1. Compare and Contrast Essay
English 2 (ENGL 0205)
Assignment 2
Vicky Lee Wei Kee (0313317)
FNBE JULY 2013 - ENGL 0205 English 2

2. Avatar Vs. Skyline
Since 1960, science fiction movies were becoming a burgeoning demand in the
film industry and continues to grow till today. The touchstone for scientific fiction, then,
is that it describes an imaginary invention or discovery in the natural sciences. The
most serious pieces of this fiction arise from speculation about what may happen if
science makes an extraordinary discovery. The romance is an attempt to anticipate
this discovery and its impact upon society, and to foresee how mankind may adjust to
this new condition (Bailey, 1947). Science fiction is a subdivision of fantastic literature
which employs science or rationalism to create an appearance of plausibility. (Brians,
1996). Science fiction is the argument with the universe (Mendelsohn, 1982). In
general, science fiction is a genre of fiction about imaginative fantasy and science
technologies.
To begin with, I am a movie fanatic and my favourite genre is science fiction
movies. Watching sci-fi movies to me is like escaping from a dull daily routine into the
world of fantasy where everything is beyond my imagination. They carry me to other
dimensions, or in other words, a virtual reality world with aliens, marvels of technology
and etc. And recently, I have watched two popular sci-fi movies about extraterrestrial:
“Avatar” and “Skyline”. I find these two movies are really awesome although they are
different in storyline, settings and ending.
The storyline of Avatar is about how human beings attack the aliens but vice
versa of Skyline. In Avatar, human attacked the blue-skinned human-like aliens to
mine for a valuable mineral, Unobtanium on Pandora as the Earth’s natural resources
have been severely depleted. To explore Pandora, scientists used “Avatars” to
infiltrate the indigenous people, the Na’vi of Pandora and advocate peaceful relations
with them. Jake, the main character was given only 3 months to evacuate the Na’vi,
FNBE JULY 2013 - ENGL 0205 English 2

3. however, he failed to do so and the human commenced attack to drive them away.
Although the Na’vi had won the battle at last, humans are the one to initiate and
declare war on the aliens, causing destructions and casualties of both sides. On the
other hand, the storyline of skyline is about alien invasion on Earth, where humans are
attacked and abducted. It all begins when Jarrod and his girlfriend Elaine flew to Los
Angeles (LA) for Jarrod’s best friend, Terry birthday party. The next morning, blue rays
descend from the sky, fascinating anyone who looks straight into them. Immobilized
humans would walk towards the light source and are sucked into the machines.
Counter attack by launching aircrafts failed to destroy the mother ship as well. Even
Jarrod and Elaine are sucked into the mother ship. After that, the world was overruled
by aliens. The reason why the aliens attacked human beings are left to be unknown
as it was not stated in the movie itself.
The most important difference between Avatar and Skyline though, is the
setting. The settings in Avatar covers mainly of on the planet Pandora, a treasure trove
of both living and non-living natural resources and wildlife. Although the scenes and
backgrounds in the movie were computer-generated, they are all in high definition with
the use of animation softwares by professional designers and illustrators to make the
scenes as look realistic. James Cameron, director of the movie Avatar said, “Ideally at
the end of the day audience has no idea which they are looking at.” For instance, the
floating “Hallelujah Mountains”, the “Hometree” where the Na’vi clans gathered for
spiritual events, Iknimaya, Banshee Rookery and other places made up the whole
settings and backgrounds in Pandora of the movie. However, the settings in the movie
Skyline are mostly in the city, Los Angeles. The invasion of aliens happened when
Jarrod, the main character arrived in LA. These robotic aliens descended from the sky,
abducting any living human beings in LA, vacuuming up humans into the giant alien
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4. ship. In the movie, it only focuses on the escape for survival of Jarrod and his friends
from being abducted by the aliens in the city. As the aliens were too strong and
undefeatable, Jarrod and the rest could not escape out of the condominium where
Terry stayed although they have tried to flee the building by car but was smashed and
flattened by the aliens. That is why the settings of the movie are limited within the
building: they are Terry’s unit in level 17, the elevator, underground garage and the
roof of the building.
Moreover, both movies possessed different endings as well. The ending of the
movie Avatar is considered a good and happy one because all humans are expelled
from Pandora. Only Jake and a few were allowed to stay in Pandora. Human’s
selfishness, brutality and hope to have the valuable resources all to themselves,
forcing the indigenous people of Pandora out of their homeland, had caused massive
destruction and heavy casualties to the Na’vi and the environment. As the saying goes
“The good will always prevail over the evil”. And the last part of the movie pictured a
spiritual ceremony at the “Hometree” in which Jake is transferred permanently into his
Avatar body with the aid of The Tree of Souls. It ends with explicit ending in which
Jake’s Avatar opened his eyes. This ending wraps everything up and answers all the
questions. A sense of completeness and satisfaction is brought to the audience and
is considered a happy ending. Whereas the ending of Skyline is a cliffhanger. From
the movie, a series images depict Jarrod who has turned into an alien, protecting
Elaine and their child from other aliens. The ending stops abruptly with Jarrod being
surrounded by aliens, showing that the major issues were not resolved, keeping
viewers motivated to know what happen next. There are two possible plot twists if it
goes on: either Jarrod is able to save Elaine from the aliens or vice versa where Elaine
is killed and becoming one of the alien. This ending is left to be unknown which allows
FNBE JULY 2013 - ENGL 0205 English 2

5. viewers to imagine the circumstances and has potential to produce more series of the
movie hitting theaters in the future.
In conclusion, Avatar and Skyline differ in storyline, settings and ending. I really
enjoyed watching both movies as their plots are very interesting and exciting with
suitable and satisfying endings. The settings and animations of both movies are really
great.
FNBE JULY 2013 - ENGL 0205 English 2

6. Refrences
Langan, J. (2010). College Writing Skills, (8th edition) New York: McGraw Hill.
Bailey, J. O. (1947). Pilgrims Through Space and Time, New York
Brians, P. (1996, May 16). Posting to the mailing list SF-LIT, Retrieved from 27
September 2013, from About.com
http://scifi.about.com/od/scififantasy101/a/SCIFI_defs.htm
Mendelsohn, K. (1986). Trillion Year Spree: the History of Science Fiction. London
Perrin, R. (2012) Pocket Guide to APA Style (4th ed) Boston: Wadsworth.
FNBE JULY 2013 - ENGL 0205 English 2