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Does anybody know if Christopher Paolini has made a release date for his new book? I'm so tired of reading the first three over and over.

Eragon
Eldest
Brisingr

My favorite was Eldest. Post predictions here on what will happen if you have read the books.

Mine: New egg will hatch joining galbatorix and murtagh joins eragon making it even. Good and Good Vs. Amazing and Newby

Despite the ripping off of popular fantasy, I still enjoyed the books.

There is still no release date for the final book.

Brisingr was good. Eragon was AWFUL. Eldest was also pretty bad...mostly boring. I would still waste my time reading Eldunari (rumored book title, last I heard?)...once I'm done with Confessions, Fellowship (and probably the rest of LotR), The Heaven Trilogy, Immanuel's Veins, and any other Dekker book that comes out between that time.

Arya is probably going to be the next rider. I really hope Murtagh kills Eragon. And Galbatorix. Of course, he'll naturally become the next Galbatorix, but I don't care. He could kill Arya too. And Roran.

Say, Star Wars and Kill Bill:
http://www.everythingisaremix.info/?page_id=30

Plot twists:
1. Galbatorix is wounded by Roran in a battle and is promptly given a black full face helmet and black cape.

2. Galbatorix reveals that he was actually Eragon and Murtagh's mother acting under cover as the Black Hand.

3. Eragon and Murtagh fight to the death because Eragon set Murtagh's pants on fire as a practical joke.

4. Saphira eats them both, eats Galbatorix for dessert, and decrees herself queen of Alagaesia.

You can assume that if you want but it would not only be a claim with no basis in fact, it would also be wrong.

The link doesn't say anything that I haven't been saying.  Eragon is not a "sequel" to, say, Lord of the Rings, it is not a remake of Lord of the Rings, it is not an adaptation of Lord of the Rings.  The film is an adaptation of the book, but keep in mind Pol's claim was that the original books are what are lacking in originality.

There are a lot of different kinds of "remixing" that are covered with a very large blanket in those links.  Some of them speak to influence, as Lucas used earlier techniques and concepts to lay the groundwork to tell his story.  It's not original but it is itself not strongly derivative of another film or films among its contemporaries.  It deliberately re-stages old mythical archetypes and early-film serials in a new setting.

Some of them speak to homage, as Tarantino's Kill Bill.  The movie does not borrow from these other films and claim them as an original work; they reference them directly.  Parody films work in much the same way, referencing another film and then giving it a twist to poke fun or create a humorous subtext.  Example:

Wrongfully Accused - Bus Scene (Extended)

The bulk of this clip is a take on The Fugitive, but in the first 90 seconds they also reference Ben Hur and Clear and Present Danger.  There are a ton of other references in there as well, which are not intended to make a claim to originality, but to the contrary, depend on the viewer having seen the original in order to know the context and understand why it's funny.

The closest comparison available from the clip is Avatar, which is widely known for being visually stunning but a blatant rip-off of a story.  It just is what it is; people either accept that and enjoy it anyway, or they don't.  In Pol's case, Eragon was not enjoyable.  In the case of Avatar, despite its unoriginal thematic material, it is this generation's Star Wars, just as Star Wars was my generation's Citizen Kane.

But the point of all this is that there are varying degrees of derivative work, and not all of them rise to the level of claiming to be original but really just rehashing the same ideas.

Citizen Kane is a great movie.

Kittens has apparently never read Ecclesiastes.

Anyway, Murtagh is bad to stay. Fo sho. Galbatorix "knows his real name!" Oh noes! If Murtagh was cool like the Doctor, he wouldn't have a real name.

The Doctor,
Theta Sigma,
Destroyer of Worlds,
Boss,
?

Take your pick.

Lady Peinforte and River Song disagree >:c

Citizen Kane is a great movie.

Kittens has apparently never read Ecclesiastes.

Your first point is correct.  Your second, is entirely without basis, and is incorrect.

Oh, and I consider The Matrix to be a better contender for "This generation's Star Wars" than Dances with Pocahontas.

