Eragon

2006
Directed by Stefen Fangmeier

I have just seen the greatest film of the last 50 years: STAR WARS!!! Unfortunately, it was buried beneath a train wreck of a movie called Eragon. Eragon is based on a book written by Christopher Paolini, who started on it when he was 15 and got it published by age 18. When reprinted, he became a best-selling author at age 19. Sadly, his novel is not unique, and is in fact just Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings, with a few references to Dragonriders of Pern and Robert Jordan novels. It is less of a theft and more of a wholesale rape, as what he does take isn’t turned into a brilliant work of fantasy, but just some fanboy wankery hardly worthy of posting on bad fan-fiction sites on the internet. Paolini managed to pimp out his age (due to finishing home schooling early he was free to do a book tour of schools while dressed in some knight costume) to successfully get his book republished. This shows us that you don’t need originality to succeed in the world, only ambition to promote yourself and your repackaged ideas. Sure, Star Wars borrows from Kurasawa and mythology canons, but it melds together into an interesting story that reshaped science fiction movies. Eragon becomes a mess, complete with shots identical to those in Star Wars and others, and manages to even screw up copying from Star Wars correctly. George Lucas never ruined Star Wars this bad with Jar Jar Binks, but Paolini enters new territories. So in a way it is ground-breaking, nothing has ever sucked so much like this before.

Eragon (Ed Speleers) – Luke Skywalker at your service! This orphan blonde whiny farmboy is thrust into the world of being a generic hero when his uncle is killed and a crazy old man teaches him the way of Jedi Knighting by Dragon. Totally not a self-insertion of Paolini. Ed Speleers went on to become a construction worker. Brom (Jeremy Irons) – Obi-Wan Kenobi, or KenobIrons, or Obi-Wan Irons. Crazy old man who knew about Jedi Knight Dragonriders, because he used to be one. Killed due to Eragon’s stupidity while rescuing the Princess. Is Irons making up for Dungeons and Dragons? Because he was the only thing good in that film, a feat he doesn’t manage here. Arya (Sienna Guillory) – Princess Leia here is for once not Eragon’s sister (at least not yet!) An Elf, despite the film forgetting and making her human. I only read she was an elf online. Probably still his sister, anyway, or at least he wants her to be. You can find photos of actress Sienna Guillory naked on the Internet, and looking at those is better than watching this film any day of the week. Durza (Robert Carlyle) – Darth Vader! Sort of. Sort of like Darth Maul, in that he’s only in one film and killed. Flies a TIE Advanced Smoke Bat. Can teleport like Nightcrawler, except he doesn’t use it to fight at all. Durza’s name sounds very close to Dozer, which were the green creatures from Fraggle Rock that built stuff all day. Except Dozers were cool, and Durza sounds like he was named by a three year old with a mouth stuffed with crackers. Galbatorix (John Malkovich)- Emperor Palpatine! Like the Emperor, wasn’t in the first chapter of the trilogy, except the producers seem to think that audiences have gotten stupider over the last 30 years and insisted on inserting him in, because otherwise the audience would never know who is giving orders. Well, if they liked Eragon, they probably ARE that stupid. Murtagh (Garrett Hedlund)- Han Solo! Except in this trilogy, Han Solo is the brother of Luke, unlike Leia. Nice try, we still see what you’re stealing from. Namely, Christian Slater’s character of Will Scarlet from Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves! Besides dressing up the character identically, and giving him the same hair style, they also make him Eragon’s secret brother (reveled in book 2) just like Will Scarlet was made Robin Hood’s brother in that movie. Named after Danny Glover’s character in the Lethal Weapon franchise. Uncle Garrow (Alun Armstrong) – Uncle Owen! Farmer adoptive father of Eragon killed by the Emperor’s men looking for what the hero has, just like Uncle Owen! Roran (Chris Egan) – Eragon’s cousin, doesn’t have a Star Wars counterpart in this movie, maybe Wedge. His character does something other than wander out of the film after 20 minutes in the second book. Looks like a clone of Eragon, both of which are walking Nazi Aryan propaganda. Remember, blonde hair is good, black hair like Han Solo/Murtagh is bad. Ajihad (Djimon Hounsou) – Lando! Not really. Why name a black guy “A Jihad”? RACIST! Obviously he isn’t really Lando, as Lando doesn’t show up until part two/five. A Jihad is leader of the Varden (the Rebels), which would make him sort of like Mon Mothma or Admiral Ackbar. No word on if A Jihad had promoted suicide bombings. Hrothgar (Gary Lewis) – Chewbacca! Not really. The King of the Dwarves, except no one involved in the movie bothers to point this out at all, or even give his name, which Paolini ripped off from a video game called Icewind Dale, originally a reference to Danish King Hroðgar from Beowolf. Not that Paolini would borrow anyone else’s work. I didn’t know he was supposed to be a dwarf until I read it online. Saphira (CGI and Rachel Weisz) – Jedi Lightsaber! X-Wing Fighter! Is blue, just like Luke’s first lightsaber. Gives Eragon the power of the Force. Born of a blue Jelly Belly. Makes snappy comments trying to endear her to us as one of those tough girls, but fails. Gives Eragon ringworm. Somehow makes dragons boring and uninteresting.

