into the port will destroy the station. Beowulf too gets lucky. He
finds a large, gleaming sword hanging on the wall of Grendel’s
lair. The blade is magical, and allows the user the ability to fight
normally underwater. The heroes in A New Hope get several more
lucky breaks. The exhaust port, which is two meters in length,
cannot be hit with the starfighters’s targeting computers, meaning
that the pilots must aim manually. Ben’s spirit speaks to Luke,
instructing him to “Use the Force” and guiding him. At the critical
point when Luke fires his torpedoes, Han shows up and damages
Darth Vader’s ship, allowing him to fire. These seemingly random
events are well known in mythology. Again, Han and Ben team up
and help Luke in the end. Han gives him what he needs physically
and Ben clears his mind mentally. It is Hermes and Athena at
work again. The inability of the computers to hit the target is the
obstacle’s built in defense system. If any mundane person could
defeat it, a Hero wouldn’t be needed. Only someone with the
necessary knowledge and discipline can succeed. This hearkens
back to Siegfried’s curtain of fire, where only those without fear
could proceed. Luke destroys the Death Star and the Rebels return
home triumphant. The Hero Cycle has been completed.
The Hero Cycle is also prominent in George Lucas’s entire
Star Wars Trilogy. It is somewhat harder to discern, since the plot
is drawn out over three movies. The concept is broader, with more
detail found within the Hero’s training and internal fulfillment.
Everything that was present in A New Hope is present in the
Trilogy, only on a greater scale. There is also a new element
present in the Trilogy, that of the atonement of the Father.
Campbell describes the Atonement as a conflict between the Hero
and a father figure. The father figure doesn’t have to be the Hero’s
actual father, he can be any older character the Hero knows. The
Hero becomes grown and nears the time of his sojourn into the
adult world. It is the father figure’s responsibility to usher him
into the strange new realm. Th Hero, afraid of what lies ahead,
seeks comfort with a mother figure, and regards the father figure
as evil and sinister. He soon realizes that he must proceed, and
once he does so, he realizes that the father figure is not evil as he
once saw it, but is just experienced or bitter. The Hero returns to
the father figure and joins him in the adult world. Many primitive
cultures have stories which deal with this aspect of mythology. In
The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Campbell uses as an example a
village ritual common in primitive African and Asian tribes.
When each generation of males comes of age, the tribal elders
gather to hold a ceremonial circumcision. The boys are driven out
by their mothers and told that they must face a terrible and
frightening ordeal. The terrified adolescents attempt to return to
their mothers, but they are repeatedly pushed away. They are then
herded to a clearing in the woods where the elders are dressed as
tribal animals and monsters from myth. Each boy is taken in turn
and surrounded by the elders. He must close his eyes, and the
circumcision is performed. The boy must do his best not to cry
out. Afterwards, he is dressed as an adult and sent back to the
village. From then on, they are treated as men.
George Lucas may have been considering the development
of the Atonement in A New Hope, but there wasn’t space for it. It
is focused on heavily in the Trilogy, however. In the second
movie, The Empire Strikes Back, Luke fights a climactic battle
with Darth Vader. Luke has not yet become the equal of Vader
and is defeated. Vader reveals to Luke that he is his father.
(Reference The Empire Strikes Back, 15401–15514 and 15729–15950) Luke, shocked and horrified yet somehow knowing it is
true, struggles to deny it. Part of Luke’s Supreme Ordeal is facing
Vader and defeating him, and once he does, he discovers that his
father is not entirely evil. This realization helps him to
comprehend the bigger picture of Good and Evil in the galaxy, and
enables him to finish his adventure.
Several other developments in the Trilogy are worth
considering. The theme and scope of the adventure have been
broadened from those of A New Hope, so the individual plots and
points of the Hero Cycle are broadened as well. Luke’s aims are
much higher in the Trilogy; no longer is he concerned about
becoming a starfighter. He wants to be a Jedi Knight. He has
reached his physical aspirations and now craves more. A good
comparison is found in Faust. Faust had learned all there is to
know in the world, and desired to move on to the supernatural.
Like Faust, Luke had to play a dangerous game to acquire his
knowledge. He had to resist the temptations of the Emperor and
the dark, easy path to power. Faust had to resist giving in and
exulting in his pleasure, thereby ceding his soul to the Devil.
Luke’s Threshold becomes the planet Dagobah. The
Threshold in the Trilogy is the place where Luke realizes his
potential and harnesses it. Luke travels to Dagobah unsure of what
he expects to gain. He meets Yoda, an ancient Jedi Master. Yoda
instructed Ben, and takes Ben and Han’s place as the teacher in the
Trilogy. He teaches Luke to use the Force and trains him
physically. When Luke leaves the Threshold, the Elixir he bears is
the knowledge and power of the last Jedi Knight.
As the forces and power of good have grown, so has the
power of evil. The teacher has been upgraded in character and the
Hero has become greater in power. The villain must therefore be
more sinister and powerful. Darth Vader was the villain in A New
Hope, but his role as the father figure allows a new, stronger
enemy to step in. Enter the Emperor, Vader’s master and the
leader of the Empire. The Emperor represents the opposite of
everything Yoda stood for. He is the ultimate power of Evil. He is
not a Jedi Master, but is trained in the Force and has some
unknown link to the Jedi (Lucas never elaborated on this.) Part of
Luke’s Supreme Ordeal is defeating the Emperor, but he cannot do
it alone. In A New Hope, only after Han had stopped Vader’s ship
from threatening Luke could he destroy the Death Star. In Return
Of The Jedi, the last movie of the Trilogy, Vader must be the one
who aids Luke in destroying the Emperor (Reference Return Of
The Jedi, 20243–20456).
The astounding success and popularity of Star Wars from
its debut until now, over twenty years later, can be readily
attributed to its fairytale aspect. Myths and legends originating
hundreds or thousands of years ago still fascinate us today. The
labors of Hercules and Perseus’s slaying of Medusa are still read
by wide-eyed youths because they embody their ideas and hopes.
Myths have a timeless quality about them that has enabled their
survival. Star Wars is simply a modern mythology. Daring
starfighters armed with lasers and blasters take the place of
armour-clad warriors on horseback. An evil, part-robotic
juggernaut with the Force at his side replaces the Black Knight.
Instead of an impenetrable castle, an armored space station full of
enemy soldiers is the bastion of Evil. The role of the Hero remains
constant, however. The retrieval of the Golden Fleece, the slaying
of Grendel, the rescue of Brunhilde–all are cherished myths
belonging to ancient cultures. Star Wars and A New Hope are
those belonging to ours.