I just saw this movie today. I thought it was pretty good. I know it wasnt recieved well by a lot of other people, but I still enjoyed it. Even though it had the same generic formula of things, it was still enjoyable.
Anyway, anyone else see it?
I just saw this movie today. I thought it was pretty good. I know it wasnt recieved well by a lot of other people, but I still enjoyed it. Even though it had the same generic formula of things, it was still enjoyable.
Anyway, anyone else see it?
I got the book for christmas (haven't read yet), but don't really want to because I hear its half assed and full of near copying / not worth the immense hype its given, although I probably will read it. (need something to read till A Song of Ice and Fire 5 comes out)
Any fantasy book with dragon riding is going to be ignored to hell by me.
Why no dragons actually EATING anyone or killing anyone?
Hell, tie someone to the wings of a dragon and send the lizard off. Best execution method ever.
/mini-rant over
read the book, it was good, saw the film, it was crap.
that pretty much sums up what I think, I never bothere dwith the movie, book was good, althouh at some parts hard to follow. The movie's trialer screamed "LotR rip-off" and the characters….nothing like they should.
Any fantasy book with dragon riding is going to be ignored to hell by me.
Why no dragons actually EATING anyone or killing anyone?
Hell, tie someone to the wings of a dragon and send the lizard off. Best execution method ever.
/mini-rant over
In many cultures dragons are good natured creatures.
My friend wants to go to see this movie but I don't really understand why…
Well, I'm chinese so I would understand about dragons.
But I'm sick of shitty, recycled fantasy books being labelled good by critics no one gives a damn about. And imagine my upsetedness at hearing one of those books was being turned into a movie.
Recycle all of them crap books.
I actually saw a fantasy novel called "Blade of Fire" and had some sort of animal-beast people making a deal with hmans and a quest for an artifact.
I cried myself to sleep that night.
I saw the movie and..well, it was amusing and I had fun. It was crap, sure, acting sucked (well, Irons and Carlyle were okay and Malkovich was…was he even there? well, everyone else was terrible), direction was even worse, even the music was lame, but a least it was amusing, even if it wasn't always intended to be.
But I'm sick of shitty, recycled fantasy books being labelled good by critics no one gives a damn about.
Eragon, both the movie and the book (and the games!), has been pretty much ripped apart by critics though. It's kids around the world who thinks that these are good so you should blame them. But kids are, after all, the target audience of this product.
Well, as a plain movie, It was good, but as how true it was to the book, it sucked. The problem was, they tried to fit a 497 page book into an hour and a half movie. I believe all the LOTR books were shorter then that, but they ate up like…. 2 1/2-3 hours?
IMO, Eragon is a half-assed work that picked up steam with the fantasy craze that came with Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings gaining prominence (both of which are much better than Eragon, though Harry Potter's latest books don't really catch my interest very much).
Yeah, I know it's targetted towards kids, but that doesn't mean I can't criticize the book as a whole
Like paptschik said, it was amusing and I had fun. I have no regrets. I just am desperate to read the book now.
I can see why it was heavily critizised though. But a lot of stories copy other stories, so I am not complaing.
EDIT: And this time I understood a "fantasy/geek" movie. I couldnt understand LOTR for my life. I just watched and payed 7.00 for a movie ticket because the fight scenes were awesome.
I could barely make it through the first book without gagging. I doubt I'll ever see the movie.
(need something to read till A Song of Ice and Fire 5 comes out)
I can't wait until he releases A Dance With Dragons. ASOIAF is one of my favorite series ever.
I enjoyed the first book, although a good chunk of the plot was a rippoff of Star Wars, it seems. The second book… I still haven't finished yet, because it's VERY VERY VERY BORING. The author's trying to cover up all the plotholes he left in the first book, and it's just... really boring.
The movie... well, here's the best way I can describe it: The makers of the movie took the book, skinned it, gutted it, took all the meat out, and rebuilt it from the skeleton while breaking a few bones in the process.
