HERO’S JOURNEY SHIFT OF HERCULES FROM MOORE’S HERCULES: THE THRACIAN WARS TO ITS MOVIE ADAPTATION

Abstract

This study was aimed to reveal the shift of hero’s journey archetypes in presenting Moore’s Hercules comic book to its movie adaptation. Therefore, the researcher dealt with the comic book and the movie adaptation as the object of the study, which were adaptation and archetypes frames applied as the theories to analyze the data. The result of the study was the explanation upon the shifts that happened in the adapted work and the reasons behind the shifts. This research was belonged to the qualitative research field. The researcher highlighted the reasons behind the shifts which were happened. There were methodologies used by the researcher in regard of this qualitative research. To collect the data, the researcher decided to use the documentation technique. It was to collect the data from the documents, archives, and so forth. Then the collected data were arranged based on its classification. The technique of analyzing the data was content analysis. It was meant to draw the pattern of archetypes that seen within the content both in comic book and its movie adaptation. Furthermore, making shifts in the product of adaptation in regard to the audiences was considered as the pattern, too. The researcher studied these phenomena and finally drawn the conclusions. Based on the analysis that had done by the researcher, there were found that the movie adaptation was unfaithful adaptation towards Moore’s one. The comic book version delivered the story in sadistic and bloody tone which could be seen from the pictorial images in the panels or words within the balloon text. It was such a contradiction thing what was presented in the movie version. The researcher found that the comic book version brought Hercules in a Rampant Mode, while the movie version presented him in a Savior Mode. There were two reasons why should the adapter made these shifts. They were, the values that were believed by the target audiences. The latter was the movie production had to deal with the law, culture, and movie industry movement. Thus, inappropriate things had to be replaced or transformed to be more acceptable for the wide societies.