My research for this report began when I read Joseph Campbell's article "Departure" in which he discusses folklore; he outlines the course of action that a hero takes in an adventure. He describes the five steps the hero takes as "the call to adventure, the refusal of the adventure, use of supernatural aid, crossing of the first threshold, and the belly of the whale." After reading Campbell's criteria of an adventure, I decided to choose a movie and see how it ties into Campbell's outline of an adventure. The movie I chose was Willow and in this report I will note how it complies with Campbell's outline.

Upon finishing Willow I was able to confirm that it did indeed fall into the five criteria in Campbell's article. In Willow Queen Bavmorda seeks control of the world, and she knows that an infant will be born with a mark on its arm and this infant will be able to stop her from gaining power. Therefore, she inspects every child that is born; upon discovering the child with the mark, she will promptly have it killed. One day Willow's children Ranon and Mims find a baby while playing in the river. This child happens to bear the mark for which Queen Bavmorda is searching. The children take the baby to their father. Willow takes the baby to the High Aldwin, and he tells Willow that the safety of the city depends on him and that the baby must be taken across the great river to the Dakini crossroads. This is Willow's call to adventure; it is "a blunder" of "the merest chance", and Willow is thrust "into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood" (Campbell 1).

As Campbell expresses in his article and as is apparent in most adventure movies, Willow is not completely convinced and willing to go on this trip to take the baby back to its homeland. Ranon reminds him of the dangers he may encounter on his way to returning the baby such as fairies, brownies, dragons, and trolls. Willow gets upset at Ranon for mentioning trolls because he knows how much he fears them. Willow is also reluctant to leave his wife and children. Kaiya reminds him that they have never been apart before, and it is apparent that Willow is experiencing feelings of guilt. It appears that he is beginning to doubt going on this trip. However, he begins to feel real feelings of love for the child; therefore, he does not "refuse the call" and decides to continue the journey.

At the start of the journey, Willow and his friend Meegosh, who volunteered to go along with him, stumble upon a Dakini man in a cage. At first they refuse to let him out of the cage; however, after enough pleading they allow him and this is the moment when Willow crosses the threshold. This is the first step Willow takes into the journey. Madmartigan, the Dakini man, knows how to lead Willow; therefore, helping Willow dive into this journey head on.

Along the journey Willow runs into Brownies, as Ranon predicted he would, who proceed to tie him up. A good witch gives him a magic wand and helps untie him visits Willow. With this wand Willow now possesses special powers that will help him along this journey. The visitation of this witch is Willow's encounter with supernatural aid because even the greatest heroes need assistance.

The final criterion of the hero's journey is met when Willow comes in contact with Razel who is in the form of an opossum. After this meeting and after he tries to return her to her normal position, Willow can no longer turn around; he must finish his journey. He now possesses special powers and too many people are involved for Willow to turn around. He must continue and lead the baby to safety, and he manages to do this very thing.

The criteria from Campbell's article are met in Willow. In class we also discussed how the movie Star Wars fills the same requirements. Luke Skywalker receives a call to adventure from the droids, and he refuses this call when he goes to Ben Kenobi who wants Luke to make this adventure. Luke begins to make excuses saying that he has work to do and that his uncle would not want him to leave because he needs his help. Luke crosses the threshold somewhat against his will when his aunt and uncle are killed. When the Millenium Falcon takes off Luke has now entered the "belly of the whale" because there is no way he can change his mind now. Throughout the entire mission Ben Kenobi acts as Luke's supernatural aid; his voice is constantly present even after he has passed on, and he helps lead Luke to eventual victory. As a result of seeing Campbell's article put into practice, I was able to validate the article and it made even more sense to see how it relates to contemporary movies. These connections to Campbell's article make folklore in the movies apparent. Before this introduction I had never even considered that folklore was a part of movies that I watch.

The research that I conducted for this paper went well. It was not particularly difficult research and luckily the movie that I watched did fulfill all of the requirements that Joseph Campbell outlined in his article. If I had had more time for this report or I was planning on doing more extensive research I would have viewed other movies and done more of a comparison between the movies such as where in the movie each step of the journey took place. I would predict that for the most part all of the criteria are fulfilled in relatively the same place in each movie.

References
Campbell, Joseph. Hero With a Thousand Faces. "Departure", Princeton University Press. 1961.

Willow. 1988. Dolby VHS.

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