At least Saphira was kinda' cool, although the transformation thing made zero sense.
Love the books, hate intensly the movie.
I read the books. I know they are an imitation of other books out there. I still enjoyed it. It was hard to get through the first book. The second one was a lot easier for me to read.
I was dissappointed in the movie. They took took much out of it. And so much was left out or changed. My husband liked it, but I don't think he has picked up a book the whole time I have ever read it.
You see, it's not just the fact that Eragon ripped from other fantasy works that I hate it. That's actually just a small part of why I dislike it. Barring that, I find the book very much tasteless on its own. Eragon's the typical angsty teenager that somehow gets dragged into this worldly battle. Brom's the wise old man. Yeah. That's as far as the description goes. Saphira, the "all wise" dragon who pretty much gives advice (or talks, for that matter) whenever Eragon needs it, and that's about it. I really dislike the characters because they lack a lot of personality behind them. Except maybe Murtagh, except I hear he turns to the typical super evil bad guy in Eldest, so it sounds like he'll lose his persona.
I can see why it was heavily critizised though. But a lot of stories copy other stories, so I am not complaing.
Borrowing little things is one thing, deriving many (rather large) plot points is another. The map of the world of Eragon appears largely deriative of Tolkien's map of Middle Earth, for example.
I heard that Eragon was written by some teenager who got famous for it for some reason.
Hell, when I was fourteen I wrote a really damn long story about a cop with a Napoleon complex, a thug who's obsessed with origami, and a drug-addict communist doctor with heart problems and bad eyesight and what do I get for it? Nothing, that's what.
I heard that Eragon was written by some teenager who got famous for it for some reason.
I can write a better one. Hell, I can write two stereotypical fantasy books in the time he takes to write one.
Just copy and paste and change stupid sounding names to different ones. Then insert a half-assed map in the front pages and a story about how everyoen was in peace when some monarch did something and another monarch got some magic people to make some magic stick and use magic stick to fix everything then hide stick for some reason then have beast people come in and make bad things then make unknown child of monarch 1 team up with child of monarch 2 or something and go get magic stick.
Hell, I even saw a book with merchans and Traders at war with each other. Traders, with a capital T. Infact, there was no selling at all, just warring over money they would never get since they were fighting over money they would never get.
So I just read up on Wikipedia and learned a very valuable lesson.
Kids, if your parents are vain enough, you too can be famous and have a really crappy movie made based on something you wrote as a teenager.
Correct, Roz.
The fact that he wrote it as a teenager aggravates me too. Not in the way that he wrote it during that time, but the fact that people often use it as an excuse as to why his writing's not as good as other works or its derivative nature.
@Roz:
So I just read up on Wikipedia and learned a very valuable lesson.
Kids, if your parents are vain enough, you too can be famous and have a really crappy movie made based on something you wrote as a teenager.
Hey, hey now. Ain't nothing wrong with becoming famous due to making a crappy movie. If I had a chance to make a crappy movie and become famous and rich, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
Also, stop hatin'. Freeza dissapproves of hatin. (not directed at anyone in particular)
@Le:
Borrowing little things is one thing, deriving many (rather large) plot points is another. The map of the world of Eragon appears largely deriative of Tolkien's map of Middle Earth, for example.
thats nothing to the passages that are near identical to some in other fantasy works
love the books, never bothered to see the movies..
The Story also copies the plot of Starwars, if you think carefully.
Here's a movie review comparing the two.
**"**The story follows a young farm boy who suddenly finds himself destined to be the last hope of a dying breed of ancient warriors. Sound familiar? Instead of the Force, there’s basic magic. Instead of Jedis, we have Dragon Riders. Instead of Darth Vader, we have the evil sorcerer Durza (Robert Carlyle). The only thing missing here is a Chewbacca.
I understand that would-be writers that have read Joseph Campbell have learned to work with only a limited number of hero storylines, but this is ridiculous. I couldn’t even enjoy the film because I kept getting slapped with new plot points stolen from “Star Wars.”
