Electric Dreamstate

Yesterday I caught a preview screening of eragon. It's the new fantasy FX-fest that's coming out today. It's also based on a book written by a sixteen-year-old. Additionally, it's probably one of the most derivatively made movies I've ever seen.

First off, you know how Star Wars, especially the first one (A New Hope), is really based so much on other movies and archetypes that it would be almost impossible to call anyone out on ripping it off with a straight face? Yeah, eragon impresses in this regard, because it straight up rips off the entire story of the first Star Wars almost scene by scene. Yes, they do mix it up a bit: for example when LukeEragon is going into the analogue for the Death Star, it looks like Jabba's palace in Jedi. And at the end when they get to the rebel base it looks like Faramir's camp from The Two Towers. And in the middle somewhere, they take the scene from Empire Strikes Back where Vader kills an Admiral and promotes his underling and play it out almost word-for-word. Oh yeah, and there is a scene where this Shade character is asking all of his minions who look like Urk-Hai (Saruman's minions in Lord of the Rings) who they serve and I was sure they were going to bust out a SA-RU-MAN!

That isn't to say that eragon just steals the entire plot and character set from Star Wars, the look and feel of Lord of the Rings, and then plays it out in a hackneyed and over-obvious way. No sir, they seem to get a whole lot of Dungeons & Dragons vibe as well, though I think that was unintentional stealing. Shittyness by association if you will.

This isn't to say that this movie won't play well to kids. Most sub-twelve-year-olds will probably love it, especially if they haven't seen Star Wars, and the final Dragon fight is pretty nice looking in a I'd-rather-be-playing-this-on-a-PS3 kind of way. Really, it's the kind of movie written for young children by trying to fool them into thinking it's a movie for older audiences. Sort of like Willow. But not as good. This is the opposite of movies that seem to be for children, but are actually for older audiences (like Labyrinth or Dark Crystal).

Anyway, if you're reading this blog, you probably won't enjoy eragon. Your 11-year-old sister might though.

Zelda review still coming

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