Restoring seventeen minutes of excised footage, the director's cut fleshes out the story quite a bit, plus it enhances Sigourney Weaver's already outstanding performance. Fortunately, the THX certified DVD drastically improves many of that disc's shortcomings. This superior transfer has significantly minimized the excessive level of film grain, which was the biggest problem on the Laserdisc. Sure, film grain is still somewhat visible in this new video incarnation, but it is not the objectionable mess that distressed so many Laserdisc collectors. The image is sharp and detailed, with good color reproduction and respectable saturation.
Flesh tones are a bit pale at times, but for the most part, they appear natural.
However, there isn't a hint of chroma noise or distortion anywhere on the DVD, including the red sequence. The black level on this DVD is superb and the contrast is also very pleasing to the eye. Digital compression artifacts are a non-issue, thanks to the use of dual layer technology, along with top of the line DVD authoring. The Dolby Digital 5.1 channel re-mixed soundtrack is far better than the film's vintage 1986 Dolby Surround track. Of course, no one is going to confuse this mix for that of a new movie, but it is still rather impressive.