Terence Wang on... A White Christmas (Christmas Special)

EDIT: By 25 December 2010, Jiawin Ng would have left for Singapore to continue his studies under the ASEAN scholarship. This author wishes him good luck and farewell.
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It is 25 December 2010. Terence Wang looks out of his double storey terrace house, in the suburbs of Hollywood. He opens the window and stretches out his hand. A snowflake lands in his palm, so gently that he wonders whether it is all a dream.

Editor(M.E.): And yes, of course it's a dream. For starters, it's raining, not snowing.
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Sigh.

It's that time of the year again. When I wish raindrops were snow. When I wish my home was located either on the North or South of this blue-and-green(and white) planet. When I wish there was much more of the festive mood that is associated with this time of the year.

But then again, it's Christmas.

And how can one not be happy on Christmas??!!

Fireworks. Signify mood changes, among other things.

Yup, it might not be snowing in this sh*t hole lovely country but I'm staying jolly. And merry. And...

(Starts crying) Oh why, oh why, oh why can't it snow here?? (continues crying...)

Anyway.

First off, the Suburban KID Blog Committee would like to wish all readers, never mind whether you all are Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, Muslim, Jewish, even atheist, a very Merry Christmas(Happy Holidays to atheists). And how can you forget the very optimistic New Year? Seriously, he's always in a good mood, even in this recession! Isn't he afraid of getting laid off like 2010??

As I was saying, since it's a season of being grateful, forgiving and generally good, we should probably keep being upset on the none-whiteness of this country just be thankful and make do with what we have.

In fact, our family has already got the Christmas mood going. Look!

The Christmas tree, obviously. I haven't managed to capture the lights well, unfortunately.

"Cute" little stockings

And a very Merry Christmas to you too, Mr-not-so-big-Santa.

Smile.

Ok, so that's about it(apart from a Christmas party and some songs) but the mood's more important, right?

There. I'm contradicting myself again.

One last thing: Since my announcement of this blog reaching a thousand views, views have gone up by...well, frankly I'm not sure, but let's just say, a lot. To let you 'get' the scale of it, this blog reached 1000 views 14 days ago. Now, it's 1552.

So thank you, and have a great Christmas. (looks around) Where's the Christmas spirit on this blog? Editor, change template! Find some Christmas songs! Hurry!

P.S. You might have noticed the new blog template and songs. Well, ok I went traditional this year on the songs, but at least I didn't go for the old "Jingle Bells".

Suburban KID - 1st Birthday(Continued)

By now, you all should know that the fool that I am has misread the date several days ago, causing him to post his own blog's birthday post... on the wrong day.

And, to make it worse, I decided to post some updates that I meant to post on my blog's birthday(the date that I misread) on my blog's real birthday-which is, of course, 15th December. But I forgot.

(The next day, I received an invitation letter to join the "Epic Fail" club. It is now in the trash can.)


But it's ok, it's not the end of the world. I can still post it now, right?

Fine, I ruined my blog's first birthday. Epic fail. Whatever. It's still my blog, even with all the customer privilege bullsh*t.

As I was saying, I shall post them now, two days late:

1) New template

As you can see, the hideous beautiful birthday template has been taken down, as my blog's birthday is over. Do you like the new look? I feel it represents the "Suburban" part in Suburban KID.


2) Slight name change

The "dots" in K.I.D. have been removed(now it's just KID), mostly because of what it represented was deemed embarrassing.

It didn't stand for anything.

3) I, M.E., my$e1f.

Sometime ago, I introduced the Suburban KID Blog Committee, which consists of I, M.E. and my$e1f. I'm sure you can eventually figure out that this 3 people are actually only one person. Which person? Figure it out.
Their profiles and bio are now on a new page, right here: http://terencewang101.blogspot.com/p/about-suburban-kid-blog-committee.html

4) One more thing

Just wanted to show all of you these posts.

This is my very first post on this blog: http://terencewang101.blogspot.com/2009/12/not-again.html
My first post, ever(my first post wasn't on the blog): http://terencewang101.blogspot.com/2010/01/terence-wang-on-new-moon.html
My most popular post to date: http://terencewang101.blogspot.com/2010/11/terence-wang-on-advertisements.html
My personal favourite post: http://terencewang101.blogspot.com/2010/11/terence-wang-on-demise-of-proper.html

And that's about it for now, unless I feel that there are other things that need changing. Until next time.

Maybe.

P.S. Some may have noticed that the first birthday post has disappeared. This is because... I, er, felt that with this post, the first one was not needed. Right.


I know; I'm a bad liar. I accidentally deleted it. Arrgghhh!!! (Bites tongue, pulls hair, sets ass on fire)

One Thousand.

Ladies and gentlemen, at exactly 1400 hours local(Malaysian) time today, Suburban KID with the domain name http://terencewang101.blogspot.com, has reached 1000 page views.

Cue "cyber" applause.

Ok, I'll own up to a fact here: this blog has reached a 1000 page views some time ago. But we(or rather, I) did not have any proof, as Blogger's Stats only became functional a few months ago.

Reaching a thousand views might be rather insignificant to some viewers, but it is important for me and this blog. This is because having views and feedback is motivation to any blogger. To keep him/her assured and feel that his/her blog is important enough to take care of and to be kept going. I'm also happy that it happened now, just a few days before this blog's first birthday. I'll talk about that later.

Hold on a second... oh, now it's 1001 views. Even better.