Now that we are done with introducing the characters, we can go on to the movie. It opens with the extending 20th Century Fox opening, like a certain epic space film that it can’t life up to. Then, instead of a wall of text in space, we have a narrator (Jeremy Irons) explaining to us the history of the Jedi Knight Dragonriders, who rode dragons, kept the peace for 1000 generations, and were wiped out by the Emperor. After seeing the Jedi Knight Dragonriders for a few seconds, Jeremy Irons tells us that people called the Varden fought against the Emperor and his policy of looking evil while standing in front of a giant map, but they were defeated often and now hid in a mountain far away.

We jump into Princess Leia escaping with the Death Star Plans. Only she’s not on a spaceship, she’s riding on horseback with some other guys. And she doesn’t have the Death Star Plans, she has a big blue Jelly Belly. The Emperor tells his men “I suffer without my stone. Do not prolong my suffering!” I guess Malkovich’s playing the Emperor as gay? Still, her Imperial pursuers catch up with her, and blast away her supporting troops. This is familiar somehow… Meanwhile, we get introduced to the hero character right off the bat, his name is Eragon Skywalker, and he’s going hunting. Keep in mind, Lucas filmed scenes with Luke that would have been spliced in the beginning of Star Wars, but they sucked so he cut them. Foresight not seen here. We get overly-long shots of Eragon creeping up on a deer. Princess Leia is surrounded by fire sent by Darth Vader, aka Durza the Shade. Durza tries to be menacing, but comes off as some annoying Goth guy who wears a cape to nightclubs and thinks he’s a vampire. Princess Leia uses her magic Force powers to teleport the Jelly Belly to the woods, right where Eragon is hunting for the deer. Who needs escape pods? The Jelly Belly blasts in, and Eragon is in awe. Or he was born with a soft spot in his skull and is rather slow; either way, he stares at the Jelly Belly and takes it to the local village.

In the village, the credits are still rolling, even though it’s been like five minutes. The Emperor’s troops are drafting local boys, but for some reason waits until they are 18, even though this is the middle ages and kids probably as young as 10 were running around in armies. This is before the ability to make clone troops, even though magic is used and someone should have magically made troops somewhere. Eragon takes his magical Jelly Belly and tries to trade it for a steak. That’s just stupid, he obviously found something magical and he’s going to trade it away for some food, and as we see from going back to the farm in a bit, he isn’t hurting for food, just meat. The butcher freaks when he finds out Eragon was hunting in the Emperor’s forest (Now Paolini is ripping off Robin Hood!) Eragon leaves, and sees Obi-Wan Irons drunk next to a string of chickens, which the Stormtroopers take for themselves to remind us that they are bad guys. Eragon is amused by Obi-Wan Irons’s sarcasm despite his cocks being snatched. Eragon goes home to his farm, where his Uncle Owen is waiting for him. Aunt Beru seems to have died already, probably due to drinking some spoiled blue milk. Eragon also has an identical cousin named Roran. Seriously, these guys look identical, I guess there WAS cloning back then! They have a play fight which is supposed to endear them to us, or give us a view into Paolini’s psychological longing for a brother. They wrestle around a bit, and two blonde Aryans wrestling together is totally not homoerotic in the slightest. Now we really know what Paolini longs for…

Later, Roran tells Eragon he is leaving, so he won’t be forced to serve in the army. This is amazingly like the deleted Star Wars scenes where Biggs tells Luke he is leaving the academy to join the Rebellion, except Biggs dies in the end of the film and Roran just walks away never to be seen again. Eragon has a heart to heart with his uncle, who tells us that Eragon’s mom ran off when he was a baby (and he had no dad). So Roran walks off the film the next morning, which is good, as we could never have told him from his cousin Eragon.

