{"id":2857,"date":"2019-11-10T10:35:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-10T15:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/?p=2857"},"modified":"2019-11-09T23:14:51","modified_gmt":"2019-11-10T04:14:51","slug":"reelheroes-net-our-analysis-of-heroes-in-the-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/2019\/11\/10\/reelheroes-net-our-analysis-of-heroes-in-the-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"ReelHeroes.net — Over 400 Reviews of Movie Heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Scott T. Allison<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

My good friend Greg Smith<\/a> and I have two things in common:\u00a0 We love heroes and we love movies.\u00a0 Greg is an expert in fictional writing and character development in storytelling. \u00a0I\u2019ve been studying heroes for more than a decade and have published many books on the subject.\u00a0 And so by establishing ReelHeroes.net<\/em> back in 2013, Greg and I found a way to combine our interests and our expertise.<\/p>\n

What is the mission of ReelHeroes.net<\/a>?\u00a0 Our goal is to critique the heroic characters in recent and classic movies.\u00a0 Typically, movie reviewers focus on the quality of the movie.\u00a0 We do that, too<\/a>.\u00a0 But we’ve found in our research that people need heroes.\u00a0 Hero stories are psychologically important to us.\u00a0 These tales educate, they inspire, and they entertain.\u00a0 And the typical hero journey follows a classic pattern and a series of stages that are characteristic of all hero stories throughout the ages.<\/p>\n

When movie-makers acknowledge these patterns, we usually get a satisfying movie-going experience. But when they ignore these ancient, time-honored paradigms, the story usually falls flat. \u00a0So at ReelHeroes.net<\/a>, we’re not only be able to tell you if a movie was good or bad, but we can also pinpoint where the hero-storytelling was good or not so good.<\/p>\n

We base much of our hero analysis on the work of Joseph Campbell<\/a>, \"\"<\/a>a comparative mythologist who detected the following pattern in all hero stories:<\/p>\n

(1) The hero starts out in a safe, familiar world.<\/p>\n

(2) The hero is summoned, either willingly or unwillingly, into a new, dangerous, unfamiliar world.<\/p>\n

(3) The hero is charged with some goal or mission.<\/p>\n

(4) The hero encounters other people who fill important social roles — mentors, lovers, villains, sidekicks, & father figures are common.<\/p>\n

(5) The hero then overcomes some missing internal quality to attain the goal.<\/p>\n

(6) The hero is transformed significantly and returns to the familiar world.<\/p>\n

(7) The hero then delivers the meaning of the journey.<\/p>\n

Greg has used this pattern extensively in Agile Writers<\/a> to help his students compose effective and entertaining novels.\u00a0 In the past few years, he\u2019s helped people compose over a dozen first drafts and several self-published books.\u00a0 They’ve all relied on these tried-and-true stages of the hero journey.\u00a0 Two members of the Agile Workshop have been nominated for the coveted James River Writer Best Unpublished Novel Contest.<\/p>\n

At ReelHeroes.net<\/a>, we\u00a0 sometimes refer to other models of heroism in our reviews.\u00a0 Paul Moxnes<\/a> has a model based on family structure, arguing that heroes emerge within a family hierarchy (e.g., Fathers, Mothers, Sons, Daughters, Servants, etc).\u00a0 In our own research on heroes<\/a>, we’ve found that heroes tend to possess The Great Eight<\/a><\/em> characteristics.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>Heroes are smart, strong, selfless, caring, resilient, charismatic, reliable, <\/em>and inspiring<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We’ve reviewed over 350 mainstream movies that people who appreciate heroes will want to see. We even occasionally review old classic movies with an especially strong hero story. We\u2019ll avoid genres such as horror or slapstick comedy (although we confess to being avid\u00a0Three Stooges<\/em> fans). We love to review bad films as much as good films because it gives us a chance to see where the artist deviated from the acknowledged structures — and wonder\u00a0how in the world did this film get made!<\/p>\n

So join us as we explore the hero journey in action<\/em> on the big screen.\u00a0 We use the word \u201caction\u201d deliberately, as the work of any good hero involves acts of good deeds<\/em>.\u00a0 As Robert Downey, Jr., once observed, \u201cHero is not a noun<\/em>, it\u2019s a verb<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott T. Allison My good friend Greg Smith and I have two things in common:\u00a0 We love heroes and we love movies.\u00a0 Greg is an expert in fictional writing and character development in storytelling. \u00a0I\u2019ve been studying heroes for more than a decade and have published many books on the subject.\u00a0 And so by … Continue reading ReelHeroes.net — Over 400 Reviews of Movie Heroes<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5444],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary-and-analysis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phawtM-K5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}