“The Hero's Journey": How Star Wars and Myth Are Connected

The Star Wars film saga as myth.

On May 4, the world of lightsabers, reclusive Jedi hermits, and the mysterious Force celebrates Star Wars Day. It's no coincidence fans tied the celebration to this date, since their legendary phrase 'May the Force be with you' sounds almost like 'May the Fourth.'

The DeTalks team chose this day to dive into a galaxy far, far away and explore the mythological motifs of the Star Wars saga.

A Typical Myth: How Campbell Wrote It

In its structure and content, Star Wars is, in essence, a myth. Heroes, antiheroes, mentors, and their adventures — all of this is about building a mythological story. But it's impossible to discuss the creation of the film saga without one particular figure. That's Joseph Campbell, author of the mythology study The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Anakin Skywalker. Photo: yakaboo.ua, IMDb

George Lucas, director of the first six Star Wars films, was fascinated by mythology. His friend and 'mentor' in this was Campbell himself. So the film saga might have turned out entirely different if not for the influence of this scholar of mythology and the hero's role within it.

Many scholars have identified the epic as myth. Jonathan Young, for instance, a psychologist and writer with a PhD who worked with Joseph Campbell at his seminars, stressed the films' mythological structure.

At first, we see an ordinary boy, Anakin, trying to win a race. Against the backdrop of his story, larger events unfold — a threat to the planet Naboo. Young calls this moment, where problems of different scales intertwine, the 'mythic moment.' That's also when young Anakin meets a Mentor, characteristic of the hero's journey myth. The boy gets not one but two: Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Classically, Mentors can take forms ranging from an old teacher to a sorceress, and a character like this is necessary to share knowledge with the hero, teach them, and so on.

This moment becomes a point of no return, since the adventure has already been set in motion, and the hero, for many reasons, can't help but set out on it.

Another researcher-philosopher, Radosław Kazibut, confirmed that the space saga is 'a story that fits the formula of the road, the journey, danger, and the challenge of struggling against oneself.' A narrative like this bears similarities to Homer's epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.

The researcher also noted the director's use of motifs from Chinese philosophy and Taoism. This, for instance, explains the rejection of 'absolute evil' in the figure of Darth Vader — a hero who has already traveled his path from little Anakin to a threat to the entire galaxy, and passed the torch to his son, Luke.

Kazibut has described this as a motif with no pure evil and no pure good, saying Lord Vader doesn't sink into boundless darkness, since a spark of good still smolders at the bottom of his heart, one his son Luke reignites, letting him redeem himself, noted Radosław Kazibut.

Master Yoda also shares a similarity with Chinese philosophy, whom the researcher compared to a Buddhist monk absorbed in constant contemplation.

George Lucas himself, in an interview with Bill Moyers, said that Star Wars is about the heroic journey each of us goes through. The director set out to recreate mythological motifs in order to show that both good and evil exist within everyone. But which path to take is always up to us alone.

Apollo, Artemis, and Satan in the Saga's Characters

Lucas didn't create specific allusions to particular characters, but he did draw on certain emotions that come up when we look at... horns.

With the dark Sith lord Darth Maul, for instance, with his horns and red skin marked by black stripes, the director wanted to convey an image of evil.

Lucas has described how they looked not just at Christian symbolism, but at Hindu and Greek mythology and other religious symbols too, and then built their own character out of that, saying he thinks the first thing you should feel looking at him is fear — not immediately, but the sense of something worth fearing, said Lucas.

Researchers and writers Alan Lupack and Barbara Tepa Lupack, in their book King Arthur in America, drew a parallel between the legends of the Knights of the Round Table, including King Arthur, and the saga's characters. Luke Skywalker, for instance, they compared to the young King Arthur. His Mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, meanwhile, is the wizard Merlin.

It's exactly this character who, as in Campbell's framework, reveals to Luke a partial truth about his father: Anakin was a knight of the order, but he was betrayed and killed by a young Jedi named Darth Vader. Kenobi also gives Skywalker Anakin's own sword, which belonged to him before he turned to the dark side of the Force. The lightsaber, as Alan and Barbara noted, resembled Excalibur — King Arthur's sword. As a true Mentor, Kenobi later teaches Luke to wield it, helping him in the fight against Vader.

Luke Skywalker has also been examined in connection with Leia Organa. In the plot, the twins were taken to different points across the galaxy. The boy's home became the desert planet Tatooine, while the girl was sent to a royal family from Alderaan.

The characters have been compared to the interconnected opposites of the Sun and Moon, since Luke's home planet has two suns (or possibly three, counting Luke himself), while Leia is always dressed in white — the color of the moon and purity.

In her book Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, Mary Henderson connected the characters to the twins of Greek mythology, Apollo and Artemis, who 'come into the world to restore order.'

It's also worth noting that Apollo is the sun god, which again lets us compare Luke to the Sun. Artemis, meanwhile, is the goddess of the hunt, the moon, purity, and chastity.

A New Story of the Fall and Temptation

Aleksandar Joksimović and Richard Pearson, in their academic paper 'The Liberation of Icarus: The Contemporary Aerospace Engineer in the Mirror of Pop Culture,' compared the myth of the world's creation in John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost to Anakin Skywalker's story.

The authors have described it as a tale of the creation and fall of the brightest of all angels — one who not only flew the highest, but wanted to fly even further, take part in divine power, soar upward, and touch a star, perhaps even become a star himself, noting, for example, that the mythic grandeur of the contemporary hero Anakin Skywalker was established through mentions of his extraordinary skill as a pilot.

Anakin's Journey as a Hero. Photo: IMDb

Kenobi called Anakin the best pilot and warrior, but the fall didn't keep him waiting, turning the hero into a threat to the entire galaxy.

A similar moment shared by myths and Star Wars is temptation. Satan tempted Jesus for forty days in the desert; the demon Mara tempted Buddha. In Star Wars, Lucas tried to explain temptation in his own way. Darth Vader, for instance, offers Luke the chance to join the dark side of the Force and fight on the Empire's side.

So Star Wars became more than just a saga that conquered the world — it became a fusion of myths, symbols, and imagery. It's a story that George Lucas and his team built from ideas, turning the tale of two families into a myth.