This contrast essay compares the disaster adventure films "Into the Storm" and "White House Down" in four areas: plots, main characters, settings, and disasters. The plot of "Into the Storm" involves a natural disaster tornado that disrupts a high school graduation, while "White House Down" features a terrorist takeover of the White House. The main characters are a high school vice principal and a former soldier applying for the Secret Service. The settings are a town in Silverton and Washington D.C. Finally, one film depicts a natural storm disaster and the other a man-made terrorism disaster.

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
NAME: LAI TZEXIUAN
STUDENT ID NO: 0318056
FILMS SELECTED: “INTO THE STORM” AND “WHITE HOUSE DOWN”
WORD COUNT: 933 WORDS
ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: CONTRAST ESSAY
LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA
SUBMISSION DATE: APRIL 8TH
, 2015

2. Disaster adventure genre films are the combination of disaster and adventure, as the characters are
trying to escape from the conflict, either from a natural disaster or a man-made situation, such as
terrorism. Some of the popular disaster adventure genre films are “2012”, “Into the Storm”, “Air
Force One”, and “World War Z”. In this case, I am contrasting the differences of these two disaster
adventure genre films, which are “Into the Storm” and “White House Down”. Therefore, the
differences that I am contrasting in these two films are the plots, main characters, settings and
disasters.
First of all, the differences between the plot for the film “Into the Storm” and “White House
Down” are the film “Into the Storm” is mainly about natural disaster and the film “White House
Down” is mainly about man-made disaster. The plot for “Into the Storm” is about during a graduation
ceremony, a disastrous storm disrupted the ceremony and caused destruction to the town. On the other
hand, the plot for the film “White House Down” is John Cale was bringing his daughter, Emily along
for his job interview with Finnerty in the White House. After the interview, a group of mercenaries
killed nearly every agent and took the guests as hostage but Cale managed to escape from them.
Martin Walker, head of Secret Service revealed himself as a villain to President James Sawyer.
Secondly, the main characters for both the films are Garry Morris of “Into the Storm” and John
Cale of “White House Down”. The differences between these two characters are Gary Morris was a
local high school vice principle while John Cale was a Capitol policeman assigned to be the security
detail of the Speaker of the House. Besides that, the other difference between both characters is that
Gary was together with his two sons, Donnie and Trey while John was separated from his daughter.
For instance, Gary raised his two sons by himself following with the death of his wife and John’s
personal life went bust leaving him an ex-wife and a preteen daughter that he was trying to win back.
Moreover, another difference of both characters is Gary had a stable career which John does not have.
Gary worked as a vice principle of a local high school while John was a soldier who had three tours of
duty in Afghanistan before he became a Capitol policeman and later he was going for a job interview
at the White House to join the Secret Service team.
Thirdly, the settings differences between these two disaster adventure films, “Into the Storm” and
“White House Down” are both films occur during the present day but took place on different places.
In “Into the Storm”, the film took place at Silverton, for example, a dangerous storm was formed
above the town of Silverton, leaving a trail of devastation. Furthermore, another setting is the local
high school, as for instance, Donnie and Trey were tasked to compile video interviews and stocked
town footage during the local high school’s graduation ceremony preparation. In addition, the film
also took place at an abandoned paper mill in the town, this can be shown when Donnie helped
Kaithlyn to do her video project until the storm came and hit the building causing it to collapse around
them. On the other hand, the film “White House Down” took place at Washington D.C., for instance,

3. President Sawyer was on his way back to the White House and he requested the pilot to fly over the
Reflecting Pool next to the Lincoln Memorial at Washington D.C. Furthermore, the next setting is the
Capitol Building, a terrorist walked into the middle room of the Capitol Building and placed a bomb
in it. Besides all that, the last setting is the White House, John brought his daughter to the White
House for a job interview with Finnerty.
Fourthly, the differences between the disasters of these two films are the film “Into the Storm”
involves natural disaster which is a dangerous storm, while the film “White House Down” involves
man-made disaster which is terrorism. In the film “Into the Storm”, the storm tornados disaster started
when large chunks of hail came raining down and a tornado was heading towards the local high
school. During the storm disaster, the tornado hit the school and there were many tornadoes that were
destroying cars and buildings, as there was a larger and powerful tornado that killed one of the storm
chasers. Likewise, the storm disaster ended when the tornado went away causing the entire town
almost destroyed. On the other hand, in the film “White House Down”, the terrorism disaster started
when one of the terrorist named Conrad dressed as a janitor and walked into the Capitol Building
wheeling a mop and a bucket with a bomb in it causing it to explode within the building. During the
terrorism disaster, a group of mercenaries led by Emil Stenz killed nearly every agent and took the
tour guests as hostage in the White House. Moreover, the terrorism disaster ended with the entire
terrorist who terrorized the White House was eliminated, including Martin Walker.
In conclusion, the differences that I am contrasting in the films, “Into to Storm” and “White
House Down” are the plots, main characters, settings and disasters. In my opinion, disaster adventure
genre films are very exciting as there are many action moments involved. Therefore, I hope that the
movie industry will produce more and more disaster adventure genre films in the next following years,
so that the public will be aware and be prepared when a disaster strikes.

4. References:
Ben Kendrick (8th
August 2014). ‘Into the Storm’ Review. Into the Storm is another found footage
failure – a gimmicky natural disaster film that fails to provide exciting tornado action or impactful
human drama. Retrieved 1st
April 2015, from
http://screenrant.com/into-the-storm-movie-reviews/
Jeremy. The Movie Spoiler. INTO THE STORM. Retrieved 1st
April 2015, from
http://www.themoviespoiler.com/Spoilers/WhiteHouseDown.html
Scott Foundas (25th
June 2013). Film Review: ‘White House Down’. Roland Emmerich delivers a
welcome throwback to an earlier, more generously entertaining era of summer blockbusters.
Retrieved 1st
April 2015, from
http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/white-house-down-review-1200498267/
Jeremy. The Movie Spoiler. WHITE HOUSE DOWN. Retrieved 1st
April 2015, from
http://www.themoviespoiler.com/2014Spoilers/IntoTheStorm.html