Star Wars Hero's Journey: The right instance of how you can apply Hero's Journey to your guide
Hey, did you try to apply The Hero's Journey to your book? Have you ever wondered why the Star Wars hero's journey is a perfect example of this?
The Hero's Journey is for sure the most widely used and popular narrative structure in human history. It appeals to readers in a way that is as old as the human D.N.A. himself. And George Lucas took this into account when writing and producing Star Wars.
This is also why there is no clearer use of the hero's journey than George Lucas' space opera. war of stars.
Whether or not you like Star Wars particularly or not (especially given the recent Disney sequels), or even seen it, you've surely heard enough about Star Wars to recognize its main characters, icons, and storytelling beats.
Let's dive into the story of a boy on a desert planet who later becomes a hero!
A quick recap of the Star Wars hero's journey
For the uninitiated or those who haven't seen it in years, Star Wars: A New Hope is the story of Luke Skywalker, the nephew of a moisture farmer who longs to travel the stars and fight the mighty evil Empire . When he meets Obi-Wan Kenobi, an old Jedi Knight, he begins his adventure with the smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca and the droids C-3PO and R2-D2.
The antagonists of Star Wars are two of the leaders of the Empire, Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin. You command the Death Star, a new moon-sized station station that can destroy entire planets.
In search of the elusive Rebel Alliance, Vader captures Princess Leia, a young agent who is secretly a rebel agent. To determine the location of the rebels' secret base, Vader and Tarkin use the Death Star to destroy Leia's home planet Alderaan.
On board the Millenium Falcon, Luke Skywalker and his companions enter the Death Star and successfully free Princess Leia and flee, but not before Obi-Wan is killed in a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. They fly back to the rebel base only to find that the Empire has been chasing them, and now the Death Star is pressing on their secret headquarters.
A major space battle ensues in which Luke controls an X-wing fighter plane. Just in time, Luke uses the Force to shoot torpedoes into the Death Star's main exhaust port and blow up the entire space station. Vader escapes in his fighter plane, but Tarkin is killed.
The heroes return for a great reception and hope is restored to the galaxy!
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There is no clearer use of the hero's journey than George Lucas' space opera Star Wars. That is why it is the perfect example to learn how to master the hero's journey and apply it to your book!
Of course, there are more Star Wars movies out there, and this analysis will point to several of them. However, most of our exploration of the Star Wars hero's journey will stick with the original 1977 film, as George Lucas carefully crafted a story based heavily on ancient archetypes that have worked in the human mind for millennia.
The characters from Star Wars
George Lucas began planning his space opera by sketching the characters. He knew, as Campbell knew, that great stories are built around great characters.
First, we have them hero in Luke Skywalker. What makes him a hero? Mainly these three factors:
- His goal is empathic.
- His pursuit of this goal drives the narrative.
- It grows and changes as it pursues the goal.
On this journey, Luke comes into conflict with history shadow, Darth Vader. Unlike Luke, Vader's goal (to crush the rebellion against the Empire) is not empathetic. Vader's attempts to find the Death Star's plans and destroy the rebels hamper Luke's goal throughout the story.
Luke makes some friends too, right? Loyal followers, in Han Solo and Chewbacca the Wookie.
However, your loyalty will be tested when the rebels attack the Death Star. And as Han leaves Luke during the approach step of the hero's journey, he actually returns during the resurrection, providing a cathartic climax where evil destroys on multiple levels and good triumphs.
Luke isn't with one mentor, either. Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi comes to deliver both the call to the adventure of history and the incitement to incitement, and then guide Luke on the path of the Jedi and Force. As you'd expect on a Hero's Journey, the mentor is killed along the way (right?) And Luke has to face the shadow himself.
Eventually, Luke encounters a number of Threshold guard trying to destroy him and his rebel colleagues. Jawas, Sand People (or Tuskan Raiders for the nerds who judge this analysis carefully), Stormtroopers, the Trash Compactor Monster, the Death Star cannons, the TIE fighters, and Vader himself have placed themselves between Luke and his target on the way.
The structure of Star Wars
These and other archetypes of characters fill a story that tracks all twelve steps of the hero's journey, often reusing or overlapping steps for maximum impact. So Star Wars: A New Hope uses all twelve steps as checkpoints to advance its story with incredible narrative power.
Step 1: the ordinary world
Normal world: Luke lives in Tatooine but doesn't like it. Like all heroes, his eyes are fixed on the horizon, where he longs to do heroic deeds in the rebellion against the Empire.
