Aliens Covenant (Non-Spoiler Edition and Spoiler Edition)

Hey hey fellow earthlings! I'm back. Last night I managed to catch the advanced screening of  Aliens Covenant

 and heres my review. Lets jump into it.

I'll split this review into the spoiler free portion and the ones with spoilers.

SPOILER!!!

SPOILER FREE PORTION

So this is the vanilla non-spoiler portion of the review. What i'll post is basically what we know from previous movies and from trailers. If those also you havent watched.. then mayb you should.

Heres the teaser trailer.

and the trailer

and this

Basically this is part of the prequel to "Aliens" .  Which is essentially this

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Now the movie itself is great in a sense that it has a good storyline. But in my opinion its lost its Ridley Scott charm. In the Prometheus movie, what we had at the ending was essentially a mindfuck. I was left with more answers rather than when I went in. The movie was that confusing.

But in this movie it was quite linear.. I would say I ended up with wayyyy less questions at the end rather than the beginning. 

Now that might be a good thing or a bad thing depending on where you are looking. But I think frankly the movie lost a bit of its charm. Prometheus had me going whatttt??? from the trailer and then whatttt? at the end. But this one I was like errkey....


Anyhow takes place after the events of Prometheus (as seen in trailer) and revolves around the aliens themselves.

The same sort of oddworld not sure if its earth coz its too pretty to thats earth and not some alien planet is still there. Theres aliens in there and theres a biiit more gore this time. The aliens coming out is in full hd.. haha you can see the bits coming out from the body.

One of the trailers mentioned that this was a ship with lots of couples. That will be central to the movie.. and that will also be the source of why I went WTF!!! at most parts.

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The main character is still Michael Fastbender and then also Katherine Waterston. Their acting I believe is superb. I hated him and i loved her.. shes awesfome..  Theres also the aliens played by.. the aliens.. In this one you have different types of aliens.. the teensy weensy (like those small dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and you have the big daddy oh mommy type too.


Now in my opinion out of a 10. I would give the movie a 7 mayb 8 at most. I have some parts which I liked and some parts which I dont which I will explain further in the spoiler filled section below..

Now do I recommend this film... Yes, I do.. if you are a fan of the series and want to know what sorta happened, I recommend you definitely should go. It may dissappoint you a bit but i think its just building up to the end.

Now on to the spoiler portion...

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WARNING SPOILERS !!!!

via GIPHY

So lets get on with it. 

The first question I guess that everyone is dying to get to know is Whether it is actually part of the Prometheus Movie storyline. The answer is YES! It basically intertwines with one another though the only characters that survived was actually Daniel and Shaw. 

Basically the movie is 10 years after the events of Prometheus. In this movie Earth has moved on to start colonising other planets. Apparently its taken them 10 years to research a planet that can do just that. So off they go on a ship called the Covenant.. what else. However along the way, the shit gets damaged through a solar flare which causes damage to the ships. At the start another robot (played by Michael Fassbender ) was taking care of the ship who also has some weird feelings for another girl on a ship (maybe its their programming).

When the crew goes outside to repair the ship they started intercepting signals of someone singing John Denver songs. 

Skip ahead bla bla bla they decide to go to that planet where the source of the signal was from. Now the landing of the landing crew of the ship exposes them to the things on the planet. The planet which looks eerily similar to earth has no sound of alien animals. Basically its earth without the good stuff. 

So upon landing, they started getting things haywire. They split up and one team stays behind to take samples and one team goes on to track the signal. At the start there was nothing by later they woke up the aliens by basically reviving spores that has been dead and which starts infecting a few of the crew. Whats weird here is that the spores look like bull shit hahaha... seriously.. and they get stepped upon... 

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So the thing then start sporing inside the bodies of the crew and create mini aliens who infect one crew and results in their craft being blown up!.. which results in them walking around nowhere with some of the aliens attacking them to only be saved by Daniels!

Daniels then brings him back to his lair and soon the crew realises what he's doing (doing tests and trying to find more biological hosts to infest) and they get killed off more and more.

