movie review a hero's journey Hercules

The film that I have chosen for my “hero’s journey” is Hercules (1997). American animated musical fantasy directed by Ron Clements and John Musker

 At the start of the movie we are introduced to where originally Hercules was from but, then due to circumstances he was transferred into the mortal realm. Here he would encounter his mortal parents, which will lead to a “time jump” to the period when Hercules is a young lad.

This above is showing us the 1^st category “ordinary world” in which he was living with his mortal adopted parents.

The 2^nd category “call to adventure” was slightly different as he finds out that he was adopted from said parents and the place to find his answers to his questions would be at the temple of Zeus. Here he would meet his birth father and ultimately asking him “how can I return to Olympus”.

Normally around this part in the film (Hero’s Journey) there would there will be a form of “refusal of the call” but Hercules didn’t really display a form of refusal to going on a journey to ultimately return to his birth parents.

With the help of his Pegasus, he made his way to find his mentor (4^th category) “Phil” who at first refused to help him. But through comedic timing from Zeus, Phil was inclined to help Hercules and train him to become a hero. This leads to a time skip and results in a dramatic change in his look and personality.

After the time-skip, he goes out into the world to help people and in doing so meets the threshold guardian (5^th category) “river guardian Theseus” and the temptress “Meg” (6thcategory) who offers Hercules his first experience at hero work. This later leads to the “belly of the beast” (7^th category) hydra fight which was Hercules first serious display of the dangers of the heroism that he would be performing.

After defeating the hydra Hercules was faced with a multitude of different beasts, they were sent by the film villain - Hades, these would be referred to as the “road of the trials” (8^th category). This leading him to ever more fame and glory. As the film progresses Temptress Meg is a constant figure around Hercules as a form of love interest and Hades wanted to use this against Hercules. Meg loved Hercules and vice versa, so Hades exploits this as a formal weakness and makes a deal with Hercules, thus Hercules loses his strength for 24 hours so Meg can be to be released. Hades uses this opportunity to release the Titans and go to Olympus. With the “ordeal” (9^th category) of the Titans taking Place, Hades sent his armies to deal with Olympus. He also sends the giant Cyclops to keep Hercules busy until done. Because of Hercules earlier agreeing to Hade's deal he must face Cyclops with next to none of his full strength. Hercules does prevail against Cyclops, but Meg becomes fatally injured due to the audial. The deal for Meg’s safety was broken and his strength returned, so he rushes to Olympus to sort out the Titans and save everyone up there.

After the battle at Olympus was won Hercules rushes to get some help for Meg but she dies. This left Hercules furious at Hades for causing all that has happened, and he goes to the underworld to bring her back to life. He offers up himself to take Meg’s place and Hades accepts the deal but, tells Hercules that he must retrieve Meg’s soul from the river Styx himself. As we see him dive into the river to save her, we see him slowly be brought to the brink of death, so on reaching Meg he is almost dead but, because of this selfless act of sacrifice, he transformed into a God. He now has Meg’s soul so then he throws Hades into the River Styx facing the souls of the dead.

Hercules then returns (10^th category) Meg’s soul to her body and she awakens, because now he is immortal, he can return to Olympus as a God, Hercules gives up his immortality to stay with Meg. In reward of his heroic actions, Hercules final award was his image made into the stars.