/!\WARNING: DIRECT STAR WARS RIP-OFF!!!/!\

Eragon stares directly at the setting sun while emotional music plays. The fact that there wasn’t two suns setting in that shot must have been an error in the special effects department. They better shape up during Eragon 2 when the Millennium Falcon hide in the asteroid belt.

Eragon then goes to find out that R2D2 has run off- I mean that the Jelly Belly is hatching. Some sort of Smurf-colored dragon pops out. Eragon tries to figure out what it is “You’re not a bird…” Eragon is not what you would call bright. The Dragon zaps Eragon on his hand, which causes Obi-Wan Irons to awaken like there is a disturbance in the Force. The Emperor also awakens, as does Princess Leia, who is somehow not dead and has been taken back to the fortress/Death Star. Shade Durza bursts in demanding to know the location of the secret rebel base, but he just reads her mind to find out about Eragon (so she’s a psychic or something? Thanks for not explaining this crap, movie!) instead of using an interrogation droid. It is his magic “Deus Ex Machina” power that allows him to magically locate Eragon without a “Look sir, Droids!” moment. Eragon wakes up from being zapped to see he now has a bad case of ringworm on his palm. Eragon tries to feed the baby dragon gruel or something, but she just ends up eating rats.

Back at the Death Star/Mt. Doom/Where-ever, the Emperor waxes on about Elves, Dwarves, and the Varden who threaten him and will be encouraged to rebel if the prophecy is real. Prophecy? Every one of these stupid stories has a prophecy. Doesn’t anything ever happen that some lame psychic didn’t see coming? Is that too much to ask? I guess so. Durza tells The Emperor he will “find the boy, and kill him before he becomes a man.” Gross, so Durza is now going to make sure he offs Eragon before he tosses a few coppers to the town harlot? Durza calls up the Ra’zac, which are supposed to be 13 really evil invincible dudes, but the film turns them into low-rent Nazgul who even get killed by trees. Durza is channel Dracula at this point, as bats fly all around him.

Eragon goes to town to listen to the men talk or something. Obi-Wan Irons tells about the Jedi Knight Dragonriders, which frightens people because the stormtroopers don’t like to hear such talk. One stormtrooper tries to pound Obi-Wan Irons, but Eragon convinces him to let Irons finish the story. Eragon is so inspired that he goes home to try to teach the dragon to fly. The dragon does, and flies off, never to be seen again, movie over. Only we wish. Unfortunately, the dragon suddenly hits puberty and becomes a woman in about three seconds, and returns fully grown and able to talk psychically to Eragon in perfect English. So perfect, it has an English accent and sounds a lot like Rachel Weisz. She tells Eragon her name is Saphira, and that he is her rider. I guess he will be made a man, if beastiality counts! Okay, maybe not that kind of riding. Saphira tells Eragon she waited 1000 years to hear his thoughts. Eragon realizes he doesn’t know squat about being a Jedi Knight Dragonrider, so he breaks into Obi-Wan Irons’s house to look at a book on dragons. Obi-Wan Irons catches him, and Eragon demands answers about dragons. Obi-Wan Irons says “I always say, better to ask forgiveness than permission,” then kicks him out, but Eragon says he knows dragons are real. After the boy leaves, Obi-Wan Irons pulls out a red sword with a blue jewel in it. The sword is named Zar’roc, another example of crappy, made-up names that rival George Lucas in childishness, but the name isn’t mentioned in the film.

