Throughout the history of literature, it is clear that some storylines occur more than others. An example of this is the classic hero’s tale; which in western literature has evolved from Greek epics such as the story of the warrior, Odysseus, to American comic-book superheroes like Superman. As a childhood fanatic of these specific style of stories, I am typically inclined to watch any superhero movie that is released. Over the years I have begun to spot out patterns within these movies. After watching Fyodor Bondarchuk’s two part film, the Inhabited Island, and using my past knowledge of one of my favorite genre, I became convinced that this is another instantiation of the typical western superhero journey due to its character development of the main protagonist, Maxim, and its use of special effects. I postulate that Bondarchuk used the classic novel by the popular Strugatsky brothers to create an action filled, western-inspired blockbuster film which played a functional role as a piece of Russian propaganda to distract the public from an accumulation of certain geopolitical events during the time of its release.
As we initially meet our hero, Maxim, we learn that he is a space explorer from a futuristic earth where the space race has evolved to exploring alien planets. In the first few scenes
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Specifically, this structure closely resembles a classic western, science-fiction/fantasy, hero adventure that uses the concept of the idealized Russian man as the main protagonist. As an attempt to persuade the public away from the social and political issues that were going on at the time, Bondarchuk utilized the ideal hero and western-style special effects to make an effort towards following in the footsteps of his western counterparts such as Superman and Star Trek and open his film up to be commercialized to a wider