Don’t believe me? Here are just a few: Eragon was abandoned by his parents to live with his uncle on a farm. His uncle is killed by soldiers looking for his new “friend” (a dragon instead of a pair of droids). Eragon must travel with an old, wise Dragon Rider to save a princess from the bad guys. His old Dragon Rider mentor takes it upon himself to teach him the way of magic. Should I go on?
Instead of explaining how everything fits together, let’s continue the “Star Wars” comparison. Edward Speleers plays Luke Skywalker. Sienna Guillory plays Princess Leia. Jeremy Irons plays Obi-Wan Kenobi. Garrett Hedlund is Han Solo. And John Malcovich plays Emperor Palpatine.
Scratch that… As he does with every other role he’s ever had, John Malcovich plays John Malcovich – a dirty, bearded John Malcovich who keeps an evil dragon as a pet.
The writing is somewhat uninspired for this film, so much so that it can’t be saved with some pretty slick special effects. Sigh... at least they didn’t have a Jar Jar Binks stuck in there somewhere.
Actually, the story behind the story is more interesting than the one in the movie itself. It’s actually an inspiration Cinderella story for aspiring writers. Author Christopher Paolini wrote the book when he was still a teenager and managed to sell it. From there, he published a sequel, and a third book is being prepped for release sometime in the future.
I’ve never read the original novel, so I can’t say whether it follows the original story. Because of this, I don’t blame Paolini. Maybe the screenwriter or the director was responsible for the movie’s lack of creativity.
The acting was only so-so, even for the powerhouse actors like Jeremy Irons. In fact, “Eragon” felt more like a comfortable follow-up to an Uwe Boll stinker like “BloodRayne” rather than an appropriate lead-in for the next “Harry Potter” or “Narnia” sequel."
In other words, Eragon is Starwars with Dragons.
Lovely.
I didn't like how the movie butchered the book, because even though the PLOT of the book is copied, the WRITING STYLE of the book is what really got it published. It flows together nicely.
Not to mention people copy plots and tweak them all the time. In music as well.
The first book was great. Couldn't follow the second one, but looking at the trailer I can se eit was done all wrong. The trailer was a rip off of Lord of the Rings.
I could do a better movie with some friends if we got those pretty sweet high definiton movie cameras that the big time studios have.
And yeah they really should have made a good 3 hour movie instead of what seems to be(haven't seen it) to be a barely "feature length" movie that copies that "epic trailer" from LotR and a movie that was written by some teenager and half of it can be seen as a direct star wars rip off.
Also the story jut get rediculous, and now thinking about it more like star was. Murtagh or whatever become a dragon rider, turns out to be eragon's borther(Luke, I am your father! NOOOOOOO! Join me! Never!) and is all evil and stuff, takes his sowrd(lightsaber) and leaves, followed by a big battle and such. Anyways its LotR meets Star Wars meets a cheap stolen story whos movie is horrible.
But overall I like dthe first book, the second jsut made things to rushed and epic, and rather stupid.
Let me know in 15 years when they remake the movie and do a good job of it, then I might have a good opinion.
I personally like the books, I never really actually thought of the likeness to Star Wars; but that actually probably better, if your to start off every book you read by thinking that its some rip off of another story you will never enjoy any book.
Nowadays it getting harder for writers to make unique books, mostly because everything has already bin written about.
Plus it hard to live up to such good writers as J.R. Toilken and I am going to say J.K. Rowling, the reason I don't add C.S. Lewis is because I never read any of his books.
Nowadays it getting harder for writers to make unique books, mostly because everything has already bin written about.
If everyone had this ideology in mind while writing books, potentially great writers would never be able to shine with originality. One Piece shouldn't even be that original. After all, One Piece is a graphic novel.
Plus it hard to live up to such good writers as J.R. Toilken and I am going to say J.K. Rowling, the reason I don't add C.S. Lewis is because I never read any of his books.
