skullaria wrote:

Shannon wrote:

Do your favorite movies sometimes seem a bit…familiar? When discussing Harry Potter, do you sometimes mistake Voldemort for Darth Vader? Do Neo’s abilities in the Matrix remind you of the Force, only just a little bit different? Well, you would be right, as the most wildly successful franchises of the last 40 years are basically the same recycled story you have heard over and over again. To highlight the (few) differences between some of the most famous franchises ever produced, I have color coded them as follows:

Could it be because all of them rely heavily on archetypes for a new mythology that the modern world is ripe for - as espoused by Joseph Campbell? Could it be?

the hero with a thousand faces is all well and good except for the slight matter of details

everything is the same as everything else if you want to ignore enough of the details

every human is the same as every other human is you choose to look at a high enough level -- every mammal is the same as every other mammal etc etc

yes certain stories are similiar to one another -- fine -- that's the basis of any idea of genre

we have Joseph Campbell this is all in the scope of the known

balancing the familiarity of a known structure with new stuff -- a new synthesis -- evolving a meme or set of memes is what makes something like Harry Potter great

we have the comfort zone of the familiarity with the excitement of a certain level of novelty -- the joy of turning the page is the journey -- the tension -- will what comes next be the familiar or pastures new

for me one of the best representations in a novel of the metastructure of narrative is Salman Rushdie's Sea of Stories

stories evolve -- vive la difference

RE: Hold On, I've Seen This Before: How Star Wars, Star Trek, The Matrix, and Harry Potter are Actually the Same Movie | Spiteful Critic