Based on the rites of passage, the hero’s journey, as described by Joseph Campbell in his classic book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, consists of three stages: separation, initiation, and return.
Separation Initiation Return
Ordinary World Threshold Ordinary World
In the first phase, the protagonist voluntarily seeks something or is dispatched on a
mission by someone else. He/she then leaves their familiar surroundings (Ordinary
World) and crosses a threshold into a strange environment, or a new situation,
where he/she will encounter a series of trials and/or revelations. Finally, the hero,
having been transformed by his/her adventures, returns to their original world,
more often as not, with a life-lesson for those of us who have journeyed with them.
Using this model, briefly discuss one (1) of the following. What does the protagonist learn as a result of their journey, and what do we learn by accompanying them?
a. In Blade Runner, Rick Deckard is forced out of retirement by Capt. Bryant, who wants him to locate and “retire” several replicants who have returned to Earth.
b. Hugo’s desire to fix the automaton leads him to film pioneer Georges Méliès in Hugo.
c. Zero’s life is altered when he takes a job as a lobby boy and is mentored by M. Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel.
d. Theodore Twombly’s ordinary world is altered when he buys / installs an OS-1 (a sentient operating system) in her.
e. David and/or Jennifer are transported into a 1950s-style, black and white, family-oriented sitcom in Pleasantville.

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