Ever notice that every blockbuster movie has the same fundamental pieces? A hero, a journey, some conflicts to muck it all up, a reward, and the hero returning home and everybody applauding his or her swag? Yeah, scholar Joseph Campbell noticed first—in 1949. He wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he outlined the 17 stages of a mythological hero's journey.

About half a century later, Christopher Vogler condensed those stages down to 12 in an attempt to show Hollywood how every story ever written should—and, uh, does—follow Campbell's pattern. We're working with those 12 stages, so take a look. (P.S. Want more? We have an entire Online Course devoted to the hero's journey.)

1. Ordinary World

We're using the word "ordinary" loosely here. After the events of the previous film, in which the crew of Enterprise broke every rule in the Starfleet handbook and even sacrificed their ship to save Spock, they're left stranded on the planet Vulcan in a Klingon spacecraft.

2. Call to Adventure

The crew decides to return to Earth and accept their punishment from Starfleet. On the way, they learn about a crisis currently brewing: a giant alien space probe has appeared in Federation space, disabling any ship that passes nearby with a strange audio signal. Even worse, it's currently situated above Earth, causing power outages and weather disturbances on the planet's surface.

3. Refusal of the Call

The crew members debate their plan of attack. Kirk suggests that they try a full-on assault. That's just about the most Kirk answer ever, but it also happens to be totally foolish.

4. Meeting the Mentor

Ever the mentor, Spock disagrees. By analyzing the probe's audio signal, he determines that it's a variation of the song of the humpback whale—a species that's been extinct for a long time. The probe must be trying to contact the whales and is confused that it can't find them. This all seems pretty hopeless, but Spock has a plan—and it involves time travel. They'll need to find humpbacks in the past and bring them to the present.

5. Crossing the Threshold

It's way easier to travel through time than we thought. Basically, the ship just uses the gravitational field of the sun to build up enough speed to break the temporal barrier. Simple, right? They end up in the barbaric 20th century and head to San Francisco, where they've detected the presence of humpbacks.

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies

Once on Earth, the crew breaks up into small groups. Uhura and Chekov are in charge of locating a nuclear reactor to recharge the ship; Sulu, McCoy, and Scotty are in charge of building a whale tank; and Kirk and Spock are on whale-finding duty. Kirk and Spock find a local whale institute that has two humpbacks, George and Gracie, and introduce themselves to the facility's assistant director, Gillian Taylor.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave

The crew makes progress. Uhura and Chekov find a nuclear reactor at a naval base, while Scotty and McCoy procure enough plastic to build their tank. Meanwhile, Kirk and Spock try to smooth-talk Gillian into letting them take the whales, but she reveals that the poor humpbacks are about to be released into the wild. That's no good.

8. Ordeal

In the middle of the night, Chekov and Uhura beam into a naval vessel to siphon energy from its reactor. They get the goods, and Uhura manages to escape, but Chekov is caught and arrested. He tries to run away, but he falls off a balcony and ends up in a coma. That's brutal. The following morning, Gillian goes into work and discovers that the whales have been released, earlier than expected. Furious, she runs off to inform Kirk.

9. Reward (Seizing the Sword)

Kirk appreciates Gillian's info. He tells her goodbye, but as he's about to teleport aboard the ship, Gillian grabs hold of him and beams aboard as well. Clever girl. The crew then performs a heist at the hospital to rescue Chekov before going off in search of the whales. A whaling vessel is currently hunting poor George and Gracie, so the crew scares them off in thrilling fashion, and Scotty beams the whales aboard the ship. The tank seems to hold. Phew.

10. The Road Back

Finally, it's time to go back to the future. Although Spock is forced to do the math in his head this time around, the crew members return to their era mere moments after they left.

11. Resurrection

The ship crash-lands into the ocean, and Kirk releases the whales. After a moment, the whales start singing, with the probe responding in kind and hurriedly leaving Earth's atmosphere. Moments later, the weather calms, and power is restored to the planet. They did it.

12. Return With the Elixir

And now, apparently, it's time for that punishment we talked about. For real? Fortunately, all charges are dropped—except for one against Kirk. But the consequences aren't that bad at all: he's demoted from admiral to captain and given control of Enterprise once again. Spoiler: this is what Kirk wants. In the end, the crew members of Enterprise board their newly rebuilt ship and prepare for yet another exciting adventure.