Anyone else noticed the plot similarities between the Eldest trilogy and Star Wars?

You mean Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle?

I kind of want to read it, but at the same time I feel like I should’ve read it when I was 13 and now it’s too late :P Almost every review I’ve read says something about it being a rip-off of other, better fantasy, including Star Wars.

Yes, it reeked of Star Wars references from the very first book. There is nothing wrong with a story containing parallels, references, similar archetypes and tropes, etc., but it pretty much contains all of the same major plot points as Star Wars but in a more traditional high fantasy setting. I forced myself to read the first two books because they were given to me as gifts.

@muppetish Yeah, I still enjoyed them, I just had to fight déjà vu the whole time. I wish I could tell you the third wholly departed from that trend, but it doesn’t entirely.

I’m not familiar with the Eldest trilogy, but perhaps it’s pertinent that Star Wars followed the classic model of the Hero’s Journey, as described and analyzed by Joseph Campbell. Here is one simple outline of it.

The same formula describes literature of all kinds and all cultures from time immemorial. George Lucas acknowledged that he had taken Campbell’s formulation as his blueprint. So can anyone else. So it may not be that one is copying the other but that they are both copying the same model.

@Jeruba Ah! I had forgotten about that! Good point!

Another book that is practically a textbook tour of the Jungian archetypes in this model is Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. Once you become conscious of it, you can see it everywhere you look, from ancient myths to The Wizard of Oz, from traditional folktales and fairy tales to Lord of the Rings to tomorrow’s action-adventure movie. It keeps working because it resonates with something very basic in our humanness.

Yes, it’s basically “Star Wars” meets “Lord of the Rings”. So totally obvious right from the start. That said, Paolini’s books are mildly entertaining, but they are not memorable enough to return to or hail as classics decades from now. I’d like to see him use his talent on something more original than rehashing two classic works.