Hero's Journey In The Film Interstellar

Mythological patterns appear everywhere in our day-to-day lives. All the way from the ancient stories told by our parents to the modern, digital entertainment we enjoy today, we cannot seem to escape one of the most common characteristics of myths: the stages of the hero’s journey. While most movies seem to portray these stages, none do it quite like the modern day film, Interstellar, directed by Christopher Nolan. In this breathtaking film, the character Joseph Cooper, portrayed by Matthew McConaughey, demonstrates multiple stages of the hero’s journey as he searches the universe for a new planet for the human race. Joseph Cooper’s insane journey begins with his call to adventure, a gravitational anomaly which conveys a message containing map coordinates leading to the secret, underground headquarters of NASA. His daughter, Murphy, portrayed by Mackenzie Foy, discovers this message during a sandstorm. What is unusual about this call to adventure is that Joseph Cooper, while he does not know this yet, sent this message to himself from the future. As Cooper packs his truck to track down the coordinates, his daughter says, “You don’t know what

While some are not very noticeable at all, his call to adventure, first threshold, and supreme ordeal are undeniably some of the most important parts of the film. Some of these stages are even very similar to other stories that follow the mythological pattern. In Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, directed by Chris Columbus, Harry must travel into the unknown world of Hogwarts as his first threshold, just as Cooper had to travel into the wormhole, not knowing if he would survive. Later on in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, directed by David Yates, Harry must find his hidden power that neither he nor anyone else knew about, similar to Cooper. This goes to show that these mythological stages exist in many different