Honestly, Eragon is my favorite punching bag for all things fantasy - well, it and Warcraft.
In 2000 there was a Dungeons & Dragons movie that filled me with shame and horror. Just remembering having watched it is painful to me. But the worst part of all is that there is a lot of good fantasy out there, and I remember thinking at the time how badly we needed some good fantasy films in order to bring some life and attention back to the genre. Thank goodness, against all odds we were delivered over the next several years by masterpieces like
Spirited Away, classics like
The Lord of the Rings, and modern, experimental stuff like
Mirrormask. All told, there must have been about a dozen films of good to superior caliber that helped to revive fantasy cinema.
Harry Potter brought children and adults alike into the fantasy fold, while mainstay Disney was able to eke out some impressive showings like
Toy Story 2 and
Lilo and Stitch. Today we stand on the cusp of a genuine renaissance in the genre, as all those inspired people who have benefited from fantasy cinema in the last several years begin to realize works of their own.
But I digress; that aside was merely to imply my contention that the fantasy genre--despited being encumbered by a good deal of junk and an endless supply of badly degraded variations on the Tolkien archetype--is alive and well. More pertinent to your comment, I just wanted to point out that
Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie has been to me what
Eragon is to you.
