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Do you hate it when loudmouths talk in the theatre? Then we have a treat for you. Join Alex and Cameron as they babble through movies they love or loathe in these synchronized audio commentaries.

Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) is a classic, influential horror movie and one of our favorites. We talk over the entire goddamned thing about exactly why.

Still listening as I type this, but thought I would start the conversation and a recommendation going forward. (also my first post on the forums, so . . . yay)

The synch has been coming and going as spot on or a little off and I figured it was just me starting the track a little sooner than I should have from the film. But when watching the landing sequence, the CC track jumps really far ahead and I realized that we don't know which version of Alien the guys are watching. There have been several versions of this film, each adding or removing bits of material. I'm watching it with the Theatrical Cut on the most recent Blu-ray.

Going forward, especially since they mention wanting to do a track for Blade Runner, it might be helpful to mention which release of the film the track was recorded with.

Alright, back to listening.

Apparently this was done with the Theatrical Release. Not sure what you've been encountering

Remember kids if Alien, Aliens and Alienses (I can't remember if I've ever seen Alienseses so I'm not sure if that film screws up my hypothesis) has taught us anything, in the face of horrible space monsters it's better to be a cat than a dog.

On a more constructive note: Mad props to Alex and Cameron for doing a movie..track...thing. It's really hard to talk over a movie you enjoy and not spend too much time sitting back and watching it.

I had the same issues as WampaX, though I did use the Director's Cut blu-ray version which is a little bit shorter and has a couple different scenes compared to theatrical.

Maybe for future episodes you could include the exact version and frame rate that the audio is supposed to be synced with.

Sync issues aside, I enjoyed that a lot, definitely looking forward to more.

ch3m1kal wrote:I had the same issues as WampaX, though I did use the Director's Cut blu-ray version which is a little bit shorter and has a couple different scenes compared to theatrical.

Maybe for future episodes you could include the exact version and frame rate that the audio is supposed to be synced with.

Sync issues aside, I enjoyed that a lot, definitely looking forward to more.

If, as Graham suggests, we were watching the same version [2011 Region A Blu-ray release - which I think is just a repackage of the disc in Alien Anthology released the year before]. . .

Maybe compression of the audio file has something to do with it? The guys were consistently getting ahead by 3-5 seconds every 5 minutes or so. I could quickly get the synch back together by pausing the CC track when the guys would give out a landmark comment. But about 5 minutes or so later, they would be ahead again.

Or, based on ch3m1kal's suggestion of Frame rate, maybe my set-up was playing the film slower than what the guys were watching?

Either way, de-synch issues aside, I concur with ch3m1kal that it was an enjoyable experience and look forward to more.

Yaaay, I keep hearing Alex mention that they had done this, but I could not find it. They really work well together for this.
More please

Where can i find this?

It's in the little box on right side of the homepage, under LRRcasts.

http://loadingreadyrun.com/lrrcasts/archive

I would humbly suggest that perhaps some front page post regarding this new content might be a good idea, but I understand that you guys are busy with other... engagements.

NTSC vs PAL, I think for de-sync. I've had that problem many years ago trying to watch videos with someone in Canada, and getting ahead all the time. 24 frames versus 25 frames. So yes, as ch3m1c4l mentioned the framerate may need to be mentioned in future.

WampaX wrote:Still listening as I type this, but thought I would start the conversation and a recommendation going forward. (also my first post on the forums, so . . . yay)

The synch has been coming and going as spot on or a little off and I figured it was just me starting the track a little sooner than I should have from the film. But when watching the landing sequence, the CC track jumps really far ahead and I realized that we don't know which version of Alien the guys are watching. There have been several versions of this film, each adding or removing bits of material. I'm watching it with the Theatrical Cut on the most recent Blu-ray.

Going forward, especially since they mention wanting to do a track for Blade Runner, it might be helpful to mention which release of the film the track was recorded with.

Alright, back to listening.

I have to agree with this, the guys commontary was great but I found it impossible to listen to because the sync would come and go with varying degees of length. at some points I thought I was synched and then suddenly cam & alex were a full 2 mins ahead of where I was

I watched/listened last night. I enjoyed it a lot and hope that you guys keep doing them.
I too had some sync issues and I was using the theatrical version on the Blu-ray from the Alien Anthology set. I was playing it on my PC using PowerDVD 9 (boo) with the commentary playing in Windows Media Player. I will probably try it again and try to figure out when/where I went out of sync to try to get a better idea of how to manage it.