In town, Nazgul/Ra’zac are interrogating the Butcher, who gives up Eragon’s name. Ra’zac make bugs crawl all around them like Nazgul in LOTR, and move rather fast. Eragon runs towards his farm, but Saphira grabs him and flies off, saying it isn’t safe. Eragon goes all whiny, and demands to be let down. He finally is, dropped into a haystack (now he is stealing from 1930’s movie serials!) Eragon gets to the farm in time to see his Uncle Ben dead. Totally not from Star Wars. Just like in that movie Eragon totally isn’t identical to, the Stormtroopers have left and aren’t lying in wait for their target to return home. Saphira comes, but Eragon tells her to get lost, so she does. Obi-Wan Irons then come in, and Eragon says he isn’t going to leave until he buries his uncle. Irons does the coolest part of the film, where he tosses a torch on the floor of the building the body is in, setting the farm on fire and saying “A funeral fit for a king!” Luckily, the farm is constructed out of gasoline and napalm, so it burns incredibly fast despite the fact it is now raining very hard. I am sure this has to be stolen from something, but am not sure what. The two leave, and Lord of the Rings returns to the film in the form of sweeping overhead shots of the characters ridings along the mountains.

They ride to a random location and Obi-Wan Irons tells Eragon to call his dragon. Eragon whines a bit, and Obi-Wan Irons says “One part brave, three parts fool.” That is supposed to be more wise words from the mentor. I’m waiting for Obi-Wan Irons to tell us “Winners don’t do drugs” next considering how uninspiring the advice has been so far. Irons says that Durza is a Shade, possessed by demonic spirits. It is different from being a Dark Jedi because it has a different name. Irons and Eragon will go hide with the Varden Rebels in the Mountain of Yavin IV. Eragon calls Saphira over, they make up, and Obi-Wan Irons inspects her. He says she’s a fine dragon specimen, which proves to them that he is a dragon expert, because only a true dragon expert would be able to walk around Saphira and comment like she’s a show pony. Obi-Wan Irons demands that Eragon ride, but he still whines some more, something about Toshi Station and power converters.

We’re suddenly back in Lord of the Rings, the Orcs/Urgals are pounding on their deformed swords as Shade Durza teleports into their blacksmith hole. What happens next seems to make little sense, as Durza stabs one of the Urgals in the foot because Durza’s Nazgul/Ra’zac failed. Then he demands Eragon’s head, so these guys go do it, because they love taking orders from a guy who will cripple one of them for life just because some other guys failed. Other guys who are supposed to be much more powerful than these guys, yet these guys get sent. Eragon and Irons still have five days journey to the last outpost, and then after that more travel until the Mountain of Yavin IV. As they are still trying to be hidden, Obi-Wan Irons has Saphira fly around the forest in broad daylight, from the deep valley they are in that is easily observed from the surrounding mountains. One of those mountains has some Nazgul/Ra’zac on it, and they watch the dragon cruise around and give away their location.

Eragon and Obi-Wan Irons stumble across some Orcs/Urgals harassing some innocent people. Eragon wants to help them, but he is without any skills, despite his insistence that he has some. Napoleragon Dynamite. So Irons decides to show him how skillless he is, by having one of those training scenes that every movie has. Irons and Eragon fight around a river, where Irons schools Eragon like the ignorant farmboy he is. Eragon picks up quickly; as this is the only training he gets in the entire movie and becomes an expert swordsman the next time he fights, thus proving he has Jedi powers or something. Despite the fact their time is short and they are being pursued, they still have plenty of time to waste play fighting. That night, Irons uses magic to start a fire, but by the next morning they have returned to sweeping LOTR riding shots.

It is night again, and Eragon has begun to dream about the non-Elf Princess Leia. But as they arrived at the last town before the Mountain of Yavin IV, he has to wake up and keep his eyes open as Obi-Wan Irons goes to find a boat. Eragon notices a dark-haired guy looking at him (this guy is the Han Solo-ish character Murtagh) so he hides in a tent, which just happens to be a tent owned by a fortune teller, who starts to tell him his fortune. She mentions him dreaming of a girl, and he leaves just in time to be grabbed by an Urgal. Obi-Wan kills the Urgal as Eragon is still stupid and slow. More Urgals charge them, and they must fight their way away. Eragon stops being stupid and starts using his bow and arrow to shoot some Urgals. As a group charges them he fires an arrow, except the arrow is charged with some sort of Mortal Kombat-looking energy and explodes as it hits the Orcs/Urgals. This also makes Eragon pass out, where he again dreams of Princess Leia.