The destruction of the ship prompts the covenant to send a crew to help rescue them which results in one of the big battles with the aliens and then they get back to the ship only to realise that Walter.. is not really Walter but Daniels!

So thats essentially the movie.

Now I have some problems with the movie.

What I dont get though is that this movie has one main product sponsor.. which is GoPro.. as you can see in the movie, the crew goes running around with what is essentially a GoPro Hero 5! and 3 way bend Go Pole. Thats fine as they want to use it to promote GoPro and selfie and POV videos but seriously do you think that GoPro wouldnt change from 2017 to 2104????

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Next, what seriously irks me is that how they heck do you guys not implement a contamination protocol when you mentioned it!

Seriously.. havent they watched Life??

And the surprise I am not walter but I am daniels.. that is seriously totally expected. There was no point in that.. should just basically taken them down immediately.

Whats surprising is tho.. The acting by Fassbender is really good. You can see the difference btween the two characters and the differences in personalities that they have. I seriously think he's an asshole in as Daniel.. hahaha

One last thing, in my opinion the movie is basically a buildup of how aliens became what they are as we know it. Right now what we have seen are the slightly weirded warped aliens and not the aliens that we knew back then. Since Daniels has been experimenting, I believe he will be key to this form of creation. 

Now the questions I am left with:

a) Why the heck is Daniels doing this? Is he trying to be a creator too? Is it also because he can (his insult in Prometheus that humans created him cause they can)

b)  Who the heck created the bombs? If the engineers created and its placed on their ship, why dont they have a way to combat it? Is it like our own biological weapons? Why did they have it in the first place?

Anyhow let me know what you think of the movie if you have watched. If you havent and you have read this far.. Err. Hey enjoy! :D

Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2! The review.

Pew pew pew.... what a good way to start of the movie. For those of you not aware of what is guardians of the galaxy and what the movie is about, essentially is based on a comic which I know very little about.

I remember a couple of years ago when I went to watch it because it was a MARVEL movie. Anyhow the movie definitely was under the Marvel cinematic universe which revolved around Thanos and the inifinity stones yada yada yada.


Anyhow at the end of the first movie they manage to prevent the bad guys from using the infinity stone to destroy planets and slippery slope the universe!

Heres a trailer to the movie if you havent caught it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d96cjJhvlMA

Now for me the best part about the first movie is and was the unexpectedness of it all. It was funny and witty and had an awesome soundtrack. In fact I think the soundtrack on the first one killed it! Check it here.

Anyhow on to the second movie. It essentially starts off to establish the characters are back again and fighting and bickering as usual with the exception of Groot now being smaller cuter and more adorable.

I wont spoil the storyline of the movie but just state what this movie entails. This time it ties to tell a backstory to Peter (aka Starlord) and his background and parentage. Apparently this was hinted in the first movie but I never caught it till I rewatched it. 

So from there they progress to further develop more backstories like Yondu and becomes very sentimental for a bit. 

This movie is more of a comedy since I guess they have accepted their identity as being comedic in the first movie I guess. So do expect jokes, comedic moments at every step of the way. 

Now what I dont like about the movie is the SOUNDTRACK! I knew 0 songs from the soundtrack.. totally zilch nada nutting.. It didnt resonate with me at all that I dont think I will buy the soundtrack this time around (i did for the first one) and I think theres too many jokes. Sure I laughed at most of it.. but after awhile it started to feel like i was at a comedy stand up show.

Now as to whether you should watch the show.. YES I THINK YOU SHOULD! Its enjoyable and funny. As to the whole storyline.. I guess its nothing much of a wow after the first revelation of what peter is. In the whole grand scheme of things I dont know how this moves the marvel cinematic universe along. 

In my review i give it a 8.5/10. Go ahead and watch it. I wont spoil much of it for you so go go goooo... Now if you have watched it, what do you think? Do you think my assessment is correct or do you think I shouldve joined Yondu? Let me know what you think!

P.s wait for ALL the end credits.. (Yes more than 1).

Hiatus

Hellowwwww! I have been gone for awhile. Short update for now.

