We went to see Eragon this afternoon with Nik’s family. Kate was supposed to see it last weekend as part of her birthday celebration but that had to be cancelled because of the wind storm and blackout. Eragon was the first adult book Kate read on her own so she’s been very excited to see the movie. I have not read the book, so I knew little about it. I guess I should have figured that a book about dragons with a main character whose name is dragon but with an “e” was going to be a bit suspect.

Some spoilers (sort of) follow.

I went into the film with an open mind. I mean hey, I like fantasy and the cast was decent enough. It didn’t take long for me to notice the uncanny resemblance between the plot of this movie and Star Wars. Wow, a movie where a farmboy who is more than he seems meets a wise old man who gives him training in mastering a mystical art so he can work to overthrow a tyrant because the special guardians who used to promote peace and justice were betrayed by one of their own and destroyed. And along the way the uncle who raised him is killed and he rescues a princess! It was so blatant I had a hard time taking the whole seriously.Really, it was like a movie producer showed up at my house when I was 13 and said he wanted to make a movie of my home campaign setting for D&D.; He then put a team of professionals together to make a film of my vision, except that when I was 13 my vision was a totally derivative mish mash of Tolkien, Moorcock, Howard, and Star Wars. The professionals do what they can but ultimately all their effort is undercut by a story so clichéd that only children have a hope of enjoying it.

But hey, Eragon was still better than either of the D&D; movies.