When Eragon wakes up, they are safe and away, where Obi-Wan Irons tells him that magic is connected to dragons. He must learn the ancient language of the elves to know the words for things, and if you know the words you control the thing. If Eragon is not powerful enough he can die from spells. So now he totally has Force powers, with some Gandalf thrown in for good measure. I guess as well as learning expert swordsmanship in one lesson, Eragon will also learn Ancient Elvish in one lesson consisting of four words (fire, tree, branch, dragon-sight.) Also, Obi-Wan Irons has a dragon saddle installed on Saphira, which he must have magically produced from midair.

Flying lessons! In addition to his swordsmanship and language studies, Eragon must also learn Dragon-riding in one lesson. Geez, at least Harry Potter is taking seven years to learn his stuff, this is pretty damn ridiculous. Eragon and Saphira zoom around, while Obi-Wan Irons is on horseback riding and shouting instructions that we are supposed to believe that Eragon can hear despite the fact he’s hundreds of feet away. This scene drags on and makes me wish I had brought a good book, such as the afore mentioned Harry Potter. Eragon uses his Dragon-Sight to see two Nazgul/Ra’zac advancing on Obi-Wan Irons. Eragon takes Saphira into the trees like a moron, and he gets jumped on by one of the Nazgul/Ra’zac and Saphira goes crashing into some trees. Brilliant plan, Custer! Eragon uses his Force powers to have a branch come over and hang one of the Nazgul/ Ra’zac, while Obi-Wan Irons kills the other one by sword battle. In the book, the Nazgul/ Ra’zac are supposed to be impossible to kill, so making them gigantic pussies here sort of takes the wind out of their sails. They crumble into dust after they die, then Obi-Wan Irons chides Eragon for being so stupid with his dragon.

After fixing up Saphira’s wings by putting yellow oatmeal on it, Eragon slices open Irons’s glove to reveal he also had Jedi Knight Dragonrider Ringworm. Sure, he could have just pulled off the glove, but that wouldn’t be dramatic. Obi-Wan Irons tells that his dragon is dead, it was killed by another rider named Morzan, who went all evil and joined the Sith. Obi-Wan took Morzan’s sword and killed him with it, also killing his dragon, and thus made the Emperor’s dragon the last one, until Saphira. Obi-Wan then crawled into a bottle, ashamed of his part in killing dragons. He should also be ashamed that he killed the Darth Vader character before the trilogy even began! That could have been a whole new toy, had this movie been any good and spawned a toy line. But it sucked so it only matters to use, as the crappy pseudo-Vader Durza is just a big pile of lame.

/!\WARNING: DIRECT STAR WARS RIP-OFF!!!/!\
Instead of continuing to persue Obi-Wan and Eragon, the Urgals went all the way back to the Death Star Fortress to see Durza. Durza kills their leader and promotes the second in command. Except it wasn’t by choking, so it is completely different from Admiral Ozzel getting killed and Captain Piett getting promoted.

Durza goes to see Princess Leia and gives her breast cancer, then uses her to lure Eragon to her in a dream message. Eragon is a big moron so he packs up to go rescue her. Obi-Wan Irons is all like “WTF? You’ll die, you freakin’ moron!” Eragon replies with the greatest burn of all time: “You forgot what it means to be a dragon rider!” I’m sure your fairy tale dreams are what dragon riding was really like, Eragon. Luke was never this retarded. For those of you playing along at home, we have just entered the part of Star Wars where they go into the Death Star and try to rescue the Princess. Eragon does some more whining, and is suddenly outside the Death Star Fortress (which should be many days away, except it doesn’t seem to have been.) Luckily, he has watched Star Wars, and thus dresses up as one of the enemy people to get inside and look around for the Princess. If Obi-Wan Irons shows up and shuts off the tractor beam, I’m ending this review right then!

