1. After reading about “The Hero’s Journey,” one particular movie comes to mind and that is a Disney movie of course: Finding Nemo. In this movie, Marlin is set out on a journey to find his son caused by a fight between the two. Resulting in Nemo getting taken by a couple of divers when his class goes on a field trip during the first day of school. The first challenge he faces is when he must go out in the open ocean and find his son, which Marlin is afraid of. Along the way, Marllin is faced with difficulties in which he cannot overcome without the mentors that help him. Dory, which is his first ally, helps Marlin get over the fact that he is scared. Since Dory has trouble remembering things, she must go about life by living in the moment. This enables Marlin to overcome fears that he would not of without her help. Another character that helped him along the way was Crush, a turtle that he met in the current. Marlin and Dory are shoved in the right direction in order to find his son. There were also set backs that Marlin and Dory had to get through. For example, they ran into sharks in which they thought were there friends but ended up chasing them and trying to eat them. Also, Dory tries to ask a whale for help which resulted in them getting swallowed forcing them to find a way out.
During this journey, Marlin was faced with a lot of challenges and obstacles in which he had to overcome to get to the prize which was his son. Knowing Nemo was out there somewhere, this gave him the courage to go out and search the ocean for his son. I believe that this movie follows “The Hero’s Journey.” In the end, Marlin learned that he has to let Nemo grow up on his own and know that everything will work for the better. Marlin was taught lessons during his journey, which also led him to become a better dad for Nemo which he knew was the ultimate achievement.
2. I do not believe current cinema meets the human needs expressed in the four functions of mythology. In order to stay within these four functions, I think the movie needs to written from a piece of literature. Movies today are so caught up in what people are in interested today, which is why they get the ratings and popularity that they do. If a movie were to go off of mythology, it would have to stray so far away from the original story because people just aren’t that interested in it and that is why it is not going to do well. This is also why you see so many reoccurring themes in all the movies. They are too focused on giving the people what they want (like sex, drugs, horror, etc in order to make money) instead of writing movies about the human needs of belonging to a society.
Finding Nemo is a very good example. I would agree that most of the movies that we hear about are made to gain viewers, but I do not think that the four themes are that far away from what sells.
I liked your comparison between the Hero’s Journey and Finding Nemo. It’s such a cute movie but at the same time, it has a great storyline. I agree with your comment about movies today not meeting the human needs and only being about things like sex, drugs, etc. It’s so true! Every new movie seems to portray these.
I liked your comparison of a Hero’s Journey with Finding Nemo. Maybe I’m a little biased, as I talked about the same movie, but I think the story line fits in well with the idea of a Hero’s Journey in mind. I also agree with you that movies are not satisfying the human needs but do you think that some movies satisfy maybe one or two of those needs well?