/lit/ - Literature

The Hero of A Thousand Faces ripped off Star Wars.

>>915388
made in 1949.
George Lucas read and was inspired by The Hero With A Thousand Faces to do Star Wars in the first place.

troll harder.

>>915396

JOKE FLIES COMPLETELY OVER ANON'S HEAD

IN OTHER NEWS...

>>915396
trolls trolling trolls

You should be familiar with Hero, but you should also be familiar with plotting and structure more generally. Plotting and structure can make audiences love your story even if you can't write for shit; also, it's more applicable if you're not trying to write a bullshit quest story.

Essentially, Hero with a Thousand Faces is really awesome comparative look, while a more mundane book on plotting is much more helpful for writing.

>>915372

It helped you be a better writer eh?

Then why aren't you off enjoying the hookers and blow, that comes with success?

Why are you here?

>>915463
the hero with a thousand faces is a general plotting book. what annoys me is when people read campbell's stuff, but thinks it only applies to a narrow scope of stories when it can apply to anything. you just have to have a wide enough vewpoint. the scope of this book is limitless.

>>915372
This could have been a great thread but was ruined by faggots. Sorry OP, the topic might be salvageable but I'm out.

>>915505
Wow. That is insanely quick. All there's been is one dumb joke about Star Wars, duder

>>915505

>Implying you're not a giant faggot

>>915505
OP here, thanks for your sympathy. i suppose even /lit/ is not free of trolls. fuck you guys. maybe i'll try again later.

McKee's 5 act structure is way better:
1. Status Quo
2. Challenge
3.Complications
4. Point of no return
5. Conflict and resolution

I thought Lucas got the idea of Star Wars from Vladimir Propp.

>>915531

The fact is faggot, we've all already read it. Stop trying to lead us or teach us something.

You're no better than the rest of us.

I read half of the book and have yet to pick it up.

The book tells you the structure of the heroes journey, and that's it. You can read the Wikipedia article on it and come away with the same amount of information. Then the rest of the book is just jam packed with excerpts from various myths and fairy tales.

>tracking down the most basic and primitive theme

Do you even know what a "theme" is?

You don't need this book to be a great writer. Unless you want to write a heroes journey literally by the book, you don't need it at all.

>>915538
cambell's formula is simpler, only three steps, which gets down closer than that to the heart of storytelling. Departure, Initiation, and Return. don't think about plot structure so much as the theme of what the hero is doing with humanity (even if in a metaphorical sense) as the original setting.

>>915559
but the hero's journey is in EVERY story. the hero's journey is THE story that is translated in different ways by different characters and plots.

>>915372
i've noticed that it's always the way over-analytical people who always misjudge this book. it can be difficult to understand because of the way the ideas are presented, but most of the time people just miss the big picture of what the book is trying to portray.

>>915575
>the hero's journey is in EVERY story.

I don't think so, Tim.

Catcher in the Rye, The Sound and the Fury, Love in the Time of Cholera, the Picture of Dorian Gray, The Stranger, The Virgin Suicides, Finnegan's Wake, and a lot of stories with either no clear-cut protagonist or conflict don't follow the heroes journey.

I admit I never read the book, but my teacher gave me a series that was on PBS or something like that a few years back (mid 80's? 90's?) about this guy talking about this stuff.

From what I got from it, you could find certain things about the Hero's Journey is most stories. However, just because ever story has elements of it, doesn't mean that the Hero's Journey is in EVERYTHING and that EVERYTHING follow's the Hero's Journey.

What about the mentor? The Obi Wan, the Gandalf, the Dumbledore? He doesn't have to be old -- but he's got to be wiser than the hero and educates him on many things, often times by example. Plus, they have some awesome epigrams.
But you're not going to find characters like this in...Twilight, for example.

All in all, I plan on reading the book because the documentary series was so interesting. But, I'm not sure it can really help make you an excellent writer.

people always miss the incredibly broad scope of the hero's journey. it's not always hero gets involved in conflict and is guided by wise old master to save the world.

a more primitive, underlying nature is: hero is compelled against society by some deep nature to defy what he is told, seeks his own nature, and then comes through with a new perspective on life and/or his environment. this can apply to anything.

>>915656
Tom and some friends were walking through the woods. There was a house that they were told never to enter; however, Tom couldn't help but be curious. Despite the cries from his friends to stop, Tom gives into his emotions and goes towards the house. He enters. There's an old man who looks scary inside. The old man invites Tom to have some tea and biscuits. They talk about life, society, and how sometimes you're just happier doing things your own way. When tea is over, Tom returns to his friends, refreshed in his new outlook at life that just because everybody says something is bad and it looks scary, doesn't mean that you should always follow that everyone says.

hint: Tom is the hero.
amidoingitright?

>>915372
It doesn't work for WuXia ergo it's not universal ergo Campbell lied. Star Wars had good marketing and LoTR hit the vein.

>>915675
essentially, yeah.

>don't agree with my opinion

>TROLLS

This can be salvaged!
Bump

>>916060
lol, okay then let's keep it going

>>916060

Salvage from what?

A healthy debate was happening. The only retard here is OP.

for me the hero's journey just illustrates a simple pathway one undergoes to achieve difference from society, in a way embracing individualism. the three phases Campbell was talking about just demonstrates the basic arc that takes place in any kind of story, an escape from normalcy, the lesson learned, then the return to normalcy. departure, initiation, return.

>>916172
Salvage from 404, check the post times

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Jesus fuck, sounds like OP got on the Campbell bandwagon kind of late. DO NOT FOCUS JUST ON CAMPBELL'S WORK. The man was an excellent teacher and had many wonderful insights, but you NEED to do more than to just read his work and think you know the ins and outs of excellent storytelling. You learn these ins and outs by DOING, partially by reading books like these.

Also,
>this book has changed my life
The fuck are you? A teenager?

>>916212
you are not friendly at all.

>>916223
I MAD.

It's not worth reading. Hell, just skim the chapter titles and you've got the gist of it. The rest is just myth porn.

Furthermore, Lucas didn't read it until after Star Wars was released. Also, he made up the other five installments to the series as he went. So.

>>916233
lucas read the book and it guided him in the scripting process. the films were originally written as one piece representing all three pieces of the hero's journey that was then split into three films.

>>916257

Wrong. That's just George Lucas revising history. He wrote the first Star Wars over the course of four or five years and basically what you see in the movie is what he wrote. His original intention was to make something like nine or ten movies, with different directors coming on and him providing plots and what not. It wasn't until Empire Strikes Back came along (which was an adaptation of a tie-in novel, by the way) that he started all of that 'A New Hope' crap, let alone decided that Darth Vader was anybody's father.

George Lucas is just some guy who got lucky.

>>915368
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>>916321
i'm not going to argue with you, but i would like to know your source for these facts

>>915369

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>>916346
The Secret History of Star Wars.

The title's off-putting, but the presented text itself and sources are pretty damn convincing. Should be online in PDF format somewhere.

>>916366
i'm reading it now. seems very interesting. i will be reading this over the next couple of days. thank you for sharing.

I like Joseph Campbell's work.

It is interesting to see such a broad theme permeate into so many different cultures et cetera, and yeah even if we all learned about the Hero's Quest in high school, that doesn't mean it's not entertaining or enlightening to see its implementation in works of literature.