10. The Hero's Journey
You know what wasn't so great about the prequel trilogy? The fact that almost all of the characters were relatively versed in the massive universe they inhabited. Their sense of awe and surprise wasn't very... obvious. And there wasn't anybody to relate to amongst that entire cast. The best thing about the original flick was that it was based around something called the "monomyth," or as it's best know: The Hero's Journey. Writer Joseph Campbell best summarised it as the following:
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
And that's essentially the path that the original
Star Wars flick follows, and it works perfectly for a number of reasons. We, as audience members, follow a character (Luke, in this case) as his dull existence is suddenly transformed into one of danger and adventure. We're Luke. We rise to the challenge as he does. We learn things as he learns them. And from the perspective of a movie-goer, that's a thoroughly absorbing way to tackle a story. The fact that
The Phantom Menace spent much of its screen-time dealing with a Trade Federation that nobody cared about and filling in contrived prequel details meant there was essentially no room for the hero's journey. If audiences are expected to jump on board with a new set of stories, we need to feel that same sense of exploration and adventure that we felt following Luke as he said goodbye to Tatooine in 1977. The hero's journey forms the basis for the
Star Wars movie that we're all dying to see. And if that's the kind of narrative device that would best suit this new series of films, it's probably best that we're given a...