In most of the Hero Projects, one thing that stuck out was how the call to adventure was an internal call. For example, in our movie The Incredibles, the character is called literally by a human; however it is his drive to do good that he is motivated to fight. In another groups project, they explained how Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas, felt like he was missing something in his life. This caused him to start his adventure. Both of these examples come form the characters heart, not from an external/literal call.
Another reoccurring theme is how the boon/elixir is also internal. In The Incredibles, his boon is the idea of family importance. In Life of Pi, Pi's boon is remembering what is important in life. This is not a physical boon, like in The Hobbit where Bilbo finds a ring.
In each poster, the groups explained a mentor. For most groups, the mentor was very obvious. For example, Bilbo Baggins relies on Gandalf to help him though. Gandalf clearly was a key to Bilbo's success. However in other movies, like Pirates of the Caribbean, Will Turner thinks that he hates Jack Sparrow, when Jack is indirectly helping Will determine his destiny.
This is similar to our movie in how Mr.Incredible see's Mirage to be a friend in the beginning, then an enemy, then a friend again. Because of this, he has many mixed feelings about her. She does work for the man trying to kill Mr. Incredible, however saves his whole family in the end. Mentor's are a very important part of life, especially to people who don't know it yet.
Write
about the film you think would be best for the hero’s journey project.
A: I
think that a good movie to use for this project would be the movie The Bourne Identity. I think this would be a good choice because
the hero is often unsure that he is the hero, which makes his actions seem even
more outstanding. Jason Bourne was a government project gone wrong. He was made
to be an assassin, however was knocked out of his “brain-washing” and realized
that what he was doing was wrong. He then turned his life around to figure out
who he really was and stop this horrible killing spree that the government was
on.
9-20-13
Friday
free write.
A:
As a child, my family loved to camp. Each memorial day we
would travel to northern Michigan in our camper with some friends. I loved all
of it. The fresh air, the water, the campfires, everything. “Come on!” I yell
to my cousin as she gingerly tests the water with the built in thermometer that
everyone seems to have in their big toe. “Its too cold!” She replies. Finally
her brother comes up behind her and shoves her into the lake. She was too cold
to yell at him. At dinner each night we could laugh and joke about the events
of the day. We laughed about my mom’s phobia of frogs as we bragged about the size
of the frogs we had caught that day.One
Memorial Day, on our way home, something very unexpected happened.
What
does the word “hero” mean to you? What do you think about when you think of
heroes? What do you see…?
A:In my mind, a hero is someone who will stop at
nothing to help. It doesn’t always have to be a serious thing. Even the small
acts of heroism are important. For example, my grandmother is a hero to me
because she took care of her five younger siblings when her parents died from
alcoholism. She got married at sixteen and kept her younger brothers and
sisters under her wing. She is a hero to me, but more to the people she
protected. When someone says the word hero, the picture of a muscular man
flying through the air with a red cape pops into my head. These fictional
characters may be fun to watch, but their morals and values are true to any real hero. For example, like Superman
puts his life on the line to protect common citizens, our nations military
follow the same role.
Throughout my whole childhood, I felt like all of my friends had "their sport." In other words, each of my friends seemed to have a natural ability for a certain activity, and they stuck with that. I, on the other hand, never seemed to find my fit. This was true until last spring, when I picked up golf. I tagged along with my dad and his friend one day when they went to the golf course. I decided to try it out. I had always imagined golf as a sport for old men and people with too much time on their hands; until I tried it. It was one of the hardest things for me to learn, and I loved the challenge. The feeling of getting better after each practice hooked me. I began practicing for hours each day, and realized that maybe I finally found my sport. I dabbled with football, lacrosse, and even soccer. However I never considered myself to be competitive, therefore I didn't enjoy athletic competition. Now? I can't get enough of it. The best thing in the world to me is being on the course with my opponents, playing my own game, and knowing that there is no one that can stop me. The thing with golf is that you compete against yourself. Not with or against a team. It's comforting for me to know that I don't have to rely on others, or have others rely on me. This takes out all variables of competition. If I played my best, I won.
This clip from the famous movie Caddyshack, pretty much sums up my writings. "How do you measure yourself against others?" the locker room attendant asks. I believe that this sentence is the problem with most peoples mental approach to sports, and is why I enjoy the form of mental torture that is my favorite sport, Golf.
Another one of my favorite things is movies. My favorite movie is Warrior. Warrior is about two brothers who come from an estranged family and end up fighting for the UFC championship. The thing I love about this movie is the passion that each brother has for life because of past events. They both work hard for themselves and their families. They go back to natural instinct which is to fight with 110% to stay alive. (Or in this case, keep their homes and support themselves.) Warrior steps out of the box of normal movies by keeping the relationships within the family very realistic. Most movies would have the brothers forgive their abusive dad half way through the movie; however Warrior makes everyone fight for forgiveness, (literally and figuratively.) Another thing I enjoy about this movie is the final scene. The final scene, however predictable, is very inspirational. Naturally, the two brothers make it to the final fight, so they must fight each other to win. The brothers were separated young, and not under good terms. Because of their estranged past, they have an anger against each other that cannot be matched. Both fight valiantly, but there must be a winner. Both cannot stand the though of losing to the other, or losing the five-million dollar purse. Once the fight is over, they walk out of the ring as brothers once again, not as enemies.
The movie makes this transition of enemy to brother very subtle. It is as if the fight enabled them to break all tension and renew their relationship. This is the last thing you see on the screen before the movie ends. Yes, it is obvious that physical damage was done, however it is clear that emotional healing is happening. This song plays throughout the whole last fight, and adds to the intimacy of the whole thing. I highly recommend watching at least the final few minutes of the movie to understand what I am trying to explain.(Warning: slightly violent.) The other part of this scene that adds to the sadness is the the abusive father who tore his own family apart, watches his sons fight over his wrong doings. In conclusion, the movie Warrior will always stick out in my mind as a favorite because of its blunt honesty and fantastic realism.
The best experience of my life? It has to be when I took a missions trip to a deaf village in Jamaica. The deaf population in Jamaica are treated as outcasts. It is very sad to see how these people are forced to live. Although America is far from perfect, this particular type of discrimination is almost gone. In the mountains of Jamaica there is an entire area where 90% of the deaf people live. We arrived at the deaf school where we would be living while the students were on spring break. This was bitter sweet. It was bitter simply because we didn't have the opportunity to spend time with the kids. However, it was sweet because we now had more time to get stuff done around the campus. We built new staircases, painted, built new sandcastles and playgrounds, cleaned, etc. It was very fulfilling to help out the people in this community. It was apparent that they were very grateful. The day after we arrived was easter sunday where we visited the deaf church. One thing that was curious to me was certain mannerisms that all of the deaf people shared. For example, none of them would use their real voices, however all would laugh. Whenever someone signed something funny, they all laughed. It seemed that laughter was the only way they could express themselves vocally. It seemed that laughing instantly brightened the moods of these normally solemn people.
This picture is of the deaf village where we stayed. It is cool to see the different things that we accomplished just in this one picture. All the fences, staircases, and paint was done by us.Overall, this trip was the best experience of my life because of the life lessons I learned and the people I met. I learned that patience can be a great virtue to all; deaf or hearing. Also that laughter truly can be a great medicine.