Step 2: the call to adventure
Call to adventure: After buying a pair of seemingly unimportant robots, Luke discovers that his R2 droid contains the Death Star's plans and could help the rebels destroy this planet-killing weapon. Obi-Wan Kenobi then calls Luke to action and says, "You must learn the ways of power if you are to come to Alderaan with me."
Step 3: rejecting the call
Rejection of the call: Luke resists this invitation, overwhelmed by the sudden change that has befallen his life. "I can't interfere! I have work to do! It's not that I like the Empire. I hate it! But there is nothing I can do about it right now. From here it will."
Step 4: meet the mentor
Meet the mentor: Tech-wise, Luke has already met his mentor. But active mentoring begins when Luke rushes home only to find the grounds burn and his aunt and uncle are murdered by Imperial stormtroopers.
Luke stands heartbroken in front of Obi-Wan. "You couldn't have done anything, Luke, if you'd been there," says Obi-Wan. "You would have been killed too and the droids would have been in the hands of the Empire." Then Luke agrees to join the old Jedi and venture into the unknown in Alderaan.
Step 5: crossing the threshold
Crossing the threshold: The story then pauses to show the importance of that choice, showing Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids perched on a massive cliff. They look down into the valley. Then Obi-Wan says, “Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more miserable beehive made of scum and villainy. We have to be careful. "
At this point our hero Lukas changes from the safe and familiar to the unknown.
Step 6: trials, allies and enemies
Trials, allies and enemies:: Luke begins the middle of the story by acquiring a pair of allies or loyal retainers: Han Solo and Chewbacca. However, he also meets an enemy when a disfigured man speaks to him at the bar.
The conflict escalates as Luke and his companions flee Tatooine, infiltrate the Death Star, rescue Princess Leia (who appears to play the archetypal role of the Virgin in Need but has no need), survive the trash compactor and deactivate the tractor beam, and escape the Death Star thanks to Obi-Wan's sacrifice.
If it looks like this summary hit the fast forward button, there is a reason. Step 6 is the longest step in any heroic journey, but it often includes scenes that summarize the entire structure into a chapter or two.
In the case of Star Wars, one can see numerous calls for adventure, rejections, threshold crossing, gaining an ally or knowledge of an enemy, approaching an ordeal, the ordeal itself (often with a self-contained resurrection), and then see a reward. This is the story structure 101: Each Hero's Journey contains smaller, heroic miniature journeys that share the same archetypal D.N.A.
Step 7: the approach
Approach: After escaping the Death Star, the heroes fly to Yavin 4, where the rebel base has been hidden. The Death Star's plans are extracted from R2 and a weakness is actually found. The fighter pilots are briefed about this weakness and plan their strategy.
In the meantime, Han Solo decides not to join the rebels and believes the attack is "my idea of suicide." He takes his financial reward for saving Princess Leia and flees with Chewbacca. He leaves Luke alone with a number of characters the audience doesn't know.
Step 8: the ordeal
The ordeal: Luke and his fellow pilots attack the Death Star and face seasoned enemies in TIE fighters and Darth Vader himself in his own specialty ship. One of Luke's childhood friends is killed in the attack (Biggs).
Step 9: the reward
The reward (appears twice in this story): Star Wars contains two reward steps. One is the "false" reward while the second is the "true" reward. First, after fleeing the Death Star, the heroes will be rewarded with security and freedom, and the story will pause to enjoy this moment of low tension.
The tension builds up again, however, when Han Solo makes it clear that he only cares about his financial reward, which is actually a "wrong" one according to the moral theme of the film. The second reward comes later in step 12.
Step 10: the way back
The Road Back (appears twice in this story): The first road back is the setting for the first reward, which shows Hans's conflicting loyalty. It is the “fake-out ending” that is supposed to lead the viewer to think that the story is solved because the heroes escaped the Death Star.
Step 11: resurrection
Resurrection: Back to the ordeal ("Attack on the Death Star") the scene reaches its climax when Luke navigates a narrow trench with his X-Wing fighter in the direction of the target and Darth Vader screams on his heels. Luke – and the rebels – are destroyed by Vader and the Death Star because the planned attack does not go as hoped.
Then a voice calls out to Luke: “Use the Force, Luke! Let go, Luke! "It's the voice of his disembodied mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke turns off his aiming computer, closes his eyes and fires his torpedoes … and the Death Star explodes.