I am a student again... YEAY  hahaha.. I am soo busy with things like research and thesis proposals and class and assignments and work... Sheesh.

I feel the itch to procrastinate write is very strong now.. but anyhow just short update. I will be back.

I just came back from a trip and would oh so love to share it. So check back with me a in a bit.

Ciao!

Macau

Hey guys. Welcome back to my blog. I went to Macau the other day and mann was it packed! Anyhow it was a very short trip compared to the whole grand scheme of things (I was on sorta working trip to Hong Kong)

So I started out the day by visiting a statue near my hotel and then proceeded to take the bus to senado square. Sounds straight forward enough right? Nope!! Gotta prepare coins and also get dropped off somewhere else and being told yes this is senado square.

Anyhow, it wasnt that far off a walk but we walked for about 10 minutes to Senado square and BAM! It was freaking full of people!...

Should've expected that but oh well. Anyhow from there just follow the road and the crowd and keep heading up to the ruins of St. Paul. Along the way there will be lots to see like an old church and shops and old portugese buildings built backthen when the portugese managed the place.

At the end you will find the ruins and just a climb up to see it and all there is to be shown!

Anyhow have a look at the video I prepared below.

Lombok and Gili Trawangan - Lombok Trip Part 1

Lombok!

The famous Gili Trawangan  swings

Where is Lombok.. thats the typical question. I actually would've asked the same question had it not been for the fact that my mom just came back from the said island a few months before.

Anyhow, as usual with trips, my story usually starts with a friend going " Hey we should go on a trip!" and as they say, history happened. 

So, following that suggestion,  we all decided on an island getaway, and being in Kuala Lumpur we were spoilt for choice and had the options for the numerous number of islands to go to. My friend Cheryl insisted on Lombok and I was quite hesitant about it as my mom's review of the place was quite dismal from the sites, the food and otherwise.

So I didnt hope for much but we made our bookings and arrangements and the usual research on things. As the date for departure got closer, the excitement grew stronger.

Accomodations!

When we made our bookings, this excitement was compounded by our booking of our accomodations. The booking process was semi-scientific in nature and racist too (Really!). This is because instead of stars, we relied on user reviews and instead  of general user reviews we discarded the Ang Moh's (Westerner's) reviews and relied on our countrymen and singaporeans to give a more honest review from an asian perspective. This is mainly due to the fact that we know our countrymen will have higher standards and not be wow-ed simply by a view and if we say the food is good, you can trust us, THE FOOD IS GOOD.

So I made several  vlogs for our entire trip there. I will be sharing the videos of the trip and I will be splitting this post into several posts due to the numerous amounts of things happening a the same time there. 

Lombok Trip 1- Going on Flight to Lombok and Lombok Jetty.
Lombok Trip 2- Using horsecart for transport and Aston Sunset Beach Resort Gili Trawangan
Lombok Trip 3- Snorkelling in Gili Trawangan
Lombok Trip 4- Pizza time in Gili Trawangan
Lombok Trip 5- The Swings In Gili Trawangan
Lombok Trip 6- The waterfalls in Lombok Island. 


Getting There! 

We booked our flight through Air Asia and the good part about this trip was the direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Lombok without any connections. The flight was great as usual.

We had some McD before the flight and headed off to the departure halls. The one thing that peeves me about Air Asia though, it seems like ALL my flights are departing from the gates allll the way at the end of the terminal. If you have never been to KLIA 2, you guys should know that its A HUGE airport with long terminals. Right now they are trying to rectify that with walkalators but for now theres still a huge pain in the leg if you are rushing.

Now arriving in Lombok, the airport is not too small but still, when you disembark it is just mere footsteps to the immigration counter and then you are effectively out of the airport. So when we got out of the airport, we bought simcards for each of us and called our driver.

Driver

I digress a bit here. For places like Lombok and Bali, unless you are really familiar with the roads there, I don't recommend for you to drive yourself as the roads are of the obscure kind and provides little in terms of familiarity to point you to get to where you want to. So unless you are good at navigation, I recommend to get a driver to do the leg work for you. Plus, they will be of great help when you plan and negotiate.


