english compare contrast essay

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL AND BUILD ENVIRONMENT
Name : Tan Ming Howe
Student ID : 0320199
Films Selected : Interstellar & Inception
Word Count : 948
ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)
Written Assignment 1 : Compare/Contrast Essay
Lecturer : Cassandra Wijesuria
Submission date : 8th
April 2015

2. Compare Essay Between Inception & Interstellar
Darkness, why are we so afraid of the unknown. Many including myself
are paralised by the thought of an unwelcomed presence, I dare not turn my
back in fear that my thoughts may be real. Although that same compelling fear
has never stopped us from venturing into the unkown. Whether it’s being out
there amongst the vast emptiness of space or delving deeper into our
subconcious mind, two vastly different concepts yet they may be more similar
than you could imagine and Christopher Nolan has a great depiction of both in
the movies Inception and Interstellar two sci-fi cinematic siblings that may
seem worlds apart but might be more similar than you suspect.
In inception, Cobb explains how our brains are most utilized when we are
asleep. In this newly discovered dream realm he is able to fill it with his
subconscious memory of things, places and people making it seem like
they’re awake and it’s all actually happening, the however dreams have many
layers and are complex in including the deepest layer of dream – limbo
(Boston Magazine, Yiqing Shao, 2014), an infinite subconscious reality where
you could be stuck in your own mind forever while your body degrades in the
real world. Whilst in interstellar, Cooper travels through wormholes altering
space and time to arrive at far and distant planets via 5th
dimensional beings
that “helped” them out. The similarities here are that in both movies we are
introduced two interesting and new mediums of sub-realities, and what I found
out is that there is 3 planets to be uncovered in interstellar as there are three
layers of dream in inception, in which both main leads must figure a way to
circumvent disaster in hopes of seeing their children once more.
Love is a tremendously powerful and inspiring force and has been
proven to be as such time and time again, it is love that drives humanity
through their hardest struggles and what brings out that last fight from our
beloved characters. And this is something that has been cultivating
throughout both the films Inception and interstellar, only emerging in death
bed scenes. For Inception, it is Fisher a boy that has big shoes to fill and no
one to guide him, yearning the approval of his sickly father that never batted

3. an eye towards him. For Interstellar it is Cooper his urge of reuiniting with
Murph once more which drives his compassion further as a father his instinct
to survive kicks in, here we see the similarities between Fisher’s will abd
determination to patch things up with his father and Cooper’s struggle to find a
solution for mankind and get back to his beloved children.
Heroes are an essential elements of any film. They do the things where
the ordinary can’t and in these two films we’ll be taking a look at the similar
hero complexes of both films. In Interstellar, Cooper looks for a new substitute
planet to save the human species. In Inception, Cobb tries to plant an idea
inside of Fisher’s mind to prevent a global energy monopoly. Although those
are the main plots of the movie, we can see their personal goals are actually
similar to each other which is getting back home and reuniting with their
children once more. Cooper has to fight time in order to fulfill his promise to
his daughter of coming home before she passes. Whereas in Inception,
Cobb’s similar promise to return home to his children after being banned from
ever returning to the country (America).
Time misrepresentation as a recurring unexpected result of venturing
through these different realities. In Inception, the characters have the great
pleasure (although surely not the safety) of taking their time as they delve
deeper and deeper into the recesses of the psyche (Screen Rant, Kofi
Outlaw, 2012), since time slows down which means to say 5 minutes in the
real world would give you roughly about 5 hours in the dream and times slows
even more as you delve deeper. But for interstellar time is the exact opposite,
as Cooper and the Nasa team travvel farther and farther away from Earth to
uncover habitable planets. Since hours on a new planet are equivalent
to decades back on Earth time moves significantly faster. Cooper finds
himself spending 27 Earth years after merely spending 3 hours on another
planet, when he arrives back to the ship the emotional toll was too drastic and
Cooper broke down along with most of the audience as I imagine. The
similarities here are of that time is an essential key point in both their
missions. The emotional obstacle in interstellar is time, as the perculiar effects

4. of gravity manipulates the flow of time on different areas of the universe (Time
moves slower for Cooper).
Christopher Nolan ( goodreads.com , 2011) stated that and I quote, “ I
studied English Literature. I wasn't a very good student, but one thing I did get
from it, while I was making films at the same time with the college film society,
was that I started thinking about the narrative freedoms that authors had
enjoyed for centuries and it seemed to me that filmmakers should enjoy those
freedoms as well.” And narrate freely he did. Entirely original films that are
becoming increasingly rare among the output of the other studios. Christopher
Nolan is now one of the biggest names in the movie industry boasting
blockbuster movies to his name, such as Interstellar and Inception (Den of
Geek, Ryan Lambie, 2014). Two mind warping movies that blasted its way
through the movie screens and imprinting itself into our minds and hearts,
challenging the very way we perceive the world around us.

5. Reference List:
1. Interstellar. ( 2014, 5th
November ). Retrieved April 6, 2015, from
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/christopher-nolan/32803/how-
interstellar-completes-nolans-personal-film-trilogy
2. Incpetion. ( 2012, 2nd
June ). Retrieved April 6, 2015, from
http://screenrant.com/inception-spoilers-discussion-kofi-68330/
3. Christopher Nolan. ( 2014, 6th
November ). Retrieved April 6, 2015, from
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/artsentertainment/blog/2014/11/06/interst
ellar-vs-inception/