I can never praise Cinefex enough. Cinefex issues had always given me such a great joy, and they were like mini Making-of books. They weren't written in some technical language and were never boring. They simply told a story of how the movie was conceived and then how it was made, scene by scene
Titan books released a smaller format book in 1997, grouping the Cinefex articles on the entire Alien Trilogy. So inside, you had reprints on the extensive features on Alien, Aliens and Alien 3.
I read this book right after I had re-read J.W. Rinzler's books, which detail the production on Alien and Aliens incredibly thoroughly, and yet those articles still had plenty I did not know, even after being a fan since 1993-ish, but that has always been a beauty of the Cinefex magazine, which, unfortunately, has just recently ceased to exist
The Alien Special Effects book is also full of photos that still aren't heavily circulated online, and some that are true rarities. About the only criticism I would have is about the Alien 3 article - it's nearly entirely about the rod puppet, and it's an overkill. Then again, the movie did not have much miniature sets or special effects in comparison to the first two, so I guess they had to linger on something to make it a full article, which is still shorter than the one for Alien and much shorter than the one for Aliens). Still, since there was never any book dedicated solely and in detail to the making of Alien 3, it's a great treat nonetheless (I'm excluding the Alien The Archive book which, while terrific in its own right, isn't nearly as detailed and I'm also excluding the Japanese Making of book)
Go back to http://jamescamerononline.com/ALIENTRILOGY.htm