This also coincides with a personal and relational resurrection of Han Solo. If he proves his true loyalty and helps Luke outsmart Vader and destroy the Death Star, the viewer gets the satisfaction of seeing a man morally "die" only to find "life" again by doing what is morally right .
Step 12: return with the elixir
Return with the elixir: When Luke, Han and Chewie return, they will not only bring safety and protection to the rebellion. They bring hope to the title value of the film.
This is where the second “true” reward comes into play. The medals the characters receive may not seem like much, but they symbolize the wearer's new identity: heroes. Luke starts out as a simple farm boy; Now he's a hero who brings hope to the galaxy.
The scenes from Star Wars
In its tightly designed structure, Star Wars ensures that its hero is forced to grapple with archetypal heroic situations or scenes.
So the Star Wars hero's journey depicts these scenes:
The choice to go
After suffering the loss of his aunt and uncle, Luke realizes that he must face the threat from the Empire himself. He explains to Obi-Wan: “I want to come to Alderaan with you. Nothing here for me now. I want to learn the ways of power and become a Jedi like my father. "
The initiation
Soon after making his decision to leave, Luke is initiated into the world he has chosen. First, he faces physical threats like bullies at Mos Eisley Cantina and the Empire's merciless stormtroopers while they flee on the Millenium Falcon.
But he is also facing his first initiation into the path of the Jedi when he first used a lightsaber. Luke shows growth by doing what Obi-Wan says, "to expand with (his) feelings".
The task
Luke doesn't have much time to train as a Jedi, however, as he will soon be drawn to the Death Star with the other heroes. After Luke learns that the Princess of Alderaan, Leia Organa, is about to be executed, he makes it his mission to save her. Luke successfully rescues Leia from her metallic prison in an exciting scene full of disguises, hilarious jokes and laser shootings.
All hope is lost
This scene takes place shortly before the Resurrection, when Luke speeds up the Death Star trench in his X-Wing fighter. Between the scenes in Luke's ship, the Death Star control room, and the rebel base on Yavin 4, two things jump almost simultaneously.
First, the Death Star pulls within range of the rebel base and begins to activate its planet-killing weapon. Second, Darth Vader successfully shoots R2-D2 into Luke's ship, making Luke scream, "I lost R2!" And at that moment, the bad guys seem sure to win.
The return with blessings
But a miracle happens! Han Solo helps push Vader off Luke's tail, and Luke hits a porthole with his torpedoes and explodes the Death Star in a massive explosion.
The heroes return to Yavin 4, hug and celebrate. But then we see a colossal ceremony with hundreds of rebels in uniform. They stand in honor of the victorious heroes who are adorned with medals.
And those hundreds of rebels – representatives of the audience – applaud as incredible hope floods their spirits.
Further information: How to write and innovate these timeless Hero's Journey scenes!
The themes of Star Wars
George Lucas was a fan of mythology, including East Asian religions, which focused on the balance of various forces. While layering these themes on his story, Lucas created a rich tapestry for future stories and storytellers, which is why Star Wars remains a popular franchise to this day.
So Star Wars fills its history with extremely powerful themes.
1. Good versus evil
Perhaps the clearest and most obvious thematic relationship in Star Wars is the one that makes it most enduring: the struggle between the forces of good and those of evil.
The "good guys" Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, dressed in white and beige, stand for Good. They seek selfless, positive virtues like freedom, peace, and hope.
Badly embodied the black armored Darth Vader and the dark uniformed Grand Moff Tarkin. You command a massive machine of death, control and fear and want to pull all planets and systems under the thumb of the empire. Their selfish cruelty is confirmed when they destroy Alderaan (and its millions of residents) for no reason other than torturing Princess Leia.
Note: While this is not the main story arc in the film, it is an important internal arc that illustrates the dominant story value that moves the plot, which is life versus death.
You can learn more about storylines and storytelling values with these two key posts on The Write Practice.
- Storylines
- Story values
2. Haven vs. Wilderness
Star Wars is a place with multiple ports facing its wilder foods. Remember that Lucas Star Wars is based on the Western genre, with its wide, endless vistas and renegade, harsh characters.
Here are some diametrically opposed places in history:
- The Tatooine Sand Sea is a wilderness, But Luke's homestead and Obi-Wan's house are Ports.
- The Mos Eisley Cantina is a social one wilderness where Luke is confused and alone, but the Millenium Falcon is one oasis where he learns about the power and the war against the Empire.
- The death star is a Metallic wilderness of inorganic violence and callous cruelty, but the rebel base is one Lush, wooded harbor where Luke is reunited with an old friend and easily fits into his new, heroic role.