Sim Card.  
Upon arrival at the airport and upon exiting the arrival hall there were some vendors selling us sim cards. Depending on the service provide you have back in your home country, it might be cheaper to pick up sim cards upon arrival or pick up a wifi transmitter rental from home. So go do your checking beforehand.

Anyhow upon arrival we found the vendors and each of us bought one sim card which gave us around 4 GB for 7 days for about IDR60,000 (RM 20 at that time). This was great as we used it to liase and talk to each other since some of us had different rooms and another group arrived separately.

So since we got our simcards and almost immediately had internet connection (yeay civilization!) we proceeded to call our driver and arranged the pickup.

From Airport to the Barn (aka Bangsal)

At the airport the security was pretty tight. The security looked like soldiers and they put up a barrier about 5 meters from the door and only those who worked at the airport or were flying off were allowed in. There also had a crowd that had assembled consisting of other drivers, touts and taxi drivers I think. If they ask, just say politely that you have a driver or negotiate with them.

So once we met up with our driver, we headed off towards the ferry terminal and first thing we all thought about was FOOD.........

So our driver graciously brought us to go eat at a restaurant named Taliwang Raya.  For those who are not acquainted, Taliwang is the famous dish common in Lombok made by the Sasak people. It consists of chicken thats grilled halfway and then added the chillies and then fried which seals the flavour on the chicken.
 

Lunch

So the restaurant was placed in the middle of a paddyfield and is simply gorgeous. Blue skies all around simply picturesque.
 

The restaurant

Lunch

 

One thing I must say though, the paddyfields in Lombok is slightly different. it tends to have more trees surrounding the paddy field.
 

Paddy fields in Lombok

After we ate we got back on the car and drove off to Bangsal. The overall drive took us about 2-3 hrs so be prepared to sleep see the sights along the way.

Now I did plenty of research before heading there. So I was informed that at bangsal there will be a few different types of boats available. One was the public boat, another was the fast boat and the last was fast boat.

Now for the Public Boat, it costs VERY CHEAP but you are subjected to riding with other locals together with their wares that they carry to the island. This means that you are in it together with the veggies and the groceries. 

The next one is fast boat and speed boat. When you reach bangsal you should head to the white building. Inside there you can get tickets and then be on your merry way. We bought tickets for the public boat which costs about RM 6 if I am not wrong but they tried to push us towards the speedboat and fast boat. Further they lied to us saying the next boat was at 6 pm (it was around 2-3pm then). 

What happens is that the public boat needs to get 30 people and then you can go. You will be able to tell whether that will be awhile or not by the number on the ticket. When we got ours it was number 20-ish and so we didnt have a long wait.

Traveller Tip : 

• Wear flip flops
• Wear shorts
• Prepare to get wet to get on and off the public boat. (There is no jetty and you get off the boat at the beach).

 Now I end my post here but you can watch the video above for more vlogs on the trip. Should you have any comments or questions, please feel free to comment and should you want more videos, please subscribe for more.  

Honesty is the best policy

Today I enlisted the services of an air conditioning servicing company. Its a general job that was mainly for cleaning and to see whether anything was loose as I heard some vibrations coming from the compressor unit.

At the end of the service, the serviceman passed me the service record which included the speed of the blower, the voltage, the gas pressure etc to show the difference between before and after the service. Fair enough I thought. But then he said you can use that for future service if you wish, you don't have to take with me but then if you want to you can use that as a reference.

I was slightly taken aback, I know in all honesty you might think I might take someone else just cause I want to try something else. But why? Why would you denigrate your service to immediately think that I might not take your service? You were honest, you did great service and you do more than most service men I know. Why would I not use your service? Anyhow.. Musings... What do you guys think?

I.C.E

Was watching Sirens just now and they were on about ICE (In Case of Emergency) contacts. I guess I am lucky to have my mom around that makes it easier. But who would be next? Friends, family or loved one? Would I want to trouble the family or have a loyal friend or someone who loves me to have in contact. Would they contact my friends or family or would I be left alone... something to ponder on.