Have you ever been watching a movie and thought to yourself, “This all seems so familiar?” Well, that’s because it is. Check the image to see why The Lion King, Harry Potter, Batman, Star Wars, Cinderella, Lord of the Rings and The Jungle Book are all really the same story.
Related Posts:
Come on, this is totally inaccurate, everyone knows Simba didn’t meet Timone and Pumba until after Scar killed mufasa and took power, otherwise the self-exiled Simba would have never met them.
Simba isn’t an orphan, if you want to be technical. His mom is still alive.
ummm and darth vader is still “alive”………….
was*
It’s called the “hero’s journey”, and has been a part of classical literature for centuries. Joseph Campbell first described it in 1949 in his text “A Hero with a Thousand Faces”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey
Learned about that in class.
Really – you’re going to be picky about…
Wait, where’s Pippin? How do you include Merry but leave out Pippin?
This is total B.S.!
You’re right, these all have plot arcs. They all involve a main character, who has friends, and an actual opponent, who in the end is defeated. Oh, also a weapon or powerful object. That’s the least broad category there.
But even then, most of the weapons aren’t magical unique weapons to the hero. The ring wasn’t even a weapon, it was a burden.
Well Batman (I’m assuming according to Dark Knight) only has Alfred, but then does defeat the Joker (After the Joker damn near ripped the city in half, sort of like if someone stole your apple and you chased them down to get the core back) and then lives…Hunted by Gotham police for a bunch of murders he never committed. I dunno, maybe batman doesn’t really need to be on the list.
I don’t think any story of Batman really follows the Hero’s Journey formula. Its just not there. Batman doesn’t have one main mentor in fact HE becomes the mentor for the Robins, and Batgirls, throughout the years. Who (at least most of the Robins) fit the Hero’s journey more than Batman. Also very nice job using four different source images of Batman media.
Also Lion King (despite the director’s denying) is influenced by Hamlet which isn’t a Hero’s Journey, with “stolen” imagery from Kimba the White Lion.
Truthfully the only Hero Journey’s Movie up there are Star Wars, and Harry Potter. Everything else is either another type of story or arch, and the original movie structure that other mimic.
In other words, a Chosen One (Messiah) with devoted followers saves the world from Satan?