Eragon is inside, but drops his disguise quickly and starts wandering around some more. Hey, Han Solo is there as well, also in disguise! Let’s ignore how the hell he is supposed to know where Eragon ran off to, or got their first. Eragon stumbles across the prison cell, and uses the Force to unlock the door. I guess he picked up more Ancient Elvish when we weren’t looking. Eragon goes in and sees the Princess, but Durza is there as well! I never saw that coming. Eragon tries to fight him, but Durza can teleport around and thus avoids all of Eragon’s sword blows. Durza mocks Eragon, and uses his Force powers to throw axes at him, followed by rocks. Eragon also uses the Force to block those items. Durza then Force-throws a spear, but Obi-Wan leaps out of nowhere and takes it in the chest. I guess he couldn’t use his Force to block, or Eragon use the Force to block, or even knock it out of the way with his body. No, it has to be taken directly in the chest. The only thing making it not perfect is that it wasn’t in slow motion with Irons yelling “NOOOOOOOOO!” But now he’s hit and Eragon is mad, throwing his sword at Durza who just phases out his hand so it is ineffective. Less than a second later, he shoots Durza in the head with an arrow, causing Durza to have to dissipate. I’m sure Eragon is also the fastest bowsman in the West as well as all his other skills. Especially since he couldn’t even hit a stationary deer in the beginning of the film.

Princess Leia has waken up now, but the guards have also been alerted by the suspicious sounds of nothing really going on and attack. Saphira smashes through the roof to go rescue them. Han Solo is also there, shooting guards with his bow, saving Eragon. Obi-Wan Irons is not quite dead yet, but as they get outside he tells the group that Durza is also not dead, as you need to pierce a Shade’s heart to kill it. Either by weapons or by cheating on him with his brother, whatever destroys his heart. Obi-Wan gives Eragon his sword, then says the cliché of clichés “It is I who always needed you!” to Eragon. Will he die already? Paolini couldn’t come up with an “If you strike me down…” line to save his skin. Let’s not drag this on. They decide to have Saphira fly around with Obi-Wan on her back until she dies, because leaving her master and Princess Leia on the ground undefended while massive amounts of troops are searching for them is a good idea. Finally, the old man kicks the bucket, and is buried in a pile of rocks. Saphira then uses her dragon powers to turn the rocks into some sort of glass/crystal, so now you can see Obi-Wan Irons’s body inside, to be preserved forever. Like Lenin, except Lenin killing millions of people was nothing compared to the pain and suffering of reading or watching Eragon. This is pain of an epic scale. Durza has reformed and manages to make Princess Leia’s breast cancer worse, so they must get her to the Varden quickly. Princess Leia mindmelds the directions to Eragon, because he is too stupid to find a gigantic mountain, even with a dragon allowing him to get a better view of the surrounding countryside. Local Han Solo-ish character Murtagh reappears just then, offing to take them by a shortcut (is he Han Solo or Gollum?) They don’t trust him much at first, but really need to get to the Varden, so they switch to LOTR riding mode again as they head south.

They get to a water fall, where suddenly an Urgal jumps out of nowhere at Eragon. Eragon just stares like a brain-dead git, as Han Solo pulls Eragon’s sword from its sheath, kills the Urgal while it is still leaping in the air, and re-sheathes the sword. I don’t know what is worse, when they are taking directly from Star Wars, or when they try to improvise and come up with dumb garbage like this. Ignoring how the Urgal got to the hideout before them (also implying that they know where the hideout is, anyway,) the fact that Han Solo had to have something like that happen to make his character more endearing is a sign of complete lack of ability to do any characterization. A good writer would have Han Solo be charming without forcing him to be heroic to be likable. Much like the real Han Solo was before he became heroic in addition to his charm. Subtlety is lacking here, so we get stupid swordplay. With Han Solo’s desire to grab other men’s swords, one should exercise caution if standing next to him in the bathroom.

The two heroes swim under the waterfall (secret caves are always behind waterfalls, movies taught me that and that no one checks these obvious hiding places) and find the Varden Rebels waiting for them on the other side, weapons drawn. Rebel Leader A Jihad and a Scottish guy I found out much later on the Internet was supposed to be the Dwarf King greet them, and after Princess Leia is brought in by Saphira they take her to be healed. Outside, a guard is killed by Urgals. That guard was killed by an Urgal standing right in front of him, who he could only have not seen if his head was turned 180 degrees behind like an owl. People don’t have that ability, so he must be blind. Leave it to Rebels to put a blind guy in charge. Eragon tells the Rebels he’s come to join them. They seem more concerned with arresting his friend Han Solo, claiming he is the son of Morzan the traitor (the guy Obi-Wan killed) and thus also a traitor, so he should be caged.