I never said anything about living up to the writers, but flat out ripping off them doesn't make him a good writer whatsoever.
Not to mention people copy plots and tweak them all the time. In music as well.As I said, there's a difference between borrowing and flat out ripping off of previous works. Take Pachelbel's canon for example. The basis of which Graduation by Vitamin C are formulated. You won't hear it, but it's still there. The piece was clearly inspired by hearing Canon, but that is the difference between originality and ripping off. The basis of all modern literature works is ancient formulas of mythological stories, especially Homer, and especially of Shakespeare is where stories follow a general work. Tolkien himself is largely inspired by Norse Mythology. The famous play, West Side Story, is based loosely on Romeo and Juliet.
Eragon, on the other hand, is extremely derivative of previous works. The maps, the passages from other works, all the Star Wars stuff, and the Lord of the Rings everywhere.
Of course, just because it's original doesn't make it a good work.
Again, it's not my biggest gripe, it's just one gripe. I just really hate the characters, their personality and their development.
But the movie sounds like it rips off of Lord of the Rings even more. Except without the fluid story.
I could do a better movie with some friends if we got those pretty sweet high definiton movie cameras that the big time studios have.
Try Youtube. ;)
the movie sucked. :(
I don't know about the book, but the movie was so lame. And what's this, dragons relying on humans? If the human dies, the dragon also dies? What could the human possibly provide a dragon in return for it's flight and power and magic, etc? It's almost like a parasitic relationship.
Like the trillians in Star Trek. :D
Well, I thought about seeing the movie, but since so many people say it wasn't very good I probably won't. I like dragons, but I learned my lesson about going to see movies just for Dragons after seeing Dragonheart and Reign of Fire.
I personally like the books, I never really actually thought of the likeness to Star Wars; but that actually probably better, if your to start off every book you read by thinking that its some rip off of another story you will never enjoy any book.
Your assuming..
1. That people are under that assumption when they pick it up.
2. That it takes "looking for it" to find it.
Nowadays it getting harder for writers to make unique books, mostly because everything has already bin written about.
Bullshit.
Thats just an exscuse.
The potential for creation is endless.
Plus it hard to live up to such good writers as J.R. Toilken and I am going to say J.K. Rowling, the reason I don't add C.S. Lewis is because I never read any of his books.
Once again, this is a poor exscuse.
These people aren't Gods, they're humans, and its far from imposssible to either build on what they did, counter what they did, or set up camp far outside where they're established the genre.
Assuming your paying attention to genre at all.
I'm sorry for going off topic here, but this has to be said.
@Roz:
Hell, when I was fourteen I wrote a really damn long story about a cop with a Napoleon complex, a thug who's obsessed with origami, and a drug-addict communist doctor with heart problems and bad eyesight and what do I get for it? Nothing, that's what.
This paragraph, coupled with your avatar is the best thing I've seen all day.
Eragon = generic amerimagic pulp slop.
…
I absoultely loathe the series and its author, though I probably dislike the fans more; slap a fantastic cover on fanfiction and it sells like wildfire.
What the world needs is more generic fantasy novels
Eragon = generic amerimagic pulp slop.
…
I absoultely loathe the series and its author, though I probably dislike the fans more; slap a fantastic cover on fanfiction and it sells like wildfire.
Just a little Zephism, probably full of holes, not intended as a law or anything.
Unless your a social butterfly…...if you want to be a writer don't be homeschooled and live in the woods of Montana.
Wait, I thought Paolini lived in Southern California.
Edit: Nevermind about that.
IMO, the movie was really boring. It was the same generic fantasy element. I heard the book was better though after seeing the movie I don't want to go anywhere near the book/ the second one.
Also it was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
predictible that
! The dragon rider guy was going to die as soon as he showed up
read the book, it was good, saw the film, it was crap.
Heh if I ever read the book I may def. have 2 agree with you! I think I'll order thye books and read thyem.