It’s not exactly a shiny new concept that stories get recycled and retold, or that movies borrow liberally and sometimes steal from other movies, or that people like watching and hearing the same thing over and over again. But this video, by Will Schoder, illustrates just how similar the stories are to each other. They all essentially descend from order to chaos and from stasis to change.
The guiding principles of these stories is broken down by Dan Harmon, creator of the TV show Community, as such. Harmon actually simplifies Joseph Campbell’s idea of The Hero’s Journey thusly:
A character is in a zone of comfort
They want something
They enter an unfamiliar situation
Adapt to it
Get what they wanted
Pay a heavy price for it
Then return to their familiar situation
Having changed
Schoder uses clips from movies like Star Wars, The Lion King, Cast Away, Zootopia, Mad Max, and so many others to show how they follow those rules to progress their story. The video is a tad long but for anybody interested in storytelling, it’s a really fun watch.