/!\WARNING: DIRECT LOTR RIP-OFF!!!/!\

Durza examines his army like Saruman the White does in The Two Towers, except he’s got super-chapped lips all of a sudden. You know he’s evil when he has dry lips. Chapstick isn’t expensive, dude. We get a little something for the ladies as Eragon parades around shirtless for a bit. A Jihad’s daughter Lil’ Jihad comes to show Eragon around the gigantic hollowed out mountain, which is around the size of New York. The entire city and the tall buildings are also carved out of rock, which would have taken centuries back then. The Rebels have made armor for Eragon and Saphira overnight, despite not having proper measurements. Princess Leia is cured of her breast cancer, and can now properly thank Eragon. Well, the PG version of properly thanking him. She’s also dolled up in a fighting uniform, with a high collar making her look like Trinity from The Matrix with feathers in her hair.

Remember how we mentioned The Two Towers a few sentences ago? Well, the director and writer saw it, and now we’ll be doing the battle sequence at Helms Deep, except don’t expect the elves to show up. In fact, no one shows up, not even Keebler Elves. The Urgals smash through the walls and charge toward the city as the defenders just stare, and Eragon chooses that moment to start talking to Saphira like he’s become the world’s biggest emo. Eragon asks why she chose him as her rider, and Saphira tells him some crap about him having the heart to be the leader (instead of the truth, which is Saphira really needed to get some fresh air after being trapped in a Jelly Belly for 1000 years.) Eragon and Saphira then do some posing shots for the camera with him extending his sword and her breathing flame. Great, while they are being theatric the Rebels are being slaughtered. Seriously, the Rebels cannot fight for crap, and are being overrun. I guess the Rebels are all former Imperial Stormtroopers or something. Anyway, Eragon gets off his theatrical butt and takes Saphira down to burn up like half the invading army. He also probably burns up those kids that were drafted in the beginning of the film as well. Take that, innocent people who didn’t ask for it! Han Solo is stuck in jail screaming to get out, so of course and Urgal who is on fire breaks into the secure prison to attack an unarmed man. I cannot believe that I just had to write out that sentence, it is one of the worst explanations for how someone gets out of jail I have ever seen, even less convincing than the bad acting from Michael Madsen in BloodRayne. Han also manages to kick the still-burning Urgal through the bars of the prison, making a big hole in the wall and the script, as if Han could kick that hard, why didn’t he kick down the bars himself? Anyway, he’s free and grabs a sword to start chopping Urgals because he’s a main character.

Durza is observing the battle, and gets sick of seeing all his men being burnt into toast crispies, so he conjures up a TIE Advanced x1 from smoke, in the form of a demon bat.

/!\WARNING: DIRECT BATMAN RIP-OFF!!!/!\

Durza pilots his smoky bat TIE Advanced x1 up to the moon, making a bat-shaped symbol in front of it for half a second. This is quite a feat considering they are inside a mountain.

Eragon wastes some time saving Han, who yells at Eragon that they are now equal (they aren’t, Han saved Eragon twice, Eragon only once!) The TIE Advanced Bat is immune to swords and arrows, and both it and Saphira slam into each other. Durza pulls out his fire sword (lightsaber) and starts to duel Eragon while their rides also fight. It should be exciting and all, but it isn’t. I’ve watched ant farms that have had more drama. Maybe if I was emotionally invested in the characters, I would care what happens. But as Eragon is a whiny, annoying loser and Durza is like that goth guy who hangs out at the bus station who claims everyone but him are robots, I couldn’t care less about these people. Saphira is bit on the neck, and is getting weaker, they separate for a bit. Actually, five minutes or so, and Durza is constantly shooting fireballs at them and constantly missing (another happy graduate of the Imperial Stormtrooper school of aiming!) They fly all around the mountain city at this point, and the city must be the size of Australia or something as it is so huge they never have a problem finding lots of airspace and buildings to hide behind.

