Comparative Essay of chosen movie genre - Science vs Fiction movie - Differences

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
NAME: YAP CHOE HOONG
STUDENT ID NO: 0323161
FILMS SELECTED: INTERSTELLAR (SCIENCE) & X-MEN Days of Future Past (FICTION)
WORD COUNT: 846
ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY
LECTURER: GOPIGHANTAN MYLVAGANAM
SUBMISSIONDATE:DECEMBER 4TH
2015

2. Contrast Essay
Movie genre is very, very subjective from an individual to another. What is a movie
genre? “It is a type or category of artistic composition (as in film or literature), marked by a
distinctive style, form, or content.” It is also used to categorize the elements or components
which are used to construct the movie. The 2 movie genres that I have chosen are Science and
Fiction. Scientific movies are very much based on facts and data. They stir our
knowledgeable mind and they are very likely to require us to have scientific knowledge to
fathom the idea being presented in movie. My favorite would be Science genre. Being
enthusiastic about Quantum Physics and how our universe functions, Interstellar fits very
well to my liking. It was simply amazing how moving the movie was. It triggered my
thoughts in depth. X-Men, on the other hand, was a fictional movie that I watched which
defied physics, science. However, it instilled fantasy in me. The logic of a fictional movie is
almost negligible. Everyone, even I, have an innate drive to have fantasies.
The main attraction of both movies was the overwhelmingly impressive concept of
time travel. However, they had a very significant contrast in doing so. X-Men relied on
individual’s distinct superhuman ability to travel back in time. The female character (Kitty
Pryde) used her ability to teleport the male character, Wolverine, the protagonist back to the
past because of his extreme rapid heal ability. Clearly, it did not involve any scientific
knowledge. On the other hand, Interstellar focused on advanced technology. Thanks to
Physics! The writers of the movie must have a vast understanding of the black hole, dark
matters in the universe and how time is gravity influential. It was fascinating how they used
different methods to rewind to the past.
Being a movie that is related to space, Interstellar covered celestial and terrestrial area,
mainly celestial bodies whilst X-Men covered only terrestrial area. Interstellar enabled
audience to imagine themselves in a calm and serene atmosphere, where they were isolated
from the crowd or society in a vast universe. It was their mission to travel through the worm
hole and explore the unexplored and discover the undiscovered. It is indeed intriguing to be
able to travel to the space. Who would not want to dream of that? Imagine that we are not
bounded by the gravity! On the contrary, X-Men only carried out their mission on Earth.
They travelled a great distance but it was only within Earth as it focused on the events

3. happening on Earth. The characters were all Earth-bound and did not acquire the superhuman
ability to travel across distances in an instance or to fly across universe to other planets.
Mutation occurrence is pretty normal. Our DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) in our
body’s cell mutates now and then. However in X-Men, mutation was emphasized to a whole
new level where human beings were mutated with special ability. Mutants only existed in X-
Men but not in Interstellar. Mutants were the highlights in the movie X-Men. Unlike X-Men,
Interstellar comprised of only non-mutated human beings. The characters were purely non-
mutants without superhuman ability who were sent to the space to fulfil their obligations.
They do not possess any superhuman ability to aid them in mission. Professor-X in X-Men, a
charismatic leader who possessed telepathic ability was able to locate any one person
whereby the scientists in Interstellar were clueless of the whereabouts and chances of survival
in the new planets. The scientists could only search for the planets and seek out the
information by attempts.
In the movie X-Men, the attribution was not due to family. The movie did not portray
much on family matters. In fact, most of the mutants were orphans. These mutants had a
strong sense of collectivism, they would stand by each other regardless of conforming to the
evil and virtuous side. Both conflicting parties were in a dispute over some reasons for
decades. The evil party did not have faith in non-mutants, hence declaring war against the
non-mutants whereby the upright party held their good will and principle to defend the non-
mutants from the evil mutants. In the movie Interstellar, the main character desperately
wanted to amend the terrible living condition on Earth. The available food was in scarcity. He
initially did not want to join the mission and then be separated apart from his family but he
did it eventually because of his affection for his family and their future. Occasionally, he
would be contacting his family from the spaceship throughout the movie. Also, the professor
who sent him for the mission was selfishly doing it for her daughter’s welfare. This movie
was very family-based.
Wrapping it up, both of the movies are unique in their own ways. Scientific movies
stimulate our thoughts to a greater extent of depth in scientific knowledge. Contrarily
fictional movies are fantasies that stimulate the unrealistic thoughts of ours. Both involve
imagination, being one which requires scientific knowledge to validate the imagination and
the other one which requires unrealistic fantasy to validate the imagination.

4. References
Nordquist, and Richard Nordquist. 'Genre'. About.com Education. N.p., 2015. Web. 4 Dec.
2015.
wiseGEEK,. 'What Is A Genre? (With Pictures)'. N.p., 2015. Web. 4 Dec. 2015.