I don't know half of you half as well as I should like;
and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
Stretch is probably tired of hearing about me rant on this one, so up front I'll tell him he doesn't have to bother to read this if he doesn't want to. For the rest of you, who all has heard of the 15 year old phenom who wrote the novel Eragon? Well, as the story goes he's a home school kid who graduated at 15 and instead of going to college (a good decision by his parents by the way) he decided to write a novel. I want to preface what I'm about to say by letting you know I have not in fact read the book, or at least I haven't read more than a paragraph or two because I couldn't take more than that. I think it was the urgals that had me laughing, or crying so hard that I couldn't get past his bloated prose.
Now I don't mean to make fun of the kid too much, and when I say kid I mean a young man who happens to be 23, and is working on his third book. I've got to hand it to him that he was able to write a book the length that he wrote it, and get it published because his parents had ties to a publishing company, and then travel the country to finally get it to catch fire because someone noticed how rich they could get off of saying that a 15 year old wrote this book. Also from what I hear his second book is definitely better written than the first so I guess he's got something going for him, especially since his parental ties managed to get him to skip the major part of getting a book published usually known as editing, something from what I understand is a bit under accomplished in this book, that and character development.
In the end though he's still a pretty young guy to have finished a novel at 19 and my hat is off to him for that, but in the end it would have been better if he tried coming up with his own idea for a book instead of choosing to plagiarize. I realize that authors often create their works by drawing on other works in the same genre, fantasy especially does this. For instance JRR Tolkien based his writings on Beowulf and other myths from long ago. What Christopher Paolini does in Eragon is quite a bit different, he takes almost line for line the story of Star Wars and uses elements from Lord of the Rings as well as other fantasy books to fill out his world. He even creates a language that bears an amazing resemblance to the Elvish of Tolkien.
Let me give you a brief synopsis of Eragon and stop me if you've heard any of it before.
A boy lives with his uncle in a remote location in an empire. There is a rebellion and he gets an item which is important to help that rebellion survive against a mighty evil empire. This item happened to have been given to him by a princess who had meant to give it to an old man who had once been a member of an order which was driven to extinction by the emperor's right hand man.
This old man trains the boy in the way of that order which includes being given a sword by the old man which was from the boy's father. They meet up with a scoundralish roguish sort of man and they all set out to rescue the princess. They manage to rescue her, but the old man dies. They all return to the rebellion and help them in a large battle which manages to be successful thanks only to the fighting of the boy and his destruction of a very powerful thing after being helped at the last minute by one of his companions.
The boy follows the a vision of his old master to a remote location to be trained by an even more powerful master. The rebellion regroups, and the boy has a vision of his friends being in danger. Because of this he leaves his training despite the warning of his new master. He promises to return, and leaves off to help his friends which he manages to do, but while doing so finds out his father is the right-hand man of the emperor. In the end the boy is left defeated but doesn't quite die and with a stunning cliff hanger ending finds there is someone close to him who has been taken away and he swears to help that someone
I basically summarized a synopsis taken from here if you'd like to read the whole thing, realistically I wouldn't want to be plagiarizing while talking about plagerizism. Long story short, what I just described for you was the plot of Eragon (and the second book as well I think), and it was also the plot of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. I get the fact that he was only 15 and it was probably still pretty amazing for him to do this, but come on, I've already seen Star Wars, I don't need to read it again, and I certainly don't need to watch the half-rate movie that has come out about this half-rate book.
Don't waste your time or money on the book or the movie, go rent Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, and read the books associated with them. Hey you might even get some character development in those.
I like the 'creative' title of this blog entry... xD
Dood.. you sound like a /. contributor. I think you're just jealous.
While we're on the topic of story lines not being original....
I think that United 93 and 9/11 were total ripoffs of some event that happened like 5 or 6 years ago or something. Your blog is a total ripoff of mine. I Can't Believe its Not Butter! is a ripoff of margarine/vegetable spread/butter. LOTR:O is a ripoff of GW/WoW.
