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Lance Henriksen,

Remember “Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman”? No, it was a little before your time huh? You can always measure the cheese factor by the crossover promotions with other film series. Combining two popular characters is the last resort of a franchise running out of steam. Fox had entertained the notion of combining the two franchises after the success of the Dark Horse comic book. This edition isn’t substantially different in regards to the film itself but the extras on disc two features previously unreleased content. This is a classic double dip. If you purchased the previous edition, I can’t see why you would feel compelled to purchase this edition as well. ***

A satellite discovers a massive pyramid below the surface of an abandoned Antarctic whaling town. Mountain climber Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan) and archeologist Sebastian de Rosa ( Raoul Bova) are hired by Charles Weyland (Lance Henriksen) to lead a team below the surface to find this massive artifact and discern its purpose. When the crew arrives they are immediately cut off from their ship the Piper-Maru when the pyramid seals itself in preparation for a hunt led by four Predators. The Predators use the pyramid as a training ground for their hunters with the dangerous Alien speces as their prey. The humans get caught in the crossfire between these two species as they try to escape.

A sharp looking anamorphic transfer from Fox that suffers from minor compression issues, “AVP” looks exceptionally vibrant although the dark sequences tend not to have the detail that made the remastered editions of “Alien” and “Aliens” exceptional. Nevertheless, opening (particularly the original opening that wasn’t used for the film) looks exceptionally good with great detail and amazing clarity. The 5.1 soundtrack jumps around from speaker to speaker as swiftly as the aliens from the film putting you right in the middle of the action.

The extras are primarily on the second disc and are broken down into sections imaginatively titled“Pre-production”, “Production”, “Post-Production”, “Licensing the Franchise” and “Marketing”. Like the previous single disc version the film can be viewed in either an extended branching expanded version of the film or the original theatrical version. ***

“Pre-Production” had a branching video as part of the documentary included. The documentary includes additional footage that goes into extensive detail about the production of the film. These branching bits of footage can also be viewed separately and are listed outside of the “AVP The Beginning” documentary. They include brief featurettes on the “ADI Workshop” where the creatures were created, “Storyboard Gallery” and “Concept Art”. “ADI Workshop” has costume fittings for the Predator armor with the actors, test footage shot in the workshop looking at the actors performing in costume to get a sense as to whether or not they will work for the film. ***

”AVP Production with Branching Video” again features the documentary on the production side of the film but you can also view the branching video separately. These include “Miniature Whaling Station”, “Facehuggers & Eggs” and “Trouble at the Mouth of the Tunnel”. The titles are pretty self explanatory. Featuring visual effects ace John Bruno and director Paul W. S. Anderson discuss why much of the film including the whaling station was shot with miniature vs. CGI. Anderson makes a point that creating the effects CGI there is a sense of unreality associated with the techniqueand the audience knows that. He tends to favor (much like Bruno) miniatures where possible. As example Anderson discusses “Aliens” and how the miniature work looked great then but 15 years on still looks better than top flight CGI from five years ago. “Mouth of the Tunnel” provided special problems. They needed to carefully mix live action and miniature to achieve the sense of reality they wanted to create. During one sequence the protective housing for the high speed camera was destroyed because it wasn’t as carefully done as it could have been. ***

“Post-Production” consists of two bits “Visual Effects Breakdown” and deleted scenes. The visual effects breakdown covers some of the same material as the other visual effects section. The deleted scenes includes optional commentary with Anderson and actor Lance Henriksen. There are only 3 deleted scenes that weren’t included in the movie. Reportedly Anderson had an entire subplot and additional footage explaining the quicker life cycle of the eggs-to-aliens transitions that had to be jettisoned for budget reasons and time constraints. The compromised script had very little fat in the final cut except for more graphic scenes of violence and gore which are included in the extended branching edition of the movie. *** “Licensing the Franchise” looks at the comic book and the Monsters in Miniature line created by comic book artist, Image comics founder and “Spawn” creator Todd McFarlane’s toy company. Based on a comic book by Dark Horse Comics “Alien vs. Predator” came to life because the publisher Mike Richardson of Dark Horse caught “Predator” the week it opened and was inspired to come up with the natural sequel to the film. The comic book was a huge hit going into reprints throughout the summer. ***

“Marketing” features the original HBO Special on “Alien vs. Predator” all three theatrical trailers for the film. There are also promotional trailers for the “Alien Quadrilogy” boxed set and the 35th anniversary edition of “Planet of the Apes”. The latter two releases have been out for some time so what they have to do with “Alien vs. Predator” is beyond me. Clearly Fox is using promotional trailers as “extras” much like Paramount did with their “Borg Invasion Trailer” for their Las Vegas attraction. I don’t know that I like the continued invasion of promotional material for other productions into the “extras” category. ---

The only difference between this edition and the previous edition is that this one has a second disc filled with extras. The previous edition had all the extras stuffed onto one disc. As a result the bit rate is slightly higher here than the previous edition with the image quality being slightly better with less compression artifacts. ***

The second disc of extras provides an incredible amount of detail about the making of the movie. This disc covers everything from pre to post production and marketing and is pretty exhaustive. While this second disc provides extra value if fans purchased the previous edition of the film, I can’t see purchasing this again unless you want access to all the behind-the-scenes material shot for the film.