This "special" version has some 17 minutes of added footage, some of which explaines matters that were difficult to imagine, because they simply didn't exist on the original version. Ripley's extra-motherly affection for the little girl to name only one thing. I am delighted to see more and more movies in it's intended cut, not the studio cut, which is often geared towards a (percieved?) short-attention span audience.Aliens is one of the examples on how a movie can get better by re-editing and adding footage, and last but not least the DVD sound and picture quality are excellent. Sci-Fi fan, go get this one.