SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT

NAME: CHLOE SIM TIING ERN

STUDENT ID NO: 0322932

FILMS SELECTED: INSIDE OUT & HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2

WORD COUNT:

ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY

LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA

SUBMISSION DATE: 1st OCTOBER 2015

As most of us are already aware, new films are being released almost every day and it seems like we will never finish watching all the movies. The film industry will never stay inactive. I strongly believe that most people enjoy entertainment such as watching movies but it all depends on the person’s interest in which type of movies they would prefer. However, choosing a movie to watch would be a hard and daunting task if they were not classified into any sort of order. It is important for all the movies to be divided into different genres for the ease of everyone. In my opinion, animated movies are good and are more collaborative than live-action movies. Animated movie is a collection of illustrations that are photographed frame-by-frame and then played in a quick succession. (The Script Lab, 2015) Although animated movie is one genre, there are still differences between various animated movies. The two animated movies that I am comparing are Inside Out and Hotel Transylvania 2.

To begin with, the main character of Inside Out, Joy, is one of the five emotions inside the mind of Riley Andersen. She acts as the leader of the emotions and is the head in the Headquarters, explains why she is always at the control panel. She is the least flexible and the most controlling of the five emotions. Joy is always protective over Riley’s feelings as she values Riley’s happiness to the point where she does not want any of the other emotions to influence Riley. She does not want Riley to be sad at all. As for Hotel Transylvania 2, the main character is Dracula, being the owner of Hotel Transylvania, he manages and runs the hotel and is often very protective over his family. Dracula portrays a controlling and protective character. For instance, he is the one who makes decision for the allowance of humans into the Hotel despite being persuaded a few times. Dracula also tried to bring out the vampire side of Dennis when he is still very young. Also, Dracula is very protective over his daughter and his grandson, Mavis and Dennis. He would do anything to keep them safe. For instance, Dracula kept his father, Vlad, away from his family because of his father’s cold-heartedness towards them. Overall, there is a pinch of similarity where both the main characters from respective movies are always in control of things and portray a protective character.

Secondly, from Inside Out, when Riley turned 11 years old, her family decided to migrate to San Francisco after her dad obtained a new job. Riley finds it hard to settle down In San Francisco as their new home was lifeless, and she had to make new friends in her new school. Riley ends up being emotional, causing her to cry in front of her class, creating a sad core memory. Riley ended up spilling out her feelings to her parents and told them she wants to go back home and was just not ready to move into a new place at such a young age. As for Hotel Transylvania 2, as a thoughtful mother, Mavis decides that it is a good idea for Dennis to grow up in California where normal kids would grow up in. She suggests that the family relocate to California, as it is a better place to raise Dennis in. When Dracula finds out the decision, he is upset and would try any way to make his daughter and grandson stay in the hotel. After spending quality time with his grandfather, Dennis has made a special bond with Dracula that makes him unwilling to move away from Hotel Transylvania. He begged his mother to let him stay as he feels like he belongs to the hotel. Obviously, it is a traumatic experience for young-aged kids to settle into a new place just like how Riley and Dennis would feel.

Furthermore, Inside Out has a coming of age scene throughout the movie starting from when she was born until her early adolescent years. This movie is about Riley’s mixed feelings associated with growing up. The movie shows that Riley was

always in a happy state living in Minnesota during her early years until her emotions started to change when she moved to San Francisco where she felt mostly down because of the changed environment when she was 11 years old. She lived a rather happy life in Minnesota with both her parents being by her side all the time to take care of her. Things changed when they decided to migrate to San Francisco, her father became more busy with work and that she had no close friends to express her feelings to, she then developed a strong feeling of sorrow. On the other hand, Hotel Transylvania 2 shows age development of Dennis throughout the movie as well. In the beginning, Mavis was shown pregnant with Dennis and later when he was born, they celebrated his first birthday in the hotel. Dracula was impatient for his grandson’s fangs to grow, but Wayne said that he has to wait until his fifth birthday to have his fangs grow in. Dracula taught Dennis how to turn into a bat when he was four. When Mavis found out about his father letting Dennis fall off the tower, she decided to have Dennis’ 5th birthday party in California. Both the movies have coming-of-age scenes that portray the growing up process of the main characters.

Last but not least, the theme of ‘loss’ is very prevalent in both the movies Inside Out and Hotel Transylvania 2. For instance, through the movie Inside Out, Joy is scared of Riley losing her personality and her core memories. Joy did not like having Sadness around whenever Sadness tries to make Riley sad, Joy wants Riley to stay as happy as possible since she has always been an optimistic character since young. As she grew older, her emotions started to change and Joy was frightened that her emotions would ruin her family relationships and her core happy memories. Joy makes sure that Riley’s core memories are properly stored especially her strong relationship with her family and her ice hockey hobby when she was younger, to ensure her memories will remain happy forever. On the other hand, Hotel Transylvania 2 shows that Dracula is rather scared of losing his grandson, Dennis. Dennis is his first ever grandchild and that explains why he has an unconditional love for Dennis. When Dracula received the news that Mavis decides to move to California, Dracula started planning ways to make them stay back in the hotel. He also tried to turn Dennis into a vampire as soon as possible before they could move to California. Both the characters Joy and Dracula do not want to lose the things or people that are important to them and this drive them to do the things mentioned. They will strive to make things possible for them as long as they do not lose anything or anyone important.

In a nutshell, animated movies may be appealing but at the same time they offer a deep emotional engagement that will teach both the young aged and adults the simply lessons in life. Both ‘Inside Out’ and ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ have lots of similarities but they vary in different ways too. Animated movies tend to have funny animations, which make them really intriguing. Both the movies achieve a high rating for animated movies in the year 2015.

References :

1. IMDb,. (2015). Inside Out (2015). Retrieved 1 October 2015, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/

2. Wikipedia,. (2015). Hotel Transylvania 2. Retrieved 1 October 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Transylvania_2

3. IMDb,. (2015). Dracula (Character). Retrieved 1 October 2015, from http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0002561/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t1

4. The Dissolve,. (2015). In Inside Out, Pixar gets mature about growing up. Retrieved 1 October 2015, from https://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/1073-in-inside-out-pixar-gets-mature-about-growing-up/

5. Disney Wiki,. (2015). Joy (Inside Out). Retrieved 1 October 2015, from http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Joy_(Inside_Out)