Eragon has a plan: He’s going to use the Force to halt production of the movie until a decent script can be found. Unfortunately, even Master Yoda isn’t that powerful, so he’s stuck where he is. He tries his backup plan, which is to hide on Saphira’s tail, let Durza shoot her in the back where Eragon is supposed to be, then get tail-whipped over to Durza’s TIE Advanced Bat after a short delay where Durza sees what is about to happen and does nothing to stop it. Eragon and Durza collide, and are knocked off the TIE Advanced Bat. As they fall, Eragon stabs Durza in the heart, while Durza is still suffering from Darth Maul syndrome and just watches as he does it. The writer couldn’t decide if Eragon’s smug remark would be “That’s for Obi-Wan Irons!” or “I expected more!” so he has him say both. As they fought 9 miles high or something, he has plenty of time to say both, watch Durza disintegrate, and get caught by Saphira before he crashes. Saphira then crashes, anyway. D’oh! Eragon uses his healing magic to heal her, and then they both collapse. Anyone notice some odd parallels when Eragon trying to use magic to heal people so they don’t die, and Anakin Skywalker wanting to be so powerful in the Force he can stop people from dying? Interesting. Also, both Anakin and Eragon are whiny blondes… The Rebels have won somehow, and also weren’t all suffocated from the massive amount of smoke from all the fires Saphira started in the enclosed space.

Eragon wakes up in bed, but Gandalf is not sitting next to him smoking a pipe, it is Han Solo instead. Han Solo lets Eragon think that Saphira is dead until she pops up nearby. Ha ha! That Han Solo, always joking. I got a joke for you, Han, it’s at the end of the barrel of this gun…

Eragon gets well, and then rides out to catch up with Princess Leia, who is high-tailing it back to her own country. They say some love dialogue that almost makes George Lucas’s love dialogue sound realistic, and she heads off. No one gets awarded medals, though. Also, Emperor Palpatine is quite upset, and slashes the giant map behind him, revealing an angry red dragon there! The dragon breaths fire and we cut to the credits. The angle of the dragon breathing fire could only mean that it hits Emperor Palpatine in the face. Maybe he is killed by his own dragon, which would also kill the dragon, and the long national nightmare would be over. One can only hope, especially now that the credits are blaring out Avril Lavigne’s Keep Holding On, which is good advice for anyone caught in the trap of watching the film. It will all be over soon, just hold in there, a light is at the end of the tunnel. The light is exceptionally bright as this film did far too bad to cause a sequel to be greenlit, but I wouldn’t put them past trying to sneak a DTV follow up upon us eventually, maybe near the release of Book 3. Until then, I will be sticking with Harry Potter as my fantasy written for kids of choice. Luckily, I can also watch Star Wars to get the unpleasant taste out from my mouth which was caused by Eragon.

This film can’t entirely be blamed on the author of the books, as he was only a kid when he wrote them, right? I say, blame Paolini for everything! This movie couldn’t get made if he didn’t sell out, and his hackjob copy/paste of a novel is an insult to the literary world. What is even worse is the movie made the story more bland, turning most of the characters into humans, and cutting out the catpeople and other things that might make it more unique. Many people say Hollywood is out of ideas, but it also looks like brain-dead fantasy is as well, if fan fiction tripe like this is getting published as a major book. What is next, Harry Potter slash? Power Ranger torture porn? If some 15-year-old writes a book called Pakemon about monsters that fight, will we be forced to endure another crap-tacular movie in 2009? I think we will, and I hope you, and I, are prepared for the upcoming disaster. I propose….The Christopher Paolini Warning Network, a system to alert audiences when dangerously bad fan fiction is about to hit bookstore shelves, at your local theater. We must defend the public from this out of control menace, before we are all fighting for our very lives.

What else is there to say about a movie that is original as a buddy-cop film in the 1980’s, a sword-and-sandal flick in Italy, or a non-Pizxar CGI cartoon? Everything we have seen before, much better, and will see again much better. Even some of the other rip-offs are done with more flair. The only thing new is the level of theft, and I am surprised a pack of hungry lawyers haven’t picked Paolini’s corpse to the bone. Bon Appétit!

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