It's an old black and white Kurasawa film.
The principle is that even though the important movers and shakers in the film are the double-hard samurai people, the means via which we are shown the story is by following these two peasants who follow their Lord around. While they are not exactly the narrators, they thus become essential for the viewing of the story.
GL used the same concept for R2-D2 and C3-P0.
Where is the Keeper of the Keys?
This is only considerd a minor step so I left it out. I said I only posted the main steps. There are other minor steps like -
HEROE'S WEAPON - The hero has a weapon that only he can use.
i.e lightsabre, force
SUPERNATURAL HELP - The hero is guided from a diety or supreme being often appearing in visions, and appearing only to the hero.
i.e Obi-Wan
I only posted the main steps.
We still didn't talk about 'The Fortress' wich was ALSO a big influence
That doesn't matter though. SW was influenced by it and so are many Hollwood films. I just posted it so people might see why Anakin had an unusual conception and why he couldn't take his mother with him. Lucas is following Campbells theory very closely.
Here is another film that follows the same story.
BRAVEHEART
ORIGIN: Wallace is the son of a noble man and is expected to be a leader like him.
SEPERATION: Wallaces father and brother are killed and he has to leave Scotland.
QUEST BEGINS: His wife is killed which makes him want to fight. His quest is to kick the English out of Scotland and get revenge on the King.
HELL: He is betrayed by Robert the Bruce and his army lose the battle.
HERO TRIUMPHS: He kicked the English out and his life and death inspired Robert the Bruce to continue his quest.
HERO IS REWARDED: When he is being killed he see's the spirit of his wife. Foretelling that he will join her when he dies.
Some of the most successful films all follow this path.
Campbell would actually call that the point, because the stories would be subconciously coming to the same structure.
But this is where it gets stupid. When you start selectively taking bits of it and apply to to stuff like Braveheart, you get to the point where any story with a hero who overcomes obstacles is lumped into being a part of this theory, which is so much horse elbows.
As I say, the theory then gets extrapolated to ridiculous amounts, claiming that the only stories people like are ones that follow this basic structure or small variations on it.
Why can't the guy just say that people like stories where there is a hero, bad things happen, he overcomes them and wins? That's just people liking fantastical stuff. Saying it's an in-built cultural pattern is nonsense and is entirely contradicted by the facts.
KJ, I KNOW SW was heavily based upon this. But I reserve the right to voice my disagreement with Campbell in a thread about his thesis...
Saying it's an in-built cultural pattern is nonsense
Yerrsot, because you don't understand something or have never heard of it, it doesn't mean it's wrong.
I HAVE looked into it. And what Campbell says is nonsense.
He is very selective. He on;y accepts those stories that fit his theory. He says stories that fit his theory are the only successful ones. Well, is that true? NO.
He ignores that the greatest classic stories of all time are tragedies, not hero stories. Dreamtime legends, Pyramus and Thisbe, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, Romeo and Juliet, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, and even Titanic (far more popular than ANY Hero's Journey story). None of them fit his theory yet these are the basises of modern stroytelling.
To be sure, fairy tale legends are common and popular as well. But the basic thrust of his theory is entirely wrong- that the basic herop set-up is the default story and that this is what people like.
No. People like a variety of things and this is reflected throughout history. There is NO single default. The amount of exceptions you can point out make the whole idea laughable. Even today people chop and change bits of his theory to make it fit. He generalised so much as to make the whole thing worthless.
And like I say, the extrapolation of his theory just takes the piss. Have you seen peo-le trying to explain why R+J and Casablanca are popular in SPITE of Campbell's theory? It is pathetic.
Campbell was a loon and most academics do not give his theory true credit- while at the same time appreciating the research he out into it.
And I can tell you for certain- writers think very little of him indeed.
Most of this harks back to a study of the oral traditions in narrative across Europe conducted by Russian Formalist Vladimir Propp.
What Propp found was that folktales were [pretty much] all structured the same way to allow travelling storytellers to remember a plot as they went from place to place entertaining people in the days before mass communication. All that changed were the ‘story’ details, not the plot.
