one..at..a..time..until..the..title..was..revealed.

The 1:57 minute trailer itself did not give any spoilers.   The anticipation of seeing the aforementioned letters form together the word ALIEN along with seeing space, a landing surface, crew members in face gear, an egg, alien ship, a cat, crew members faces without face gear,  one crew member scantly clad (thank you Sigourney Weaver), the cat showing up again, and finally without revealing what the ALIEN is what can simply explained as the “shit is about to hit the fan” and at the end of the trailer, only eight words remain with tag line that is remembered now even after all these years:

“In space no one can hear you scream”

Ridley Scott’s first foray into science fiction was a success.   The production budget was 11 million dollars and the box office made 78.9 million dollars.   ALIEN went on to be nominated for two Oscars, one of which wins for Best Visual Effects.

This not only cemented Ridley Scott’s future as a director but ensures pure entertainment for viewers for the next 39 years (as of 2018) with the movie sequels, prequels as well as comic book adaptions.

TRIVIA NUGGET:   Harrison Ford had reportedly turned down the role of Dallas due to the fact it was right after he did Star Wars and did not want to something “outer space” right away.

HOME RELEASE

The home release for this film was successful starting off with VHS in December 1992 and continuing on with DVD (June 1, 1999) and Bluray (May 20, 2011) releases.   I’m not even getting started on Laserdisc right now but YES, there was a release.

ALIEN had three VHS releases, each of them were part of the trilogy but it was on the third release, ALIEN Legacy Set that it released all four movies on VHS and for the first time released the fourth movie in the ALIEN franchise.

While I am digressing to a point, ALIEN Legacy Set also introduced the extended version of the second film ALIENS.

All four movies were released two more times on DVD, ALIEN Quadrilogy (2003) and  ALIEN Triple Pack (2008), the former offering director cuts on all versions and the later offering only the first three movies with only the second being the extended cut.

As a collector, the urge of owning such releases was there and with each release of both DVD and Bluray, there was the introduction of deleted scenes, uncut version, commentary, and oodles of extra features.    Where does one stop from “double dipping” and finally obtaining the one that you as a collector find it sufficient.

As a “double dipper” and as a “collector”, you will need to educate and see what changes were made to the media edition you are about to acquire?

Here is a small morsel of what can be expected when you do your research for the version you want.

ALIEN Legacy DVD Collection had a mail away bonus DVD which was not available anywhere else except ALIEN Anthology.

Screen Tests

Isolated Score

Documentary

Deleted Scenes

Comic Book Adaption of Original ALIEN Comic Book   (only available on ALIEN 35th Anniversary Edition)

What’s more important to you?

There you have it – my first BLOG post.

What do you think?   Am I on the right track here?

Please share me your thoughts and also look out for me sharing more insight on everything movies and collecting and collections with my podcast which is still in development.

Please post your comments and let me know your thoughts.    I hope you won’t be too harsh since after all, it is my first.

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