Joseph Campbell and his writings influence on the saga

This sounds like a lecture out of Mythology class. We actually did watch something on Joseph Campbell a week or so ago.

It is truly a hero of a thousand faces.

Every hero starts from innocence and whisked away onto a journey where they must evolve.

Luke does it.
Anakin does it.
Frodo does it.
Harry does it.
Bruce Wayne does it
Peter Parker does it

And so on and so forth.

I like how he incorporated the concept of the dragon. Anakin's is obviously his inability to let go and rejoice in the Force. However, Luke's is more evolving from film to film.

 

The PT is more deliberately drawn from specific mythology motifs and Campbellian study, but I find the whole CT-Campbell connection a little overhyped. Most of the parallels between The Hero's Journey and ANH are out of the organic process of story development and not specific mimickry. Not to dash the notion that Lucas was well-read on myths and Campbell, but i think the deliberatness of myth application to ANH is a little exagerated; Lucas mostly just stuck closer to Campbells hero pattern but there really isnt a whole lot more than that, and even then there are some inconsistencies. The thing is that pretty much EVERY story follows the Hero's Journey pattern, and you dont have to be aware of it to write something that way, it is the natural way of telling a story. Everything from Rocky to Batman to Independence Day has characters who fall into this pattern, and the world isnt praising the "genius" of Dean Devlin for it. It wasn't until Star Wars started become a modern myth itself that the claims of Lucas "pouring through the archives of civilisation and studying Campbell until he could distill the essence of humanity" started coming about, and i think they are a little misleading. You can see the same patterns in SW in Lucas'earlier works, albeit in less overt forms--he simply is a natural storyteller. What seems to have happened is that after struggling through a few drafts of the ANH screenplay, the reading of Hero With A Thousand Faces inspired Lucas to adhere to Campbell's Hero pattern more strictly and thus created the farmboy Luke as the main character and shuffled the other characters and incidents a little to be more in line with Campbell's theories.

Not that i am trying to portray Lucas as some hack who got lucky or anything, but i think this image of Lucas The Scholar is a little bit of a fictional character. For the PT Lucas seems to have ACTUALLY done what is claimed of him for the PT--and i think because of this, some aspects of the PT are a little too subtle and/or intellectual for mass audiences, which is why some are turned off of the PT; it has a colder, more intellectual feel to it.

 

Personally, I think the more significant influence of Campbell is in his approach; Campbell tried to condense every myth and legend into a single story outline and came out with the Heroes Journey; Lucas tried to condense every philosophy and religion into a single philosophy, and came out with the Force.

And that's a part of Joseph Cambell's point in putting it together. The thing that sets Lucas' approach apart from the crowd is that it was a conscious process, not to tread over the same old ground and tell the story of Troy/Emma/Romeo and Juliet in a different setting, but to try to tap into the same source that all of these stories come from.

I'd agree with that.

 

I think it was Star Wars: The Power of Myth that had the painting by de Goya, Kronos devours his children (El Saturno se devornado a su hijo). I fell in love with the painting because it reminds me of Vader, Palpatine, and the threat of Luke Skywalker and the rise of a new Jedi. The Magic of Myth also got me to buy a particular painting of Persephone rising from Hades, both of those books have GREAT artwork. Now we need a "myth" book which encompasses the entire saga.

 

The unifying/cosmic Force and the living Force are a direct reference to Joseph Campbell?s concept of ?two aspects of the one divinity.?

 

Lucas references this concept directly here:

"The overriding philosophy in Episode I?and in all the Star Wars movies, for that matter?is the balance between good and evil. The Force itself breaks into two sides: the living Force and a greater, cosmic Force. The living Force makes you sensitive to other living things, makes you intuitive, and allows you to read other people's minds, etc. But the greater Force has to do with destiny. In working with the Force, you can find your destiny and you can choose to either follow it or not."

--George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Making of Episode I, 1999

 

Hola friends. This is a long post, and I think a worthwhile one, but if not tell me to shut up.

Haven't been on here in a while, but was delving into the Campbell works again which I like to do every couple of years because my soul needs it. Anyway, I was re-reading 'The Hero With A Thousand Faces' and found something that really hammered home the depth of Lucas' attempt to create specific mythic motifs. Several, in fact.