Strike that.  Technically speaking, Episodes 1-3 are this generations Star Wars.  Sad but true...

I hated that movie so much, it upsets me to no end that AFI keeps putting it at the top of any list that the movie even remotely fits.

The movie itself, you either love it or hate it.  Everything else surrounding the movie is what makes it so historical.  The idea that it was a thinly-veiled jab at William Randolph Hearst, Hearst's efforts to kill the film and his success in killing Welles' career, and the strange irony that Hearst's later years were actually rather benign and good-humored, while Welles ended up wasting away and dying alone a la Kane.

But the genius of Kane is in the cinematography.  There were a number of techniques used that were already in place but not heavily used, and others that were innovated in this film, largely by the incomparable Gregg Toland.  The dirty little secret of Kane is that, for its time, it was actually a major special-effects film.  And whatever the final verdict on the subject matter of the film, the simple fact is that it marked a major change in the way films were made.  Once a generation, you make a major leap forward and things are never the same after that.

That is why I liken it to these other films.  Star Wars drew a lot of elements from Kurosawa films and old serials from the 30s, but the innovations he made in filmmaking were legendary; ILM and Skywalker Sound still do a majority of the effects work for all of Hollywood.  For a time, I thought The Matrix might be the next Star Wars, but only some of their techniques have taken hold, and their work was eventually surpassed by what Weta did on Lord of the Rings.

But even LotR did not do what Avatar did: For as long as we have been making film, we have used live actors and sets.  Sometimes we cheated and put a car in front of a rolling picture, or put actors in front of a green screen for effects shots or for Blue's Clues.  But Avatar took it the last step of the way.  Now instead of putting virtual effects into live shots, we've gone completely the other way, and we're creating entire virtual worlds and dropping a few live actors into them.  We're still a ways off from doing this as a standard, but love it or hate it, and yes, it's just Dances With Smurfs, but you look at the film and you can see this is where we're all going eventually.

Well, there were a lot of reasons Star Wars was groundbreaking.  It re-invigorated a floundering science-fiction genre, it broke America out of the post-Vietnam gritty-realism funk it was in (see also: The French Connection), it brought back grand orchestral scores in the wake of a lot of hippie-rock soundtracks, the list goes on.  It had a lot of the right elements at just the right time.

I compare each of these three films on the grounds that they represent a fundamental change in the way movies are/will be made, but I certainly agree there are other aspects.  It's my impression from watching the reaction to this film that a lot of your contemporaries gauge their films a bit differently than you do, and are pretty much ready to pronounce this the Most Amazing Film Evar.

Just to bring this back around to home, I don't think they will ever say that about Eragon/Inheritance, in its film or printed form.

And that's another thing, from what you just brought up: films may or may not continue to be made in 3d going forward - I think Spielberg's efforts to make a screen that can project the image without the need for glasses may determine the longevity - but for my money, if they only ever made Avatar and Tron in 3d and never went back, I'd still say it was worth it.  I haven't seen any other film even come close to demanding that I see it in 3d.

Agreed, I want to talk more about Dr. Who!

Well, I was wrong. It wasn't on The Hungry Earth 1 and 2...I suppose I'll just watch the entire season.

I thought Eragon was a fun read to pass the time as I had nothing else to read at the moment when they came out; but they are in no means original or well written really. Honestly it takes him so long to write each book in the series though that I've completely forgotten everything that happened in the series thus far. I guess that shows that I feel the stories are pretty forgettable too. In any case, I think Paolini is getting better at writing his books as time goes on. Each book seems to have a pretty inconsistent writing style and way of telling the story I feel, but I think he's developed an all right writing style by the third book. All in all, I think it's impressive that he was actually able to write a full length novel at the age he was, get the book published by his parents (if I remember right), and still find quite a bit of popularity even if it wasn't necessarily original.

Info on book four just released in the last couple weeks. Called "Inheritence" and it come out Nov. 8th.