Jon Raymond at 2014-06-25 04:06:05:

When I first saw Star Wars, I felt there was something classic about it, a deja vu, like I've seen that story before somewhere. But I hadn't. Or had I? One thing about it is that it hit deep to the core. It touched me and felt very familiar. Of course, I was like Luke, stuck in some remote life and knowing I had some better destiny. Aren't we all. It's a universal appeal. It's a device that I think the military uses with their ads for Marines, with the whole selfless honor thing. And that selfless heroism is a wonderful thing, until you realize that the sole purpose of the military is for killing and destruction. Star Wars motivated me to join up and want to fly planes. I'm sure it did the same for others as well, as do many pro-military movies. And like Luke or Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now!, I eventually found myself in a world where things were not so romantic. These stories are powerful. These are the kinds of things that move people to action. But to what end?

pgronk at 2014-06-25 09:31:46:

I can't help but note the irony of blaming the problem of "all movie heroes being the same person" on the influence of a book with the title of "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". >>>The point of The Hero’s Journey is this: Transformation Yes...but: how many writers have ever taken their own (internal) Hero's Journey, gone through the trials and suffering of the transformation they are writing about? If their application of the paradigm seems formulaic, is it because it is not informed by feeling, the experience of the actual process itself? As noted, Campbell's writing was deeply informed by the psychology of C.G. Jung. "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" can be read as an elaboration and variation of theme of individuation Jung developed in "Symbols of Transformation" and elsewhere. Jung's psychology is a projection of his own psychological conflicts. (As psychoanalysis was of Freud's.) Which is to say, he came by his insights the hard way, through his own painful process of inner transformation, his own subjective "Hero's Journey" (which commenced in mid-life, by the way, not in his youth or early adulthood). Anyway, Vogler warns that: "Following the guidelines of myth too rigidly can lead to a stiff, unnatural structure, and there is the danger of being too obvious....The order of the hero’s stages as given here is only one of many variations – the stages can be deleted, added to, and drastically re-shuffled without losing any of their power." [emphasis mine] Furthermore, Campbell notes that the agenda of a "Hero's Journey" is different in the 1st half of life cycle (more Freudian) than in the 2nd (more Jungian). Granted, most scripts, certainly ones for tent-pole movies,are written for character's in the 1st half. But, it seems to me, that on those not-often-enough occasions when the major characters are in the 2nd half, they are too often crammed into the Procrustean bed of the model and agenda of the 1st half variant of the Hero's journey. And if the characters don't ring true-- if the story feels formulaic, well it's no wonder to me. Finally, Campbell's abstraction of a monomyth paradigm was based on myths about young men; it is male-centric -- The Meeting with the Goddess", "Woman as Temptress". It doesn't reflect the agenda of the life cycle of women. fwiw.