Her's a pic:

So, right here, right now, I want to thank all of you who helped me reach this milestone.

I want to thank all of my 6 "followers", which you can see in the mid-right side of my blog, for following this blog when it was still young and it's admin was an idiot who went on ranting about how terrible everything was. He's much more sensible now, thanks to all of you.

I also would like to thank the readers from all over the world, from U.S. to Russia to Denmark to Spain to Japan and other places. Some have given comments, which as I have said for the 1001th time(ok, maybe not), is very important.

I might want to thank my parents and other authorities for not wanting to shut down even after some of the controversial topics that I've written.(This does NOT mean that I'll shy away from them, however.)

Last but definitely not least, I want to thank Jiawin for providing assistance and motivation, and giving lot's of feedback(although not on this blog). Overall, he has given the most, er, assistance, motivation and feedback. So thanks, Jiawin. I know you'll read this.

Here's to 10000 views, hopefully in the near future.

P/S; Oh yes, I said I'll talk about this blog 1st birthday. It won't be that big of a ceremony, of course, but I hope to bring along a few changes to this blog with it. And yes, of course there will a blog post.

I don't know the actual day, but I remember it was somewhere it the middle of December, so I decide to put it right at the middle: the 15th. So watch this space.

REVIEW: The Chronicles of Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

WARNING: This review contains spoilers. Please proceed only if you a)have watched the movie; b)don't intent to watch the movie but want to know more about it; c) are going to watch it, but want to know its plot and storyline because of lack of impatience.
You have been WARNED.


Have I overused the "bolds" and "CAPITALS"? Never mind.

This is probably the first time I have watched a movie that has just been released. Seriously.

To make things easier for you readers, I shall break down this review into several sections.

Plot
This, unfortunately, is where the movie falls short.

If only they had just used the same formula that they used in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, that is, to faithfully follow C.S.Lewis's storyline, this section would have got high marks, as everyone knows that his work was brilliant. But no, the script writers had to put their heads together and say: "Let's toss it a little here...and turn it there..."

Result? A little underwhelming.

I entered the cinema late-no thanks to certain people-and missed a little of the beginning. At first, the movie seemed to be following the original plot. Then, I noticed a few changes that I won't mention here, just in case you are one of those who didn't see/follow my warning.

The real disappointments came later. When the crew reached Lone Islands, they defeat the slave bosses(which follows the plot), and after they saved one of the Lords(who is a poor prisoner here instead of the wealthy guy in the book), he hands them a "magical sword" which, as we find out later, together with the other swords from the other six Lords, must a great evil on Dark Island(which does exist) which will threaten Narnia with...something.

WHY??? Lewis doesn't even mention the swords in the book!(Ok, he did, but they were just the Lords' weapons) The plot was supposed to be about all of them  on a quest to the other side of the world which was where they believed Aslan's country was and the obstacles, fears and temptations they faced on the way.

If you haven't read the book, you have to. Now. Go get the car, bike, whatever and find a book shop.

This is the problem with movie producers and directors. They think that every movie has got to have a super villain that has to be killed in the name of humanity(or, in this care, 'animality'). Why can't it just be about each individual's fears?

However, I do think that the producers were clever in choosing the Dark Island part to be expanded, especially as it is about manipulating one's fears and thoughts. (I still feel that they shouldn't have made it something to be destroyed) They also expanded the part on Edmund's rivalry with Caspian, which was great.

All this 'expanding', however, creates a new problem: many details and long parts in the book have been cut short.

First it was on Lone Island. There was a whole sub-plot on how they devised a cunning plan to oust the Governor, but in the movie it isn't even mentioned.

We also have the part on Ramandu's island (Ramandu was the one who told them about the 'spell' that needed to be broken with the 7 swords) and several other parts that I can't remember cut short. Being a fan of the books, this makes the movie feel... stingy, in an odd way.

To give the script writers credit, the parts which followed the original were excellently done(you'll have to read the book to understand). If only they had decided to just leave the rest of the plot alone.

Special Effects

This is one of the best parts.

The scenery, sound effects, costumes and lighting and general "believable-ness" are beautiful and immaculately executed. One has to watch the movie to appreciate this, of course, but here are some, er, examples...

The Pevensies, Caspian and the "Blue Star".

Repicheep(right) and Eustace-turned-Dragon

The Dawn Treader.

The 3-D effects, while not groundbreaking or outstanding, do a very good job at enhancing the viewing experience. Should you pay extra for it? In my opinion, probably.

Characters

I just wish that the script writers were half as good as the actors.

Seriously, they are good. Georgie Henley(Lucy Pevensie) is as delightful as ever; you just can't help liking her.Skandar Keynes (Edmund Pevensie) is slightly boring at normal times, but does a great job at acting out his dark side. High praise goes to Will Poulter(Eustace Scrubb) for (together with the script writers, of course) managing to turn the people-love-to-hate character in the book into...people-love-to-hate-and-laugh-at. He talks in such a complicated manner that it's usually funny. Simon Pegg is also excellent and witty as voice of Reepicheep, although whether it surpasses Eddie Izzard from the second film(Prince Capian) is for you to decide.


Overall, although I'm a little underwhelmed with The Voyage of The Dawn Treader's storyline, the producers have done a fine job on the characters, their lines, the scenery and the effects.

Rating: 7.5


The Good: Characters, witty lines, scenery, special effects.
The Bad: Altered plot, some parts cut short.

Terence Wang wonders when the next Narnia  film will come out, and which book it will be based on.