[Elladan and Elrohir]

The movie showed up all of the ways that the book was derivative.

As mentioned, you start out with Princess Leia, who's carrying the plans to the Death Star. She gets captured by Lord Vader but in the nick of time, manages to send the precious item away. It ends up in the hands of -- you guessed it -- our hero, Luke Skywalker, who lives with his uncle on a farm in a land controlled by the Empire. After his uncle is murdered by Empire agents seeking the item, Luke sets out with mysterious old man Ben Kenobi to take the item to the Rebel Alliance. On their way, they stop off at the dangerous town of Mos Eisley, and meet up with a scoundrel named Han Solo. Eventually, Ben gets killed, and Luke and Han make their way to the Alliance -- but only after making a pit stop to rescue the princess. There, they have their first encounter with Vader; at the end of the story, Luke and Vader lock in aerial combat to decide the fate of the Alliance.

That is Episode IV: A New Hope, or just plain Star Wars as it used to be called. And it's also Eragon.

Let's tell the story this way:
You start out with Arya the elf princess, who's carrying a dragon egg. She gets captured by Durza the Shade but in the nick of time, manages to send the precious item away. It ends up in the hands of -- you guessed it -- our hero, Eragon, who lives with his uncle on a farm in a land controlled by the Empire. After his uncle is murdered by Empire agents seeking the item, Eragon sets out with mysterious old man Brom to take the item to the Varden. On their way, they stop off at the dangerous town of Dras Leona, and meet up with a scoundrel named Murtagh. Eventually, Brom gets killed, and Eragon and Murtagh make their way to the Varden -- but only after making a pit stop to rescue the princess. There, they have their first encounter with Durza; at the end of the story, Eragon and Durza lock in aerial combat to decide the fate of the Varden.

Of course, the filmmakers got ahead of themselves by including their Emperor character in the very first film, something Paolini wisely did not do -- the Emperor doesn't appear in the first SW. So the movie trots out King Galbatorix, whose name sounds like bathroom cleaner and who is no Palpatine -- he may possibly be the worst movie (attempted) villain I've ever seen.

Sorry if I gave the whole Eragon story away to those of you who haven't seen it, but then again, if you've been alive at any time from 1977 to the present, you've already seen it.

And, to bring it back to LOTR -- no, never mind. This film doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence. Not only is it incredibly derivative, it doesn't even constitute a story. It's being hailed as a great film for twelve-year-olds -- and it probably is, for them only.