Eragon

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To the disheartening of many fans of the book series, men in ties decide to make a dragon movie without any dragons in it and decide the story is too confusing so they just remade Star Wars. Beware the powers of the dark side of jelly beans!

If you're like us and have never read the Eragon book series, then you'll arguably have less problems with the divergence (that wasn't an accident) of the source material from the pre-teen books to this flaming pile of nonsense. It's a necessary position to look at the 2006 film objectively. We don't know the back story and the subtle elements of the world that this takes place in (if there are any) so don't come at us, bro! And in any situation, none of that should matter - because Eragon the movie, at least, doesn't suffer from it's abandonment from the source material - it suffers from the direct theft of OTHER source material.

It's just Star Wars gang. Which may seem like an oversimplification of the standard "epic" format of storytelling, ie. Star Wars, Gilgamesh, LOTR,  The Iliad and The Odyssey, et. al. we can show you that it is a direct case of intellectual property theft or the great scene heist of 2006. Perhaps the writing team called in Danny Ocean...

1. A trusted member of a high-order of wizards murders and betrays his fellows to gain ultimate and dark power
2. An orphaned boy is sent to live with his uncle on a farm because of a past as yet untold to him
3. The boy comes into possession of a valuable item the evil wizard wants to reclaim
4. The boy finds information out about the item by speaking to a good wizard whose neighbors see him to a be a weirdo
5. The good wizards also has a secret past that he doesn't want to reveal to the neighbors
6. The evil wizard sends out his troops to capture the item and murder the boy and anyone helping him
7. The boy returns home to find that his uncle has been murdered by the troops
8. The boy is left with no option but to follow a friendly wizard on a quest to save the universe
9. The wizard explains to boy that in order to save the universe they must get the item of value to a group of rebels
10. Along the way the boy must learn the ways of a mysterious energy that gives him powers
11. The evil wizard captures the boy's friend in order to trap the boy and prevent him from finishing his training
12. The boy is told by his mentor wizard that its a trap and the boy ignores him and knowingly falls into the trap
13. The boy escapes the trap after a serious loss of a friend with the help of a stranger who must redeem himself from his ties to the evil empire
14. The friend who is lost during the trap episode is encased in an unbreakable material formed by temperature extremes
15. The boy and his team find the rebel base, but also lead the evil wizard to their location as well
16. The boy suits up and climbs aboard his flying machine to fight off the incoming attackers
17. In order to defeat the attackers, the boy must stop relying on his enhanced vision and trust his senses
18. There is also a secret past to the boy's father and his relationship to the female character (who is a princess) and how their sexual tension might be icky later

There you go. 18 points of direct copying of Star Wars. Try to argue that against us kids.

In the end, Eragon isn't a great bad movie, but it's uncanny rip-off of that space wizards movie makes it a great time for riffing. So it's a do.

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