SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL & BUILT ENVIRONMENTS

NAME: YIP XIAOJUNG

STUDENT ID NO: 0323852

FILMS SELECTED: BRUCE ALMIGHTY (2003) & BACK TO THE FUTURE (1989)

WORD COUNT: 905 WORDS

ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY

LECTURER: GOPIGHANTAN MYLVAGANAM

SUBMISSION DATE: DECEMBER 4TH 2015

Pre-writing

Bruce Almighty

Bruce Almighty is a fiction/comedy movie where Bruce Nolan, a TV reporter who feels like God does not listen to his prayers. He then receives almighty powers from God himself to teach him how hard it is to run the world. Bruce is given a chance to play God. After gaining powers, he then misuses his powers and finds out how difficult it is to run the world.

Back to the Future II

Back to the Future II is a Science Fiction movie about 3 people travelling through time to save the future of their own life. While traveling to the future, they quickly mess it up, thus causing alternate universes. They try to fix the problem. After visiting 2015, Marty McFly must repeat his visit to 1955 to prevent disastrous changes to 1985... without interfering with his first trip.

Similarities

Characters: Both characters, does something to mess up the life they are in.

- Bruce Nolan gets almighty powers and ruins his life and the ones around him.

- Marty McFly travels to the future and alters the universe, thus making changing his life drastically.

Plot: Both of the movies are showing about how people are not given such powers as it might mess up their lives.

- Bruce Nolan is given the power to manipulate time and given God-like powers.

- Marty McFly is given the power to time travel.

Finale: Both movies shown that they have learnt their lessons and knowing the importance of power.

- Bruce Nolan meets God himself, and is given a lesson about power.

- Marty McFly learnt his lesson and Doc Emmet Brown forbids him to time travel. The DeLorean, the time travel machine is scheduled to destroy.

What is a genre? As defined by Merriam-Webster, genre is a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form or content. Different types of genre for movies include horror, science-fiction, thriller, action, adventure and many more. Fiction movies are movies which have imaginary elements about people, events and/or elements which are not real. Examples of fiction concepts are myths, legends, fables, fairy tales and others. On the other hand, Science-fiction movies are movies which are a type of fiction but it includes speculations and prediction about the current or future state of science and/or technology. Examples of science-fiction concepts are space travel, time travel, aliens, multiple universes and others. My chosen movies to describe the similarities are Bruce Almighty (2003) – Fiction, and Back to the Future II (1989) – Science-fiction. There are some similarities in both the movies despite the difference in genre. The similarities include the main characters, plot and the finale.

Bruce Almighty (2003) is a fictional movie directed by Tom Shadyac. Bruce Nolan, the main character is a TV reporter who feels like God does not listen to his prayers. God, sees the problem and decides to teach Bruce a lesson. God gives Bruce almighty powers to teach him how hard it is to listen to all the prayers and to run the world. After obtaining the almighty powers, he proceeds to misuse his power and mess around with his life. Back to the Future (1989) is a science-fiction movie directed by Robert Zemeckis. The main character, Marty McFly is sent to the future with a time machine to save his son and prevent his son from being captured and thrown in prison. However, he messes up and things became worse when his actions in the future, changes the present. In these two movies, there are some similarities present.

The first similarity is in the main characters. The main character in Bruce Almighty (2003), Bruce Nolan is a TV reporter. He has obtained almighty powers from God himself. He tries to make the world a better place but instead of doing so, he messes up the world, his life and everyone surrounding him. In Back to the Future (1989), the main character is Marty McFly. A scientist, Doctor Emmett Brown has created a time travelling machine. In order for Marty McFly to save his son in the future from going into jail, he travels to the future with the Doctor. However, by traveling to the future, he made some changes which affected the present. Upon returning, he realizes he messed up the present and created an alternate universe. The similarities with the two main characters are the both of them has altered their lives and changed elements of their world that they live in.

The second similarity is the plot of the stories. Although the genre is different, the plot is somewhat similar. In Bruce Almighty, the plot of the movie is about an ordinary man obtaining powers which are strong enough to manipulate the ones around him. When Bruce Nolan is given God-like powers to do almost anything imaginable, he misuses the powers for his own good. In Back to the Future II, the plot of the movie is about the power of time travel. Marty McFly, is given the chance to time travel to save his son in the future. Instead of saving his son, he obtains a

sports almanac from the future. This sports almanac shows the details of all the sports matches from the past. His main intentions were to use the details from the almanac to bet on matches, to earn money. By doing so, he alters the universe by changing the fate of his family. The similarities of the plots are the fact where abnormal powers are given to the main characters, and misused.

The last similarity of the stories is the finale. In Bruce Almighty, Bruce Nolan meets God himself and given a lecture by God about how the almighty powers should not be used for your own good. He is also told that the prayers often don’t go unanswered, but is saved for the future. There is balance in everything. In Back to the Future II, Marty McFly alters back the universe to where it began. He finds out the importance and power of time travel and he then promises that he will never misuse the power of time travel for his own good. The time travel device is then scheduled for destruction. In both the movies, the finale teaches about how one shouldn’t misuse the power given to them, and how important is the power given to them. Both main characters learn that they were privileged to obtain such power, and both chose to never misuse them again. Both the characters lose their powers of God, and time travel respectively.

What I’ve learnt from both watching the movies, researching the movies and writing about the movies are that there’s a reason why we aren’t given such great powers. It is about maintaining the balance in the world. Both movies are of different genres, but have many similarities in terms of the plot, characters, and finale. The movies are of almost the same idea, but portrayed in different ways. In my opinion, both movies are equally great and similar in certain ways. The movies have shown me a different opinion in live, and I would think twice before doing something.

905 Words

References

Back to the Future Part II. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2015, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096874/

Bruce Almighty. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2015, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315327/

Fiction [Def. 1]. (n.d.). In Merriam Webster Online, Retrieved November 26, 2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiction

Genre [Def. 1]. (n.d.). In Merriam Webster Online, Retrieved November 26, 2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genre

Science-Fiction [Def. 1]. (n.d.). In Merriam Webster Online, Retrieved November 26, 2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science%20fiction