Also had a LOT of trouble with you guys seeming to rush past points in the plot so I was pausing you guys for about 10 seconds every minute just to keep you guys in more-or-less sync.

From my perspective, as someone who didn't listen to this having never seen/owned Alien, I feel like this might work better with video. Although I can see the copyright issues that could entail.

Is it possible to maybe suggest pausing and say "We're at 53 minutes. . . now of 118 minutes"? It breaks the fun of it all watching it in one big long stretch, but it could be one way to help it. Do it every 10 minutes or so?

Listened to this before it was official, but had to revisit 'cos it's just really good. For the record, the first time I listened I was watching along with a different cut, like obviously different - whole scenes spliced back in, etc. so it was going out of sync constantly. For instance, there's a scene that wasn't in the original cut where Ripley finds an egg room similar to what's seen in Aliens with some of the crew melded into the semi-organic walls.

However, I watched it again with my home DVD just now with the commentary and it synced up perfectly. For the record, I own the 112 minute THX mastered DVD from 2000 (I think). Original theatrical cut, right down to the Twentieth Century Fox logo looking all wobbly and flat. Ran through without a hitch. Also, I'm on PAL and Canada is NTSC, yet I had no timing issues, so I don't think framerate is to blame. I think there are just so many cuts of the film that alter timings.

I had to register and post a message expressing how much I loved this new idea. Its refreshing to be able to listen to people talk over a movie like I talk over a movie when other people are about because I love it so much. If you can do blade runner next I will be ecstatic.

Love all your content. Keep doing what your doing.

Very enjoyable guys, I hope to see more

Loved it! Insightful and hilarious by turns, I hope this becomes a regular thing.

The sync was perfect throughout - for reference I was watching the theatrical release that was on the PAL Theatrical/Director's Cut 2-disc DVD set from 2004.

Just started listening, so this might come up later, but if you are interested and consider taking this a little more professional(*), you can submit this as an iRiff on the Rifftrax site and charge like a $1 a pop.

(*)I assume you don't think this is professional enough yet, considering this is released free? That said, getting some free tasters out there is not bad marketing.

I can't wait for the Prometheus one!

I have one of the many Blade Runner director's cuts. There are like 5? It's a bit ridiculous, definitely let us know if it's a director's cut, and what version.

Ridley pls
pls

Jurjee wrote:I have one of the many Blade Runner director's cuts. There are like 5? It's a bit ridiculous, definitely let us know if it's a director's cut, and what version.

Ridley pls
pls

Blade runner has 5 commercially available cuts:
US Theatrical (has voiceovers)
Int'l Release (more violent than US release)
Workprint (no voiceover except final scene, which has different dialog)
Director's Cut (tighter editing, no voiceover, implications that deckard is a replicant, some scenes differ a bit.
Final Cut (different dream sequence from DC, Int'l release versions of some scenes, no voiceovers)

Plus two other cuts:
San Diego Sneak Preview (largely resembled the available workprint version, has three scenes not in other versions).
Broadcast Version (FUDGING edited for network TV)

Most people have seen (and have access to) the Director's Cut.

I'll echo that Ridley pls.

So I think the problem comes down to: there are like a billion versions of Alien.

I'm expecting that there's some confusion between multiple versions being labelled "theatrical release". Also maybe framerate?
We'll look into this for the next one.

Really enjoyed it overall but Alex's slurping sounds... The sound effect was glorious but if it ever hapens again I hope it will be followed by a disturbingly realistic guillitine sound... and alex shall be missed;)

Still very much looking forward to hearing more of these

So I just watched/listened and it was a blast. I learned stuff I'd never known, despite having researched this movie a ton during my more formative years, admitted pre-google, but still.

I also had the audio synch problems. I watched the blu-ray disc from the Alien Anthology collection, picking the Theatrical Release during the menu.

I found if I played the download file in VNC and slowed the playback to 0.96x the audio wouldn't run faster than the movie, although it did lag behind a little bit but not enough that I felt I had to pause the movie. I was fine with Alex or Cam mentioning stuff that already happened. I had issues with them talking about stuff that hadn't happened yet.

Looking forward to watching Aliens!