The Hero’s Journey is the narrative equivalent of gravity; invisible, inevitable, and always pulling the story forward. Joseph Campbell mapped it out in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: an ordinary person is yanked from their comfortable, familiar world and dropped into a crisis that forces them to grow, guided (and occasionally scolded) by a mentor figure. They return changed, a little battered, a little wiser, and now capable of saving the very world they once fled.
It’s a structure that has shaped some of the most enduring stories in cinema. And, curiously, three of the greatest, Alien, The Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars, all use this mythic skeleton, each twisting it to its own genre and temperament.
Alien – The Reluctant Warrior
Ridley Scott’s Alien might be set in the industrial bowels of deep space, but it’s still a hero’s journey, just with less prophecy and more slime. Ellen Ripley starts as a by-the-book warrant officer, perfectly happy to follow protocol and get home. But when the Nostromo picks up that distress signal and the creature is unleashed, her ordinary world evaporates.
Her mentor figure is oddly fragmented, part corporate procedure, part the voice of experience embodied in Captain Dallas (and, later, Mother’s cold logic). Ripley’s call to adventure is thrust upon her, quite literally: survival. She’s tested again and again, learns self-reliance, sheds fear, and by the end she’s not just a survivor, she’s the avenger. When she returns (albeit to hypersleep, not the Shire), she’s transformed from company employee to archetypal warrior.
The Lord of the Rings – The Reluctant Everyman
Tolkien’s world practically is the Hero’s Journey, writ large across Middle-earth. Frodo Baggins doesn’t want adventure; he wants tea, pipe smoke, and a quiet afternoon. But when Gandalf turns up and explains the purpose of the Ring, the call to adventure lands squarely on the doormat of Bag End.
Gandalf is the quintessential mentor, wise, mysterious, and inconveniently unavailable when you need him most. Frodo’s journey carries him through the classic cycle: the crossing of thresholds, the descent into darkness (Mordor as literal underworld), the ordeal, and the return home. But the genius of Tolkien’s telling is that Frodo doesn’t come back unscarred or triumphant. He returns broken, unable to truly rejoin the Shire. The Hero’s Journey here is not about victory but the cost of transformation, the knowledge that some journeys can’t be undone.
Star Wars – The Reluctant Farm Boy
George Lucas didn’t just use Campbell’s ideas; he built Star Wars as a visual hymn to them. Luke Skywalker’s story is the textbook Hero’s Journey: the call to adventure (Leia’s hologram), the refusal (he’s got moisture farming to do), and the mentor in Obi-Wan Kenobi, who hands him a lightsaber and a destiny.
Luke leaves his ordinary world of sand and boredom, crosses into the world of the Force, and faces trials, smugglers, Death Stars, daddy issues. He gains skills, allies, and insight. By the time he faces Vader, he’s no longer the whiny Tatooine farm boy; he’s a mythic hero, reborn in light and shadow. His return comes in later films, when he becomes the mentor himself, the circle complete, the hero turned sage.
The Shape of Myth
What links these stories, beyond their genre trappings, is the rhythm of transformation. Ripley, Frodo, and Luke all resist the call, all grow under pressure, all return to something like home but forever changed. The monsters they face – xenomorphs, dark lords, Sith fathers – are really internal forces: fear, temptation, destiny.
The Hero’s Journey endures not because it’s formulaic, but because it’s human. It’s about the moment you’re pulled from comfort into chaos and have to become more than you were. Whether you’re fighting aliens, orcs, or empire builders, the shape of the story remains the same, we leave, we learn, and we come home again, never quite the same as when we left.
The 12 Stages of the Hero’s Journey
1. The Ordinary World
We meet the hero in their everyday environment, their comfort zone. This is the calm before the storm, where we see what’s missing in their life.
Luke Skywalker farming moisture on Tatooine
Frodo living quietly in the Shire
Ripley in cryogenic sleep, heading home, aboard the Nostromo.
This stage helps us understand who the hero is before the change begins.
2. The Call to Adventure
Something disrupts the ordinary world, a message, a discovery, or a crisis that demands action.
Leia’s hologram begs for help
Gandalf appears with news of the Ring
The Nostromo receives a mysterious distress signal.
It’s the first whisper of destiny, and the point of no return begins to glimmer.
3. Refusal of the Call
The hero hesitates. Fear, doubt, or duty hold them back. The call is daunting, and the old life still feels safer.
Luke protests, ‘I can’t go, I’ve got work to do!’
Frodo doesn’t want to leave the Shire
Ripley insists on protocol before breaking quarantine.
This moment humanizes the hero, they’re not eager adventurers, but reluctant ones.
4. Meeting the Mentor
A guide appears, wise, experienced, sometimes flawed, offering advice, training, or equipment.
Obi-Wan Kenobi gives Luke his father’s lightsaber
Gandalf offers wisdom and moral direction
Dallas (briefly) and Ash (deceptively) act as Ripley’s early mentors.
The mentor prepares the hero for the road ahead, though the journey must ultimately be walked alone.
5. Crossing the Threshold
The hero commits to the journey and enters the unknown world, the point of no return.
Luke leaves Tatooine
Frodo steps onto the road out of the Shire
Ripley finds herself locked in combat with something beyond human comprehension.
The rules change, the old safety nets vanish.
6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies
The hero learns the ropes, meets companions, and faces early challenges. This stage builds the team and clarifies the stakes.
Luke meets Han and Leia
Frodo gains the Fellowship
Ripley learns who she can and can’t trust on the Nostromo.
Here the audience sees the hero growing, often stumbling, but learning resilience and strategy.
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave
The hero prepares for the central ordeal, literally or metaphorically entering the cave, fortress, or heart of danger.
Luke and his friends infiltrate the Death Star
Frodo and Sam approach Mordor
Ripley descends into the alien-infested bowels of the ship.
This is where tension tightens and doubts resurface.
8. The Ordeal
The hero faces death, either literal or symbolic, and is reborn. Everything they’ve learned is tested here.
Luke loses Obi-Wan but gains faith in the Force
Frodo faces the Ringwraiths, Shelob, and the psychological death of addiction
Ripley faces the xenomorph alone.
It’s the crucible moment that forges the hero’s new self.
9. The Reward (Seizing the Sword)
Having survived the ordeal, the hero claims the treasure, knowledge, power, or reconciliation.
Luke understands the Force
Frodo gains the resolve to complete his quest
Ripley reclaims control of the ship and her life.
The reward often comes with consequences, the real challenge may lie ahead.
10. The Road Back
The hero begins the return journey but faces one last push of opposition or consequence.
The Death Star battle
The march to Mount Doom
Ripley’s attempt to escape the exploding Nostromo.
It’s the tightening of fate before resolution.
11. The Resurrection
The final, climactic test, the hero must prove they have truly changed.
Luke trusts the Force to destroy the Death Star
Frodo resists (barely) the Ring’s final temptation
Ripley defeats the alien once and for all in the shuttle.
The hero symbolically dies and is reborn, purified and transformed.
12. Return with the Elixir
The hero returns to the ordinary world, carrying wisdom, healing, or literal treasure.
Luke becomes a leader
Frodo returns to the Shire, though changed forever
Ripley enters hypersleep, scarred but victorious.
The story closes its circle, the hero brings back something that benefits others. The world is, in some small way, renewed.
The 12-stage model endures not because it’s formulaic, but because it reflects how we experience growth: resistance, struggle, transformation, return. It’s less a scriptwriting formula and more a psychological mirror, a reminder that every challenge is a small hero’s journey waiting to be faced
Author: Greg Holstead
Penned: 9th November 2025
North West End UK
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