Today, I went out with the gang to watch The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was pretty well done, and so I decided to do a movie review on it. For every movie that I watch in the future, I shall do a review on it. Besides, it would come in handy when I have to pass up work for GP. :P

Now, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (which shall hereby be known as Narnia) is set in the period of time known as World War 2. It is about 4 kids who were sent to the house of a professor for their own safety, and stumbled through a wardrobe to enter the magical land of Narnia. Their coming has been prophesied to save the world of Narnia from the iron rule of the White Witch, and to herald the coming again of the previous King of Narnia, the Lion Aslan.

Visual effects (aka eye candy) 8/10: I’ve read somewhere that the movie had a budget of about 150 million, and it shows in the brilliant scenery and CGI creatures that you see. Everything, from the first time we glazed upon the land of Narnia, to the time when the movie closes, is downright beautiful. Not that I expected less from the works of Industrial Lights and Magic, the same company that came up with the graphics of the Star Wars series (hey, it was started by Lucas, alright? Of course he would use his own company to make his own film). However, there were some parts that didn’t look quite up to par as the rest of the movie…Maybe they ran out of budget? In any case, there is enough eye-candy here to please even the nerdiest person watching.

Sound 6/10: A grand movie like this would have a memorable and powerful score to go with it, won’t you think? Not so. The background music played in most scenes didn’t stay with me, and…well, that’s that. Even though I’ve just stepped out of the cinema not too long ago, I can’t remember the songs that they played. Compare this with the songs that the Lord of The Rings had. Now that is a fine example of a memorable score. I was humming the Breaking of The Fellowship for days after watching the Fellowship of The Ring. Narnia just doesn’t stand up to par in this area.

General 9/10: I thought that it was directed pretty well. The pacing is just fine, though my friends told me that it was dull in some parts, but I didn’t think so. The acting was quite well done, producing certain memorable characters like Lucy. The few gags it had in it were also sophisticated enough for my taste, consisting of small puns and smart talk. Take this for example:

Mrs Beaver: You could have given me five minutes to get ready.
Mr Beaver: I won’t have given you a week if I thought that it would help.

lol That really made my day.

They had the whole range of fantasy creatures, such as satyrs ( I think they are tree creatures), centaurs (lower body of a horse, body of a man. Can’t miss them), fauns (remember the demigod Pan? This is his race), goblins (Orcs. Enough said), giants (looks more like humans made really big using the technology to make hobbits small in LoTR). But no elves. Get that: No elves. And the cyclopses look as if they were missing of growth hormones. According to legend, they are supposed to be as big as giants (just read Jason and the Argonauts). Well, they are real small here.

Altogether now 8/10: This is a movie fit for the whole family. Gather up everyone and get your tickets now.

Okay, the official review is now over. Now for my thoughts on the movie. You can read it if you want to, or just leave the site. I don’t really care. But if you do decide to read on, do note that there will be spoilers. So if you don’t want your story spoiled, I would strongly suggest you to leave now. :P

As you all may know, C.S. Lewis, who was a Christian apologist, wrote Narnia, and it shows in the movie. There are many Christian elements that you can find, for those of you who are sharp enough. For example, the Lion King Simb…Aslan gave his life to save that of the traitor (well, technically) Edmund aka Jesus style. Meaning a pure, innocent life (Jesus/Aslan) was given to redeem that of one who doesn’t deserve it (Man/Edmund) Oh, Edmund also plays the role of Judas (hence the traitor name) by betraying the location of his family to the White Witch, who I think plays the role of the Devil. I mean, she tempted Edmund with sweets (Snake, Fruit, and Eve, anyone?) and turned him to the Dark Side for a little while. And oh, did I tell you that Aslan came back again? Yeah, he did too, also aka Jesus style. There are many others that I would point out, but where’s the fun in that? Go look for it yourself. Here’s a hint: read up on the crucification of Christ.

And now, on the battle tactics used by the forces of the Free Animals of Narnia. I only have one question: What idiot planned the battle for the good guys??? That’s probably the worse battle plan I’ve ever seen. Yeah, I know that battle plans usually goes to hell the moment the first arrow is fired and the first sword drawn, but a plan is all you have when you are outman-ed, outgunned, and outmaneuvered.

First, let us take a look at the terrain. The forces of Aslan had their backs against a cliff with a ravine. The forces of the White Witch has her army on the open plain. Consider the map below (which is not drawn to scale):

--------------------------- )
Good guys ----------------)
--------------------archers )
----------------------------)
--------------------------//
------------------------//
********************* Whole collection

********************* of mounted forces ........................................Bad guys
-----------------------\\
-------------------------\---------------------------)
-------------------archers )
---------------------------)
---------------------------)

If you know anything about medieval tactics, you should be able to tell that the good guys have an overwhelming tactical advantage. All they have to do is hold out in the ravine and have their archers rain arrows down on the baddies as they try to force their way in. But no.

