Sample Artifact-Comparison Essay
Note to reader: This draft is re-printed here with the author's permission. These student drafts are provided for a couple of reasons: first, to give you a taste of the variety of topics and approaches students have taken, and second, to provide instructors with readings that might be used in class discussions and activities. These samples are not perfect and represent final grades from across the grade scale (A through F), so please be forgiving, understanding, and respectful if you find errors or problems.
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Damilola Adebayo
Mike Peterson
English 2010
June 3, 2016
The Name is Bond: James Bond
I didn’t know much about the James Bond franchise until I came to America. I had heard about the movies, but I hadn’t actually watched any of the James Bond movie until I came to America. The first movie I watched when I came here was Skyfall. When I watched that movie it just completely blew my mind. I had seen all the Fast and Furious movies, yet they couldn’t seem to hold a candle to Skyfall. The movie in my opinion was perfection, and at the time I watched it, I didn’t care what anyone had to say about it, I loved it. After watching Skyfall, I decided I wanted more so I started bingeing on all the previous James Bond movies. As I got to my third movie which was The World is Not Enough I realized that the storyline of the movie changed just slightly, yet I seemed to love this film series. After a while, I began to wonder why I still like it when I could basically predict the end. I mean when I was in my county Nigeria, I got tired pretty quickly of movies that I could predict their end. So I ask why? Why do I still love the James bond franchise?
I am trying to uncover why we all still love this franchise after so many years despite the fact that it has been around for a really long time. Still every movie they have made has been a hit. In fact, the franchise is seen as longest continually-running film series in history. The James Bond franchise actually started in 1962. Nevertheless, in 1999, another James bond movie was made called The World is Not Enough. Both the Skyfall and The World is Not Enough were hits although the Bond characters were different. These two bond movies are so different, yet in some ways are very similar. James bond movies are British spy movies based on a character, James bond, who works for MI6, and whose identification number is 007. The genre of all James bond movies falls under the action category.
When I saw Skyfall for the first time, I realized that the movie is actually based on a moral code of the wild west, which is kill or be killed. The movie never seems to have a moral code of black and white, there is no definite good or bad in all the Bond movies. Bond always seems to be fixed in the gray area. Sure the film is represented by good and bad, but it seems to me that the movie only represents the extremely bad and those whose moral conduct is neither good nor bad. The Skyfall movie and The World is Not Enough is fueled by lust, deception and the usual action. James bond character seems to always be in lust with very beautiful women who are both good and bad and do not seem inclined to choose a side. Is that a cliché or what? Believe me I am a fan of James bond but I also feel like it is time for a change, we need something different from the producers of James Bond movies, Eon productions. We seem to watch James bond movies over and over again, when most of us know what the film will be like. Don’t get me wrong, watching any James Bond movie is fun, you basically feel like you are in the movie every step of the way. Still I think we can all say the end of James Bond movies are predictable. The end always goes this way; James bond loses someone who has a personal connection to him, he might be injured at the end but he never dies. For once, I personally would want Bond to die in one of his movies, like truly die. I am a girl and I want to see some emotion in this movie. James bond just seems to specialize in resurrection, he can never seem to truly die.
Both James bond movies seem to be filled with the usual action that I have seen in movies like the Terminator or even Mission Impossible. The truth is that James Bond movie is not that different from all other action movies, but most us love it anyway and we try to draw that distinction between it and other movie. Claiming it is different when it’s really not.
When trying to differentiate Skyfall and the World is Not Enough, one can see that they are different, yet there are similarities that can be found. The difference of both movies are noticeable through the quality. I could say that it is because one of them was made a decade ago. This is true, but another reason is that the 1999 film relies heavily on pushing the boundaries of what we consider real. While the Skyfall movie, falls within the limits of what we deem possible, or what we believe can actually happen. Also the fact that technology has truly advanced from what it was in 1999 plays a huge role on how both movies are seen. Yet even with this differences, the similarities of both movies can be found in the fact that the theme music that is used to advertise both movies is the same.
As much as they use the same theme music, it also seems that all James Bond movies also rely a lot on Bond’s sharply tailored suits, and his ability to fight crime without even roughing up his suit. All the similarities are kept in order to preserve the first James Bond movie. Over the years, the quality of James Bond movies has definitely changed. This is in part because James Bond had to keep up with the demand for a different kind of action. The producers had to give the people what they wanted, and also because they just had to advance as technology changed.
What does all of this say about us as a society. Can we expect producers or screen writers to write what they actually want or do they always have to make films that conform to our expectations? In the famous words of Einstein, “it is insanity to do the same thing over again and expect a different result.” Do we expect something different from the Bond franchise when the story line remains the same? I guess we can’t really expect something different since the producers of Bond movies have realized that what they make brings in the flow of cash, so they don’t really need to brush up the Bond movie do they?
As a society, I believe our taste in movies has become so stale that when we see something different, we refer to it as trash. We don’t really want something different, in fact we seem to be afraid of change. When in fact we should embrace it. I believe that there will come a time when we will realize that we need change, we need different, and we need good. Also I believe that people involved in making these movies should slowly start introducing something different. Rome was not built in a day so as a society, we do not know what we really want and when we are not conscious of it, we can learn to accept some of the movies that are made.
In the meantime, we keep on watching what we think we want and we enjoy it. We keep to what we believe action movies should be like until someone else comes along and changes our view on what action movies should really be.