It is noteworthy that the film really only contains these important set pieces, with the exception of the prologue of the film on board Princess Leia's ship. Each place contains an opposite, so the story seems to swing back and forth like a pendulum between safety and danger, between harbor and wilderness.
3. Nature versus machine
The opposing power of nature and machine is evident in Star Wars. As mentioned earlier, the base of the Empire, the Death Star, is a cold, lifeless killing machine. However, the rebel base is located in the middle of a lush green rainforest. Simple contrasts like this offer a simple way of establishing this theme.
But Star Wars goes deeper than this by using its mythology of power to embed the theme deeply into the narrative. And its primary storytelling device is the lightsaber.
The lightsaber, which Obi-Wan announced as an "elegant weapon", is the tool of the almost extinct Jedi. It's "not as clumsy or random as a blaster," says Obi-Wan.
But Han Solo, a rule breaker in his own right, rejects the Jedi path as "a lot of simple tricks and nonsense". He reinforces his own convictions when he says, "Hokey religions and old guns are no match for a good blaster by your side, boy."
Obviously, the more mystical "natural" weapon is less desirable than the machine, the blaster.
But the lightsaber is the weapon Luke trains with and which he embraces as part of the Jedi Path. He also hugs the Jedi Way when he obeys the disembodied voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi during the Death Star attack.
"Use the Force, Luke!" Urges Obi-Wan. Luke obeys by performing a certain action: turning off his computer, a machine. It is clear that the mindset of Luke's world is to rely on machines. The Jedi way is to trust the Force.
It makes sense now that the Empire would put all its hopes in one giant machine, the Death Star. It is also run by a man who is “now more of a machine than a human”, Darth Vader.
4. Father versus son
To be fair, that topic wouldn't come home to opting for Star Wars until the sequel The Empire Strikes Back was released three years later in 1980. However, George Lucas has repeatedly claimed that he planned for Vader to be Luke's father all along. In this sense, Star Wars has been the epitome of this topic in popular culture at least since Shakespeare and the Greek tragedians.
And where Star Wars successfully uses this theme is the idea of fate. In other words, if my dad is a murderous man-machine monster, will I be too?
This conflict can be seen in the cave scene on Dagobah, where Luke faces the darkness inside. He fights against a phantom vision of Darth Vader and successfully beheads her. But when the head comes to a standstill, Luke sees his own face in Vader's helmet. Obviously the son is afraid to commit the father's sins.
5. Siblings against siblings
The original Star Wars trilogy did not deal with sibling rivalries, but used a different phrase from the "They Are Related" type in the third episode, "Return of the Jedi".
But she used the prequel trilogy, written and directed by Lucas a few years later, to great effect by casting Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker as brothers. No, they are not biological brothers, but that view is reinforced by Obi-Wan's tormented cry, "You were my brother, Anakin!" after defeating him in battle in Revenge of the Sith.
During Anakin's training and the horrors of the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan and Anakin fought side by side, grappling with the confusing decisions of the Jedi Council. They trusted and even loved each other; but Anakin's need for power and affirmation drew him away from his Jedi "brother" and into a sinister Sith "father", Senator (and later Emperor) Palpatine.
Because of this, despite some goofy choreography, the final battle of the Sith's Revenge is painfully emotional. These two men had so much potential to do great things together! But their relationship has been interrupted by suspicion, fear and horrific crimes and can only end violently.
More Info: How To Set These Classic Hero's Journey Themes!
The symbols of Star Wars
To wrap up our analysis of Star Wars and the Hero's Journey, let's take a quick look at how the filmmakers infused the story with power Symbols, Connection of the physical world of the story with the non-physical feelings the audience has about the world.
1. Light against darkness
This thematic relationship is evident in two ways. One thing is of course physical: the “good guys” versus the “bad guys”. And while the stormtroopers wear strong, white skeleton armor, the black armored Darth Vader embodies the darkness of the empire.
Opposed to this darkness is Luke Skywalker, a scantily clad and optimistic youth who learns something about the "light side" of power from his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is camouflaged in beige.
It is noteworthy that some characters are morally more ambiguous and wear sportswear of mixed colors. Han Solo wears a cream-colored shirt that is covered by a black vest. Is he ultimately attracted to the selfless, other serving light? Or the shameful, selfish darkness? Only history can tell!
2. The magic weapon
While it doesn't matter to the climax of this movie, the lightsaber is one of the most widely recognized pieces of fictional lore ever created. There's a reason people are paying $ 199 to do one at Disneyland when it's not "real".