What Campbell's done - as have many commentators since - is take this study of the structures inherent in the oral tradition (which Propp asserted foundered upon up to 35 individual events) and tried to show that these time-tested story formulas remain with us today.
The result, Campbell would assert, is that not only are they still with us but that they have become the predominant mode in narrative structure. This is particularly evident in evaluation of mainstream film and Hollywood Feature Format.
Although (as has been said) terminologies may vary (Mentor’s becoming ‘Keepers’, Princess Brides becoming ‘Prizes’, and so on) the basic set up is intact.
When trying to apply these structures to Star Wars in an attempt to deconstruct Lucas’ work the problem arises as to who the hero is / key players are.
My advise, for what it’s worth, is to view the films as three separate entities – the Original Trilogy, the Prequel Trilogy and the six films over all. I think Lucas has applied the same structure to all three of these breakdowns of the series, with the result that he is actually telling three stories – Anakin’s story, Luke’s story, and the story of the Skywalker / Jedi line – simultaneously and, although at different paces, in exactly the same way.
Ah, see, Propp's woprk was on folktales SPECIFICALLY. Campbell's work was far more broad.
And Propp still misses a lot of cultural influences that might have disagreed; Etruscan, Greek, Roman...
Regardless, he did find a solid link in the work he looked at, but he didn;t try and assign an anthropological reason to it
He on;y accepts those stories that fit his theory
No. He realised there was a common theme in storytelling and gave examples of this to back it up. Of course not every story fits this, but he never said that. But many of the most popular stories do.
He ignores that the greatest classic stories of all time are tragedies
R+J aside, the stories you mentioned are not the basis of modern storytelling. How can they be when some of them were made this century? Cambpell went WAY back. To ancient Japan, ancient Africa and Egypt, Native America and Europe. Stories that were told round camp fires or carved into walls. THIS is the basis of modern storytelling. These are the stories that have been passed down through generations. These are the stories that are still being told today in one way or another. THESE are classic stories.
Titanic (far more popular than ANY Hero's Journey story).
There is NO single default
Campbell was a loon and most academics do not give his theory true credit
And I can tell you for certain- writers think very little of him indeed
Sigh... ok, I'm going to follow this one all the way, after such a awkward rebuttal.
Point by point:
I didn;t say he said every story fitted his. I said that he said that the Hero's Journey was the default that oithers sprang from, which I massively disagree with.
And I did not give a few examples of filmns it does not fit. I gave three films, and some classics. Dreamtime Tales are Aboriginal, KJ. I think that fits your bill. Pyramus and Thisbe is the oldest traguc love story of all time. The Aeneid and the Odysse are both ancient. R+J is the most famous story ever.
You call that lot selective? Nonsense; they are a very pertinent demonstration of my point.
I was showing you the line of most popular stories of their age. And not ONE fits Campbell's theory.
Meanwhile, the whole folk tale area was grossly simplified by Campbell. Odd that he likes to ignore original version of stories like Little Red Riding Hood because they might possibly suggest that people's interest was in far more darker an area than he would like...
Ancient Japan? Are you JOKING? Most of their old stories are nothing LIKE The Hero's Journey. Likewise with China. Though a lot of them are tragic love stories. In fact, far more old tales are tragic love stories than hero stories.
Titanic IS more popular than SW, KJ. Any reasonable person knows that. It is amazingly obvious. The only film ever to break the cinema demographic.
HE DID say there was a default, and your clumsy sarcasm aside I repeat again that I did not say that he thought EVERY story was exactly like that. But he did identify his story as the basis for all storytelling, and that is just oure nonsense.
And I can say he is a loon. Plenty of others do. And why do you assume I cannot be smarter than him? Did you meet him? I may be. I judge him by what he has produced, and it is cobblers. In any case, there is no need to get personal.
