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Each film in the Alien series now exists in two versions, so which do people prefer for each, and why?

Personally, I usually stick with the theatrical version of Alien, and the extended versions of Aliens, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection.

The Director's Cut of Alien has a much faster pace to it, and some of the stuff put back in is quite cool, but it completely cuts out my favourite scene — where Dallas talks to MU-TH-UR and asks what his chances are, to which the computer replies "Does not compute" — and also the Alien turning people into Eggs doesn't really make sense given what the sequels tell us about the Queen. So I usually stick with the original.

Aliens is just amazing, so more of it is only ever gonna be a good thing to me. All the little subplots the Special Edition adds back in are really cool, like Ripely's daughter being dead and Newt taking her place. And of course there's Sentry Guns and more awesomeness from Hudson. "State-of-the-badass-art."

Alien3 is made a million times better in the Assembly Cut. I always liked the film more than most anyway, but the extended version is definitely the one to watch, especially now that audio's been fixed on the Blu-ray. All the supporting inmates are actually characters instead of just faceless Alien fodder like in the theatrical version, Golic doesn't just vanish without a trace, and overall it just feels like a much better movie.

I'm not the biggest fan of Alien Resurrection in either form, but some of the brief extensions added to the Special Edition are actually really good, especially the references to the earlier films in the series. I've no idea what idiot decided those bits should be cut, because they're a lot better than most of what was left in the theatrical cut. I still think the film's by far the worst in the series, but I prefer the longer version.

What do other people think?

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