The lightsaber is magical indeed. With the technology we currently have, we can't do this. The lightsaber also lives off the Jedi morals: light and defense.
While Luke does not practice it during the Death Star attack, he does use his virtues by turning off the computer (blaster) and relying on what powers the saber (light).
3. The underworld
The world of Star Wars is full of places where our heroes face numerous dangers. Here are the ones that can be found in A New Hope:
- The Jawas' sand crawler: C-3PO and R2-D2 are trapped in the "belly of the beast", a reference to Jonah and the whale.
- The Mos Eisley Cantina: A bar full of thugs and criminals where Luke almost loses his head.
- The garbage compactor: Under the detention block, the heroes almost drown by a monster and are knocked down by the shrinking walls.
- The Death Star Trench: To defeat this monstrous machine, the heroes will have to navigate their deepest points and almost collide with the surface. This is also where Luke and the rebels come closest to certain death.
4. The lock
What could be nicer in a science fantasy story than a giant space station?
Of the many memorable lines from the film that Obi-Wan's murmur can forget, "This is not a moon … it's a space station."
And the Death Star has all the properties of a castle: guards, defense, weapons, a dungeon (with a princess enclosed in it), a king (Tarkin) and a moat (the moat). It is the place where the shadow dwells and has the most power; It is also a place where the hero is relatively powerless and has to use his wit and cunning to succeed.
This is yet another example of how Lucas uses ancient archetypes to fill his new, unknown world (the Star Wars galaxy) with familiar tropes that audiences can instantly recognize and understand.
5. The incurable wound
Another archetype that would only appear in the sequel, the Incurable Wound, emerges when Luke takes on Darth Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.
Cornered and overwhelmed, Luke makes a massive mistake and exposes his right hand, which Vader quickly cuts off with his own glowing lightsaber. Luke reaches for the cauterized stump and screams in pain.
That hand is gone.
While Luke may be given a mechanized replacement at the end of the film, he will serve as a constant reminder of his failure and the temptation to the dark side of the Force, a temptation that his largely machine father has given in. This incurable wound plays an important role in Luke's character development, even in Disney's "sequel trilogy".
More Info: How To Use Deep And Meaningful Hero's Journey Icons!
The power of the hero's journey
If you take the time to watch behind the scenes documentaries about how Star Wars came about, you will find that the actors and crew did not believe in the film while it was being made.
Everything was fair from their point of view. . . strange. After all, there was a massive dude in a dog suit, a breathless British bodybuilder in a black suit, flawed props, and weird costumes and dialogue that made little to no sense.
Some even describe the writer and director as feeling sorry for George Lucas.
But they didn't see the metastructure behind it. They didn't share the same mythical vision as their main storyteller.
George Lucas didn't tell a story about droids, lightsabers, or even an empire and a rebellion.
He told the timeless story of good versus evil, nature versus machines and more, using this imaginative science-fantasy backdrop.
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The Star Wars cast and crew didn't believe in the movie when they made it – but George Lucas knew the power of Hero's Journey, and he was right.
To be entirely fair, film editors Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew deserve massive credit. They took Lucas & # 39; s original, extremely rough and choppy cut of the film and resurrected the sick film.
By shortening the shots, cutting more often and capturing moments of intense energy from the various takes, Hirsch and Chew were able to give the film the energy, flow and mythical quality that Lucas intended.
Lucas has received a lot of criticism for questionable filmmaking in the years following the original Star Wars trilogy.
However, it was and is his vision for Star Wars that continues to thrill audiences to this day, and his vision harnessed the full power of the dark side. . . . I mean the full power of the hero's journey!
So if you are studying Star Wars and other films that use the hero's journey to great advantage, it is worth considering which of these elements can be used to charge up your own epic story.
Your readers will thank you!
What is your favorite moment War of stars? Does it connect to any of those Star Wars Hero's Journey elements? Let us know in the comments.
WORK OUT
Your writing practice today is of course the theme of Star Wars Hero's journey. It's your turn to write a science-fantasy saga based on Hero's journey. Or at least the first scene of one!
Your protagonist is an outsider on a remote planet. Without this character knowing it, they are called on a great adventure under the stars.
Write the opening scene of their story. Who are you? What is your ordinary world like? And what happens to disrupt their normal life and call them to adventure?
Take fifteen minutes to write. When you're done, share your scene in the comments below and leave feedback for your note-takers!
David Safford