Another point…With archers stationed up on the cliffs, their range should be a lot further. They are also centaurs archers, so their range should be further than that of a humans, so they should be able to hit the forces of the White Witch before they can reach their mounted troops. But no – All they do is stand there and pose. Although I admit that the griffins dropping rocks on the enemy forces is a nice touch. And the use of griffins for airborne recon missions isn’t something to be dismissed lightly…At least someone there knows something about his battles.

Another point: You do not fight with the enemy on the open field unless you a) have superiority in numbers b) have someone coming up on them in a ‘hammer and an anvil’ move and c) suicidal. If I were Peter, the guy leading the army, I would have let the archers and the griffins take down whatever they can before charging. But no, all Peter did was let the griffins do their run, and charge. Though he did attack in a wedge formation – arguably the best attacking formation for mounted shock troops. But remember, he’s outnumbered.

Okay, after fighting in the open with inferior numbers, Peter suddenly found himself on the losing side, and so-called for a tactical retreat. And while we are happily running back to the ravine, enemy archers appeared on the cliffs and started shooting at them. What happened to the archers up there in the first place? And how on earth did the White Witch manage to get those archers up there? Stranger and stranger.

Well, I could go on on this all day long, but this post is already more than a 1000 words long, and I do not wish to bore you with all the details about the epic battle at the end. If you wish to discuss with me about the tactics use in the battle, I would be more than welcome. You know where to find me.

I've updated the songs as promised. This songs are just some of my favourites, and I hope that you would like them too. Now, for a review of each song...

The first track is sang by Yui, the same person who sang Life, the 4th ending theme for the popular anime Bleach. Its quite good, don't you think? The track title is "Crossroads".

Now the next track is called "Fuuka Academy School Song - Crystal's Protection" It is, as you can tell, the school song for the Fuuka Academy, also known as the Fuuka Gakuen Academy. The song is from one of my top 10 animes, Mai HiME. They played the instrumental version of this beautiful song at the end of the series, when the school is being rebuilt.

The next song, also by Yui, is known as "Tomorrow's Way".

Ah, the next one..."Chocobo Racing - Diamonds in My Heart". The ending theme of the popular PS game, Chocobo Racing. I have fond memories of this song. Yup. Fond memories indeed...

Now, the other two songs are sang by the choir of Tomoeda Elementary School, the school where Sakura Kinomoto (or Sakura Avalon) studied while trying to get back all the missing Clow Cards. It was sung in a Christmas special album...I didn't manage to get the album, but I have this two songs, thanks to the gendou.com...They have over 3000 anime songs in their database. Truely amazing. The first song is "Kureyuku Hitotose", followed by "Maria no komoriuta".

This post is just to let you know the names of the songs and where they came from. Do not try to enroll yourself in the above-mentioned schools. They do not exist, except in the wonderful world of anime, which is much more interesting than the dull, dark world we live in.

Two thousand years (actually, its more like two thousand and eight years) ago, or so the Holy Bible says, Jesus Christ was born in a manger cold and dark, thus bringing salvation to those who believe in Him. It wasn't too long ago that Christmas was a day where we remember Christ's birth. Now, it has just become another day, another part of the festive session.

While watching "A Blessed Christmas" on Channel 5 yesterday, I noticed how commercialized Christmas has become. For those who have watched the show (it was very badly done, if you ask me…What a waste of my time), you would notice that it contains nothing but appearances of characters from various serial shows (mostly bad ones…I have lost faith in Singapore’s ability to produce good programs) and various Christmas songs dropped in here and there. I suppose that that’s all well and good, but contrary to what the ad says, that is not the true spirit of Christmas.

Let me tell you a story. A little boy’s birthday was round the corner. All his friends were overjoyed, and made plans to celebrate it in the most extravagant way possible. When the day came, his friends gather round for the party and had a great time. End of story. Notice something wrong with the story?

For the faster ones out there, you would notice that I did not mention about the birthday boy at all, besides mentioning him in the opening line, the reason being his friends were so busy making plans and enjoying themselves that they forgot to bring the boy over for his own birthday party. That is basically what is happening to us right now. We are celebrating Christmas, but to whom are we celebrating it for? What are we doing besides having a great time in our own way while ignoring the occasion?

