From the title of the book and the Introduction, the author puts the hero, or protagonist, front and center in his concept of what constitutes a good movie. He asserts that “liking the person we go on a journey with is the single most important element in drawing us into the story” (xv). The hero is the vicarious stand-in for the viewer; it is through the hero’s evolution over the course of the film that the viewer experiences the journey. Though the hero does not have to be similar to the viewers at all—they don’t even have to be human—they do need to possess understandable motivations or reactions to the events that follow in the story in order for the audience to care about what happens to them.

To illustrate his point, Snyder gives the example of Lara Croft 2, which tanked at the box office. Snyder found the title character to be “cold and humorless” (xiv), which left him less than excited to see the movie. He felt that the filmmakers focused on making her “cool” and sexy, with a “new latex body suit” (xv), instead of on revealing relatable emotions.