J.W. Rinzler is, and should be a well known writer, known for his absolute best and most thorough books on the making of a movie. I first heard of him when he did the famous books on the original Star Wars Trilogy, and was thrilled when his book on the original Alien was announced. With extremely busy schedule at the time, I didn't have a chance to pick up the Alien book when it came out (well I had a chance and possibility to do so just not a time to read it at the time), and when the Aliens books was announced I was double thrilled and decided to wait for the other one to get published to get both at the same time. I finally got some extra time for the holiday season so bought the two, and since The Making of Aliens arrived first, I was too eager to wait and decided to start reading this one.
Many fans were and are weary of any new Making of books coming out because the Alien fans are blessed with detailed material on the production of all the films. Its mostly thanks to the excellent supplement material from 2003 that was made for the Alien Anthology release. Fans are asking, how could there be anything else to add after these? They were fantastic, And then the Alien Vault came out, and everybody goes "what could possibly be left to say?"
Well, here's how it is. Yes, this book, The Making of Aliens, does reiterate all those stories and beats we got from the excellent "Superior Firepower" documentary by Charles De Lauzirika , but they were never all collected in one book. Still, despite the fact that we, diehard lifelong Alien fans know (almost) everything about the films for years, the book still has a lot of bits and nuggets that weren't known before and that are absolutely interesting. I couldn't put the book down and I know the 'Superior Firepower" documentary by memory for a long time
There isn't much about the creature effects, but that would be pointless because the details of creating the Queen and the aliens are perfectly covered in Winston's Winston Effect book. They are covered here, just not in a great minutia detail such as what mixture was made for the molds and details like that
It is interesting thought that there are barely any photos of the aliens themselves, but the overall choices for the photos are absolutely top notch and there are photos that have never been seen before
It reads very well too, Rinzler writes in a way you can't put the book down, his style isn't clinical. So if you're wondering what else would there be to know about the making of Aliens, get the book and you'll see there's plenty more no one knew about. You even get the names of all the people who played the alien warriors for example
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