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The balls on Ridley Scott. Blade Runner: The Director's Cut made sense since studio meddlers had saddled his visionary 1982 sci-fi classic with a cheesy sub-Raymond Chandler voice-over and a canned happy ending to try to make it play in Peoria. His visionary 1979 sci-fi classic Alien, however, was an artistic triumph that played fine everywhere. So why Alien: The Director's Cut? Good question. Scott merely prunes here and dabs on there, splicing in various discarded shots and a handful of dialogue scenes. While the new chatter adds a few wrinkles to the interpersonal dynamics of the interstellar cargo haulers (Tom Skerritt, then-nobody Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto) confronting a nightmare extraterrestrial aboard their claustrophobic spaceship, who really cares about their interpersonal dynamics? As released, Alien is a near-perfect slice of atmospheric dread that builds steadily to a heart-in-throat climax; The Director's Cut is all but indistinguishable except for a slightly slower, less focused build, which is not an improvement.