Back To The Future Hero's Journey

The hero’s journey is an outline that maps out stories and adventures. It is used to describe a layout of events, whether they are mundane or not. These steps explain how Marty McFly, from the popular movie Back to the Future, gets pushed into an adventure, changes the outcome of the future, and is forced to fix his mistakes and find a way home.

The call to adventure is a plan or accidental point in the hero’s life where they realize everything for them is going to change. In Back to the Future, the call to adventure is completely accidental. The hero, a teenager named Marty McFly, is called to adventure when Doc, a friend of his, creates a time machine out of a DeLorean. Doc is about to travel when he is shot by a group of terrorists. Marty

is trying to escape from the group when he hops into the car, forgetting it begins to time travel once it hits 88mph. He is sent 30 years back in time and his adventure begins as he tries to figure out a way to get back to 1985. The threshold is the point where the hero crosses into the adventure, leaving the known limits of their world and ventures into the unknown. In this story, the threshold is when Marty is sent to 1955, a world foreign yet familiar to him. He has trouble getting used to the people and the trends that were popular during that time.

While trying to get back to 1985, Marty comes across some challenges.

While trying to help his father stand up to a bully, he accidentally prevents his parents from meeting causing a domino effect leading to his mother developing a crush on him instead of his father. After this happens, Marty learns that he has messed up the timeline, and that he has completely changed the future; To actually return to the life he has in 1985, he must find a way to get his parents together. At the same time, Marty cannot return to the future because he ran out of nuclear energy to make the car run. Marty enlists the help of Doc, from the 1950s, to try to find a way home. They develop a plan to harness energy from a bolt of lightning that strikes a clocktower in the middle of town. This plan does come into play at the end of the week, leaving Marty stuck in place. During these days, Marty comes up with another plan to get his parents together and fix the timeline: he plans to bring his mother to the dance, be a complete jerk to her, leaving his father to step in and sweep her off her feet. Similar to challenges, the abyss is a point in the hero’s journey where the hero must face their biggest fear, giving their entire self to the journey. Marty’s biggest fear is playing his music in front of a group of people and being shamed or rejected for it. At the dance, everything seems to be going well until the guitarist of the band playing injures himself, causing the band to end the set early unless

Marty steps up and saves the show, and his family. Marty plays a couple of songs with the band; enough to let his parents slow dance and fall in love. Everything else falls into place from here.

When Marty returns back to 1985, he also returns to a completely different life. This perfectly exemplifies the transformation and revelation in the hero’s journey. Here, the hero becomes transformed and has a revelation about the world around their self. Because of Marty’s effect on the past, his family life is significantly better. His dad and brother have better jobs, his mother never becomes an addict, his sister is much happier and has a better social life, and Marty now has his dream car. Marty also learns that Doc was never killed by terrorists and is recognised for his discoveries and inventions in the scientific community. Marty and Doc are the only people who know anything out of the ordinary ever occurred. Though it’s confusing at first, Marty soon learns to accept it and acts normal. Doc takes the DeLorean into 2015 to research the future.

In conclusion, Back to the Future is a classic example of the hero’s journey and how it creates a great story. Marty’s story is truly unique because he is pushed into an adventure, changes the outcome of the future, and is forced to fix his mistake in order to find a way home. It is also physically impossible for Marty to refuse the adventure; His own existence depends on his success.