Ok, Tom Clancy, Jean le Carrie, Len Deighton, Bernard Cornwell and Isaac Asimov all dismissed Campbell's theories. I am pretty sure I heard that Kubrick had no patience for them either. I could name a whole load of other writers as well, but those are som,e of the very famous ones. I DO know my trade, KJ.
Campbell's theories were NOT wisely accepted! GL is a big fan of his, and fair enough, but the literary establishment as a whole is NOT and nothing you say will change that.
And I note you do nothing to disavow the way his theories have been extended into nonsensical travesties like as I say, trying to explain why things like Casablanca or It's A Wonderful Life are populkar in defiancew of his theory; you watch Campbell proponents squirm and make complex arguments trying to explain that anomaly when the simple asnwer is that there IS no anomaly, no dfeault stroy structure that attracts people and no need to explain 'exceptions'
Camopbell also had a habit of being factually wrong. As an example, his analysis of Hindu literature and storytelling is just plain erroneous.
Campbell made many relevant and pertinent points. But the base of his thesis is on exceedingly rocky ground, to say the least. And I repeat again, he is not given much credence.
Anyway. it would be tiresome to carry this on, especially when Campbell's relevant merits as a mythogrpaher have already been discussed by many books and other review facilities in the past. I think the guy talked nonsense. Plenty agree with me. Others don't- GL is one. You have to understand Campbell's theory to see the roots of Star Wars, which I do, but it is still nonsense.
Meanwhile, here is a quote from an academic who an put it better than I can:
"...but I've done more reading, and spoken to real PEOPLE, and have noticed that Campbell has a tendency to focus on obscure myths that the actual practitioners of the religious systems he studies might not even recognize. His synthesis relies upon this idea that there are common threads between the myth-systems of diverse cultures -- which is probably true, as we're all subject to certain experiences in common, death, birth, illness, pain, joy -- but he exaggerates the effect by picking and choosing the most like stories from a huge field, thus *demonstrating* that there are certain common story patterns that are almost hard-wired into our brains the way a Chomskyan would say that grammar is hard-wired into our brains. Sure, plenty of religions and mythologies have virgin birth stories -- but in no other does
the story play the kind of central role it does in Christianity. And so on. When you have an almost infinite field of signifiers, you can pick and choose those that best match your signifieds.
It's not as bad as Graves' presumption that all mythology can be traced back to memory tricks derived from the ritual significance of Celtic runes (I'm exaggerating for rhetorical effect here, folks), but it is a bit reductionist (or deproblematizing). "
You call that lot selective? Nonsense; they are a very pertinent demonstration of my point.
Odd that he likes to ignore original version of stories like Little Red Riding Hood
Ancient Japan? Are you JOKING?
far more old tales are tragic love stories
Titanic IS more popular than SW, KJ.
And why do you assume I cannot be smarter than him?
Quote- there is no need to get personal.
I'm not. It's just clear that we're not going to agree so I'm trying to be funny.
Tom Clancy, Jean le Carrie, Len Deighton, Bernard Cornwell and Isaac Asimov all dismissed Campbell's theories
I DO know my trade, KJ.
the literary establishment as a whole is NOT and nothing you say will change that.
And I note you do nothing to disavow the way his theories have been extended into nonsensical travesties
like as I say, trying to explain why things like Casablanca or It's A Wonderful Life
Everyone has expectations placed on them at birth. Certain things that your parents hope you achieve.
Everyone at some stage has to leave home and make their way in the world.
Everyone has some sort of quest.i.e career, family, fame, money, collecting SW figures etc.
Everyone is going to come up against it at some point. Ill health, death, not knowing what to do, heartbreak, rejection, feeling dissalousioned, you boss not giving you time off etc.
And that's why the heroes journey is so popular.
The quote you posted makes sense, but it's still not proving that Campbell was talking nonsense. Forget about the academics, writers and directors and look at the stories YOU know. The ones you remember and the ones that effected you. Most people say stories that have Campbells theory.
But we're not getting anywhere and I've got sore fingers from typing so plleeeeesssssseeeeee stop! 😄