Eragon Film Review

            Eragon is a story of magic, elves, warriors, and that perfect depiction of heroism that is in every great fairytale. The story starts off with a young teenage boy who lives with his uncle in a place called, Carvahall, which is a small village on the western side of Alagaesia. Eragon is a hunter just like his uncle and is very good at what he does. Although this is true, he is depicted as just an average boy doing average things, such as living a farm boy’s life, and doing as he’s told. This element is what makes the story so intriguing from the start; the idea that from the beginning we know that somewhere along the road this average boy will take and adventure and do something memorable. This concept is what makes fantasy so great.

            This hunter whom we have now introduced to you, early on in the story discovers a strange stone which he decides to take back home with him. Well eventually as you may have guessed, the stone is nothing of the average sort, it is in fact a magical dragons egg. When this egg hatches its magical powers in a way get transferred to Eragon through a single touch, leaving Eragon and this new found dragon with a special bond that only they will encounter. At this first touch, Eragon is marked on his hand with a special seal which emanates a magic across the land, letting all other dragon owners know that Eragon and his dragon have now bonded. The dragon and Eragon become inseparable and Eragon ends up teaching the dragon and eventually the two can talk to each other telepathically which brings more of the magic element into play.

            As this nice little story gets to a sort of slow start, we start to see that basically the dragon “chose” Eragon. This happening upon a magical dragon turns out to be not accident at all. In fact, Eragon is to be part of a clan of ones chosen to be a dragon rider and bring peace and prosperity to his land. At this time in the story we find out that Carvahall is ruled by an evil king named, Galbatorix, and the story soon changes to an adventure, where Eragon must save his city and even the species of dragons and their riders. Through the rest of the story we see Eragon learn to use magic and fight with his dragon. Galbatorix is out to kill Eragon and his dragon but if Eragon dies so does his dragon because of their bond. In finding this out Eragon leaves his town to find refuge and help in a city full of rebels to help defeat Galbatorix.

The whole storyline that will continue into the next movies, is Eragon’s oath taken after his dragon owner friend whom he meets in the rebel city sacrifices his life to save him. The oath is to overthrow the empire of the evil king, Galbatorix. This is a trilogy though, so with that being said, the story does not necessarily come to a conclusion but does leave the viewer with some sort of closer. The movie ends with     Eragon and his dragon fighting tin the sky with one of Galbatorix’s minion monsters and his dragon. Of course Eragon defeats this minion that was sent but also injures his dragon horribly in the battle. Since Eragon possesses magic now, he uses all of his strength to heal his dragon and then passes out. When he awakes he finds his dragon by his side and the sun comes out and they ride off into the sunset with their new dragon friends and owners. Not to forget our evil king; the closing scene captures an angry with defeat Galbtorix ripping down a curtain to reveal his own fierce dragon who breaths fire. This expresses to the reader that the battle has not yet been won and that there is more to be told in the next movie.

            Eragon overall has all of the elements of every great fairytale, from an average boy doing something worth noticing, to using magic to heal and a dragon as a friend. I think that the story has many ongoing messages here from the economolgy aspect we see with Eragon living as a farm boy, to the journey Eragon takes to finding himself inwardly, to the element of true revenge and whether or not it is what’s driving Eragon to make the decisions he does. It was a good movie overall and has been a favorite of mine for a couple years now, so I can say that I would definitely recommend watching the film and even reading the book to get a better understanding of each background story of the characters that does not get shown in the movie.