'...where men see only change and death, the blessed behold immutable form, world without end. But now the problem is to maintain this cosmic standpoint in the face of an immediate earthly pain or joy. The taste of the fruits of temporal knowledge draws the concentration of the spirit away from the center of the eon to the peripheral crisis of the moment. The balance of perfection is lost, the spirit falters, and the hero falls.' (pp. 223-224 in the 1973 edition, yes, I'm a reference nerd)

'Eon' here means eternity; the unnamable; whatever 'god' is that the word 'god' doesn't and can't contain. Anyone reading this, is more than familiar with the idea, I'm sure. And I'm sure also familiar with the purposes of the hero's journey in relation to his community. The thought that occurred to me is that this quote sums up why Anakin falls. He's looking for an 'elixir' to bring back to the community. Eternal life. Granted, for selfish, personal reasons, but the idea is the same. He falls out of communion with 'god/eternity/the eon/the force' because he simply gets preoccupied with problems of the immediate, temporal world. So, the hero's journey is Anakin's throughout the arc of the whole series and Luke's is now a smaller restatement of the same. And more: the climax of the Prequels makes possible the saving of society/the galaxy. Another common motif of a savior/hero is the sacrafice and scattering of his body to different parts of the world so that life may grow and sustain the rest of the hero's society. While Anakin goes bad and goes on a kind of inverse of the hero's journey, it is the scattering of his limbs and rebirth shown simultaneously (again, no coincidence here) with the birth of the new hero who will rejuvenate the old one that is the crux of the whole series. Whaddya think, far-fetched?

I was reading this today and thinking it would be completely wonderful if someone wrote a whole book (and yes I'm aware of that tiny little DK "Mythology of Star Wars") that seriously treated all the statements and restatements of these themes. Whaddya all think?

 

- TOSCHISTATION

 

Yeah, I like his/her post a lot, and I agree with it. But, I love the prequels because of not despite the subtle/intellectual angle. And I don't think the OT is entirely without it, either. I think that a lot of criticisms of the prequels (like acting/editing- and I grant you these are huge deals) are incidental to the purpose of turning it into a larger mythological experience.

 

This is a most interesting and intellectually stimulating discussion of the saga. I have really enjoyed reading everyone's comments.

I think it's refreshing to know that no matter how much our society changes, or how much our technology changes, human nature always stays the same.

As long as there are human beings, there will be a need to tell myths. All of which follow similar patterns to the Campbell model.

Star Wars really is a modern day mythology. Which is precisely what George Lucas wanted to accomplish with it.

 

Heck yeah this is what the Saga is all about!!! Alot of George's movies are based on mythlogy/religion! You'll understand what Star Wars is all about! Like all the Indiana Jones movies, Archaelogy is the study of ancient cultures and their myths/religions. Willow is full of the King Arthur legend. So Lucas continued his love for Religion and Mythology in Star Wars. I love it! The new Indiana Jones film will be more on this passion of his. Maybe Indy will discover Excalibur, or the lost city of Atlantis, which was believed to only exist in myth! The real heart of the Star Wars story is the Prequel Trilogy because it's steeped in Classic story telling. The chosen one is born to live out the prophesy, betrays the prophesy, by wanting to save his love from dying, which he's seen in his visions/dreams. He then goes to the lightside (God)and they say it goes against the natural order of life. So he goes to the Devil, who says he can save her. Everything he does to save her in the end he's the cause and the reason for her death, so there's no way to challenge fate, in doing so creates fate. The ancient Greeks believed in that there was no way of challenging fate. And the story of Perseus is a perfect example! Perseus grandfather went to an Oracle and they told him his grandson would kill him someday, so he sent his grandson and daughter in a boat to die out to sea! They didn't die and years later Perseus was in an athletic competition and his discuss accidently flew out of his hand and killed his grandfather!

http://www.mythweb.com/heroes/perseus/perseus01.html
http://www.mythweb.com/heroes/perseus/perseus20.html

I'm thinking George told Campbell the whole story of the Saga years ago, that's why Campbell was so supportive of Star Wars! Did you know in one day George and Campbell watched the original trilogy from beginning to end at George's house back in 1987, because Campbell hadn't seen