*(Christopher Vogler’s condensed version of the Hero’s Journey has been used in this paper to view this theory from a more general perspective in contrast to Campbell’s seventeen stages
Table 1: Comparison of the Stages of the Hero’s Journey to the events of Star Wars: A New Hope (Adapted from (Vogler, 2007))
Hero’s Journey Star Wars: A New Hope
Ordinary World Luke lives an uneventful yet safe life farming in …show more content…
A New Hope’s plot exactly matches all the twelve stages of the Hero’s Journey. Moreover, the archetypes or the embodiments of the characters common in every myth that Campbell explains in his theory are also present in the movie. There is a hero (Luke Skywalker), a mentor (Obi-Wan Kenobi), an ally (Han Solo), a herald (R2-D2), a trickster (Chewbacca), a guardian (Uncle Owen), a shapeshifter (Han Solo), and a shadow (Darth Vader) with their respective on-screen equivalents. The mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, has an important role in the growth of the protagonist, Luke Skywalker, to teach him in the ways of the Force. Luke was taught who the Jedi were, and what they could do. One of the iconic skills of the Jedi is the ability to wield a lightsaber. This was a Jedi’s weapon, one that he should not let go of. He should feel and not think, and feel the Force within him to enable him to be nimble in combat. Learning this served as Luke’s first steps into becoming a Jedi Knight. Faced with many challenges and trials in the film, Luke came to overcome them by learning the skills needed to become a Jedi. Pushing him onwards to the road of success was also the envied boon—that envied prize out-of-his-reach in the form of the lovely Princess