Until one day, whilst walking in the woods, he stumbles across a mysterious stone. The Eragon of the title is a young farm boy (played in both the film and the game by non-famous British actor Edward Speelers) who spends his days mucking about on the farm, probably grooming his faithful old horse and flirting with the milkmaid and that sort of thing. The story goes a little something like this. So new, in fact, that the third book hasn't even been written yet - but apparently the first one is so brilliant that Fox just couldn't wait to start making a movie based on it. Īnyway, this Christmas will see the arrival of Eragon, an epic blockbuster based on the first in a new trilogy of books about wizards.

Okay, so The Never Ending Story had magic and dragons and all that, but a horse drowns in it. It was much better when we were growing up children's films had proper themes, like space and time travel and robots and mermaids.

These days, Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without an epic blockbuster based on some rubbish old books about wizards turning up in cinemas.

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