I'm not sure I want to even bother commenting on the silliness of your statement, but here goes anyway.
Basing something off of real events isn't plagiarism unless you're saying they're plagiarizing God or something.
My blog isn't a rip off of yours for quite a few reasons, first and foremost being that mine came first.
I can't believe it's not butter is a ripoff of real butter, but it is actually something different.
LOTR:O isn't a ripoff of GW or WoW because it's creating something in the same genre without being the same.
I'm not jealous of the kid because I have no writing aspirations and have no reason to be jealous. I just think he got a few too many things handed to him, and that his book sucks because he stole an entire plot from Star Wars period. That's plagiarism plain and simple and it's wrong.
goin' a little nuts are ya?
I enjoyed the book, and I enjoyed the movie. you're just going a little too far here
it's just a fun book to read and a very enjoyable movie, if you don't like it don't get yer panties in a bunch about it. Eragon hasn't hurt your precious SW and LOTR jewels by being influenced by them, what's the big deal?
and frankly ANYTHING has better character development than Star Wars :D
lol finally someone who can put up an argument -- thank you, although, Star Wars was a movie, Eragon is a book, a book can't go without character development, a movie can.
though I must say my panties aren't in fact in a bunch, I'm just not a fan of watching the same movie over again (this time with dragons!!), or reading the same book over again (this time with dragons!!) just because some 15 year old with family connections wrote it.
Additionally, I heard him on the radio today and he seemed like an okay kid, but that doesn't mean I have to like the way he got to getting a book published or the work that he did.
I appreciate the summary and the link. I have a young fellow in our Academy who is quite into the story and looking forward to the movie. He told me some of the plot. You have crystallized it more for me. Albeit that it is a copy of Star Wars (which I have not seen - gasp) I like to know these things because they provide some interesting avenues for reaching out to this next generation.
John Eldredge does some interesting takes (especially in "The Sacred Romance") on the similarities between men's epic adventures and the metanarrative which God reveals concerning the real epic unfolding. In fact, Eldredge also has another book on that very subject. It is entitled, creatively, "Epic." If you go to the Bible and look at the number of times our "fates" hung on the thin thread of a weak character (a Neo, an Abraham, an boy living with his uncle, a boy keeping sheep) you begin to grasp more of the awesome drama of cosmic proportions that plays out on the pages of Scripture and launches us into our lives. Fascinating.
Thanks again.
Miss you, man. Glad for the good things God is doing in your life.
HT just had a bad week.. thaz all.
I just want to actually SEE the movie before I bash it. Something your previous movie reviews have kept true to that, sadly, this one is lacking.
And yes, all my examples are in jest, but they tend to make my point in a humorous way.
Officially I'm bashing the book which I only read half a page of, and the movie of a bad book is likely to not be good therefore I'll bash it too :-D
Along the same lines, The Sword of Shannara irritated me to no end!!! Talk about a bloody rip-off. Terry Brooks flat out stole that entire plot from The Lord of the Rings, no ifs, ands, or buts. Granted, he managed to mostly avoid plagiarizing in the rest of his Shannara books, but the fact remains that he started his career with a huge theft.
I've not read Eragon, but based on your review, probably won't ever get around to it: I haven't had a chance to read ANYTHING but school books since August. Blech.
Both Star Wars and Eragon ripped off MY original idea. No matter that I was born after Star Wars, I still had the idea first, when I was a bitty egg in the womb!
Long story short, I'm surprised the writers of Eragon got away with it and now it's actually a whole frickin movie.
For anyone who has read Eldest and Eragon to not see the 100% tie ins to Lor of the Rings and Star Wars is beyond me. (Also their is the tie-in between Star Wars and the Bible - but there's no copyright on that!).
The sad part is that the ending of Eldest was predictable and very Empire Strikes Backish!