Hi's and Lo's

I'm about to offend all the Eragon fans I know. Sorry. You don't have to read this.

Every experience has its shares of highs and lows; the movie, Eragon, maintained that truism.

Low? The movie. The story and cinematography felt like cheap rip-offs of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings: a boy is thrown into epic battle between good and evil, initially against his will.

But, you say, that's just because Eragon follows the archetypal hero's journey. Ok. But a blonde, whiny teenager, living in relative isolation on a farm, forced to leave when nameless bad guys murder his uncle, smacks a bit too much of the Uncle-Owen-Tatooine scenario for me. And the subsequent escape in the woods from black-masked bug-infested villains feels like the Aragorn-saves-Frodo-from-Ringwraiths deal.

Every good nerd will notice that even the pictures are rip-offs. Here, Eragon holds a pseudo-light saber, and stands in a strange mix between Rivendell and Minas Tirith.











High? The Rifftrax we played along with the movie.









Remember those old MST3K movies, where Joel and Tom Servo sat in the theater and heckled B-movies? Now, they heckle almost any movie that comes out. And you can download the heckling to accompany those movies for just a few bucks.

We downloaded the Rifftrax for this movie after hearing, "Did you ever think Lord of the Rings was too fast-paced or made too much sense? Watch Eragon." So we did—which immediately transformed any possible lows into lofty highs.