This is yesterday's news but I'm posting it now because my site wasn't operational the past few days.  After Arun Gopal and myself finished our SADN presentation on 23rd, we went to Higginbothams and found out that a "Manipal" sweatshirt was available there.  So the next day, I got myself one of those (Rs. 310).  I also collected the courier package that Varun and my parents sent me.  Of course, the two CDs were there, but there was also a surprise for me, because I found a very nice T-Shirt also in the package!  I watched Varun's 3D animations from the CDs and they were really impressive!

On 25th, I finally got to watch Alien vs. Predator at Movie Dome (9:30 PM, I went with Kamal).  So what do I have to say about the movie?  Well, it was pretty much what I expected it would be, and it really could have been a lot worse.  But it certainly was not comparable to the original Alien and Predator films.  The main difference being that those movies had memorable stories, good scripts, well developed characters and great music scores - whereas Alien vs. Predator had basically a padded-out premise, less than memorable characters and a pretty generic music score.  Perhaps I'm a bit harsh on the movie because I had already read some story details in reviews - and was a bit disappointed to find that that was basically all the story there was!!

The story goes like this: Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen), the founder of the Weyland Corporation (which would later become Weyland-Yutani, the sinister Company in the Alien movies) discovers strange heat signals coming from 2000 feet under Antarctica, from what seems to be a pyramid-like structure.  He assembles a team to actually go there and find what's in the pyramid.  And then the fun starts - the humans are caught in a battle between Aliens and Predators!  The Predators built the pyramid as a hunting ground, where they practice hunting the Aliens.

The PG-13 rating definitely hampered the movie, I think - because there's a lot of places where the camera cuts away before any blood is spilt or before a death is shown on screen.  At times I found it difficult to make out what was going on!  They also changed the Predator creature design slightly (both the external armour as well as the inner head), and I somehow like the original designs better.  Coming to the characters, I think that the Weyland character was wasted - I expected a lot more background about Weyland/Weyland-Yutani than there was in the movie!

Now for the good parts - Paul Anderson is a very stylish director, and I felt he did a good job of keeping things interesting throughout (at just about one and a half hours, it is a very fast moving movie).  There is lots of action - the fights between the Aliens and Predators are particularly impressive - and lots of nice touches (I loved the slow-motion facehugger shot), including one scene in particular that I felt was very artistic (the history of the pyramid).  I also liked the way Predator-style symbols came onscreen at the end, only to be replaced by the end credits in English!

Finally I think that the movie is mandatory viewing for fans of either one or both the source movies (I have not read the Aliens vs. Predator comics, nor have I played the games), and it is a pretty cool movie by itself.

For all that Alien vs. Predator was, I know that Resident Evil: Apocalypse will be even better!

Just now, I was reading about the upcoming re-release of George Lucas' THX-1138 (I have not seen it), and looking at this page, with a comparison of the original and the re-release.