I suppose that it can’t be helped. After all, no one can deny the power of the market. The people in charge of the economy saw the marketing potential of Christmas and set round to milk every cent they can out of the human herd. Ads and presents galore. Over the years, we slowly forgot why we are even celebrating Christmas in the first place. It is not to make little disabled children wishes come true (although that is a nice touch by Tork Kong, PCK, and the other characters that just happened to slip my mind…Heck, I got so sick of that show that I turned it off halfway through and went on to watching Mai HiME…I think that I would post a review on that sometime soon)
Anyway, I hope that this little essay here is enough to make you think on your preconceived notions of Christmas. Christmas isn’t really a time to give presents around (although, if you want to give me presents, I won’t mind :P), nor is anything else (okay, okay, I’m as much a victim of commercializing as you are. I want my presents and everything else. So there.). It is a day when we remember the greatest (well, second greatest…Try figuring out which is the greatest) event in human history. I hope that you would keep that in mind while you go on your mindless shopping and fun-making…Not that I have any false conceptions that you would…Well, see you.

And have a Merry Blessed Christmas.

XD

Ah! The last post was like so long ago. And I promised myself that I would give this old blog a revamp...As you can see, it did not happen. lol Score 1 for putting things off till another day.

Hmmm....I wonder if anyone is still reading this waste of memory space. Probably not...Except for my dear friend Sheng Hui. He's probably the only one who would want to come over and read whatever nonesense that I brother to throw onto this site. Come to think of it, I wonder why I even set this thing up in the first place? Sure, it was back in 2004 ( not too long ago) that this little blog was thrown up. Back then, blogs was THE in-thing. Everyone had one. Brad Pitt had one. Heck, even the Queen probably has one (to any British who might be reading this {highly doubt it} I have nothing against the Queen. I highly respect her and hope that she would live a hundred years more )

Yeah, as I was saying, it was when it looked as if that everyone had one. And one by one, the people around me also fell prey to the growing thrend of blogging. Even though I pride myself on not following trends, well....It is still hard to resist when you see your best friends telling each other about what they have read in each other's blogs. And so I started one.

And well, you can see the result here. Apart from the banner up there, everything here is right from the template provided by blogger.com. I didn't learn much from making this blog, aside from learning how to create banners. Nothing about HTML coding, though I will pick it up when I have the time. Nothing on creating my own wallpaper for the blog. Nothing at all. None. Zip.

But of course, I won't say that this blog didn't serve any purpose. It provided an easy place for me to vent whatever frustrations that I had at that moment (come to think of it, I didn't do that alot). It also allowed me a small little corner for me air my views on whatever it is that I had on my mind at that moment (think of it as my own private Speaker's Corner, where I don't have to ask the PAP for permission to say anything), as well as a place recount the events of my day. Looking around, I see that that is what most of my friends do with their blogs. Recounting the events of their day, that it. But is that the real purpose of a blog?

Most of the blogs of my friends are just places where you can read details of their day. "Oh, I went down to the store, met Shawn along the way, and chatted with him on yadda yadda till I forgot what it is that I wanted to buy" or something like that. Just details, no thinking through or no human thought process evident in their writing. For all you know, their blog might be writen by little robots who follow their master around and enter the key events into their blogs for them. After a while, they tend to lose interest in their blogs. The number of updates slow, and stop altogether, something not unlike that which is going on here.

Personally, I believe that a blog should be a place where, if you are talking about your day, a place where you allow your thoughts on the key events of your day to run free. It may be a rant on the bugger who stands in front of the door when the MRT comes like a huge wooden post ( to those of you reading this, you know who you are) or on how you felt when a total stranger came by and helped you in your time of need. The point is, I don't think that a blog should be just a timeline for the things that happens in your day ( A followed by B followed by C). A blog should contain your thoughts (hopefully insightfull ones) and your feelings on the matter.

Now that was quite the long rant. Clearly, you can see that it is coming from a deranged mind...If you point a gun to my head and ask me to put the blame on someone, I would blame the subject of GP. After doing 56 reading articles throughout the holidays, I now find that I can see ideas where perviously before saw none, gain insights in places where previously before had none...Or maybe I'm just getting older. Oh well.

Ah, before I forget, we would be having a Christmas party on the 23rd of December. To anyone reading this, I do hope that you would come. We will be meeting at 3 at Bishan MRT. There will be food provided, of course. And carolling too, by yours truely. And if your are on the 2000 batch of GMSS, a nice little skit staring your friends. So I hope that you would come. *looks around* *A dustball rolls by* Oh well, no one's here. *walks away into the glorious sunset*