Yotsuya (great thread by the way), do you happen to know the extent to which Lucas employed Joseph Campbell throughout the OT? Gary Kurtz claims it wasn’t such a huge factor until further into the series. I ask this because I couldn’t help but reflect on our back and forth re ROTJ. I’m not familiar with Campbell so this is pure speculation, but it seems to me that Lucas leaned more heavily on the mythical aspects of the story in ROTJ where he’d been relying on more ‘logical’ cues in the previous films. For example Yoda says Luke has to face Darth Vader in order to become a Jedi, but I feel that someone like Kershner would have had Yoda (or Obi Wan) preface it with the need for a Jedi to ‘face his deepest fear’ or something similar in order to contextualise/ground the idea (the prequels seem to attempt it with ‘Jedi trials’). Even Luke’s final battle (as I’ve been moaning about for some time!) seems to be more broadly metaphorical/symbolic than practical in terms of actually being of help to the rebel cause. I’ve also seen Lucas describe the Ewoks as the mythical ‘creature on the side of the road’, which was of course achieved with Yoda in TESB but realised with significantly more blatant cuteness in ROTJ. There’s even the moment where Luke says “I can’t go on alone”, clearly marking that point in the journey, whereas Obi Wan’s death and Luke’s being left alone in ANH were more or less written on the run.
It seems to me that Campbell/mythology was a factor in SW/TESB - along with westerns and Flash Gordon and all the other stuff mentioned in this thread - but may have taken a more blatant hold in ROTJ. Or am I, as Leia would say, “imagining things”?
Cambell’s work was based on myths and legends, but only relied on those in so far as they are the oldest, most persistent, and most iconic types of stories. He apparently studied stories from around the globe. But what his work entails are basically instructions for telling a story that feels old and taps into our deep cultural memory. I read most of it and as a writer it was informative, but full of things I didn’t need. So the myth part is not really part of his aim - he was aimed at getting to the heart of the story telling. ANH and TESB are filled with Cambell’s influence as Luke begins the hero’s journey. The entire OT is filled and Luke traveling along the hero’s journey. Ben even gives the ultimate goal in ANH when he tells Luke he must learn the force. Then after he dies he sends Luke to Yoda to be trained. So Cambell is there and has huge impact on the story from the beginning. And the Ewoks were just mini-wookies. That battle was originally supposed to be the Wookies against the Empire. I don’t see any more influence on ROTJ than the previous two films. I think he used it to a lesser degree in the PT and I heard that at least Rian Johnson used it for TLJ. I suspect that Lucas saw his use of Cambell as something more akin to fantasy without realizing that it was already a staple of science fiction.
The hero’s journey was a key element in the old romance adventures that speculative fiction was born from. It is key in the Planetary Romances of the early 20th century and the Space Operas of the mid 20th century. They obviously weren’t reading Campbell, but the were tapping into the myths and legends that were his sources. You can really see that in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings where Tolkien was drawing on Finnish, Norse, and English traditions, myths, legends, and folk tales and using them to create his fictional Middle Earth before Campbell ever published his work (1949). The first John Carter book follows the same pattern as well. Campbell just compiled everything you would need to know in one place and gave it meaning and reason. But Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Foundation, and Dune (Lucas’s known inspirations) are full of the western tradition of the hero’s journey and samurai movies are full of the eastern traditions. So he got it on all side and from all source and made it really strong and solid. Luke’s story is much closer to classic mythology like Hercules as a result. At least in terms of the beats of the story.
Thanks for that. I absolutely love Dune by the way. I reread it every couple of years - never gets old!