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1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
NAME: CHLOESIM 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
SUBMISSIONDATE: 1st
OCTOBER 2015

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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)