Eragon: Absconded or Adapted?

[HydraZulu]

The movie is what introduced me to Eragon. I saw the movie months before I even flipped open the cover of the first book. I suppose this is why I have less hate for the movie than most. That and I'm also a huge fan of dragons in any way, shape, or form, so Saphira could have been a magically animated shit-statue of a dragon, and I still would have liked it. I actually am a fan of the series. I own the movie, and the first 2 books (haven't been able to read the 3rd yet, unfortunately). I saw the movie, thought it was great, then read the books, and thought "hmm, the movie got some things wrong. I don't care that much, though. It will screw up their chances of a sequel, though". I really don't care if other people think bad of me because I like something that I should hate (as I've been told).

Very well written criticism, I don't think a sane person can claim to like that movie. I really enjoy the series so far, even though it is cliched.

EDIT:
AHEM. Oh wait, sane? Nevermind, you're right.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I find the idea of the "I'm awesome cause I RIDE X" character silly anyway. OMG I'M AWESOME CAUSE I RIDE A DRAGON!

No, the DRAGON is awesome. Your just a dick. Where did this fascination with riding Dragons come from I wonder? Is it related to man conquoring nature? Or are people just really gay for dragons?

A proper dragon is covered in scale plates and eats people. Story, end of.

 

[habribo]

Not like the story was actually original. Half of everything Anne McCaffrey ever wrote, cough cough.

 

[crazy-j]

i like the books but the movie was absolutly horrible. And to address the books., they are massive rip offs, only the first one was good and thats cuz it had brom in it who is the only character i like

 

[Darmort]

It's true, it is Star Wars. Just in a fantasy setting that bastardises Lord of the Rings and, to a lesser extent while it was still good, Harry Potter.
Paolini is a talentless hack and the only reason he's getting so much recognition is because he started it at the age of fifteen. I started writing at the age of six and I've still got a hundred and one elements in my world that I haven't figured out!
Copy pasted here there and everywhere, I think the only original idea in the whole book are names, which is weak plain and simple.
The Magic involved, I'll note that no one's noticed, has been derived from an ancient language and a repurcussion system, but this ancient language also serves as the Elf language. I don't actually care how you explain anything like this but if your tongue is the same tongue that influences Magic then you need to find yourself a new tongue, or else accidents will start happening.
There's a reason why I don't like heroes, and Eragon is it. Anti-heroes are much more interesting characters than heroes.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

I hated the movie. so many plot-holes, i'd rather watch an entire day's worth of "The Bold and the Beautiful". Book 1just dawdled on forever, book 2 finally kicked it up a knotch then book 3 was a mood killer in the first half (in my opionion) i wont go into detail because I dont wanna spoil it for those who hadn't read them.

 

[Zukonub]

lol Eragon is bullshit

 

[Anachronism]

No offense, but the book was pretty blatantly ripped off from several sources, and while that alone is barely forgivable, it was so thick with purple prose and one-dimensional characters, I know many people who couldn't finish it.

The movie, though...
Oh god, the movie.
I had to turn my brain off during it. There's an Agony Booth review of the movie that goes through its' many flaws, and I recommend it to you, since you're a fan of the book and you hate the movie.

Agreed totally with this. While the books are bad, bland and uninteresting, as "Baby's First High Fantasy", you could do worse, despite the story being identical to the original Star Wars movies, and the world being Middle-earth with a different name.

The movie was genuinely the worst film I have ever seen, and believe me, I've seen my share of bad movies. So badly put together on so many levels... God, it was excruciating.

*fanboy transformation*
Let's compare characters, locations, and plot events in the Eragon books to those from Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, shall we? Let's examine how blatantly ripped off these books are.

Eragon = Luke
Brom = Obi-Wan
Arya = Leia (in Book 1, at least)
Galbatorix = Palpatine
Murtagh = Han in Book 1, Vader in Book 2 and onwards
Roran = Han in Book 2 and onwards
Katrina = Leia in Book 2 and onwards

Dragon eggs = Death Star plans
Farthen Dur = Henneth Annun
Ellesmera = Lothlorien
Palancar Valley = the Shire/ Tatooine
Eragon's new sword in Brisingr = Anglachel/ Gurthang from The Silmarillion/ The Children of Hurin

It's nothing more than plagiarism!

 

[blindey]

:3 Do people not read or is it just too dense to be understood? Read The Hero With A Thousand Faces, and you'll understand where basically...a lot of stories :3


Anyway to op: I liked your criticism, but I focused more on in my seething rage at the film adaptation on the specific "You left out 95% of the book" sort of thing rather than hangups on some of the (comparatively, even though they're important) parts you mentioned, so that was my biggest criticism for the movie.


V Seconded =) <3 TVTropes...and hate it at the same time xD. I've started seeing a few movies and such in terms of tropes and such. o_o most notably the recent film Know1ng, which was left me going: what...the...hell at the end =(

Also, all main stories follow the same 16 or 17 chapters, call to adventure (finds egg), refusal of call(tries to sell egg), supernatural aid(attacked by razak), belly of the whale (depressed by loss of family) and so on and so forth

Not ALL stories, but a specific type of story... The Hero Story.

If you want to cover all stories you need to look into the Seven Basic Plots.

]
Oh, TVTropes, how could I ever let a silly little thing like you sucking away two months of my life seperate us?

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Some people may claim that is a fairly well-made movie,

Really? I have yet to hear that.

Anyway, the books lead me to believe that the author may have enough talent to write something good when he grows up. The books aren't that good, but they show competent novel-level writing, which is far more than most people that age could do.

 

[Drake the Dragonheart]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned how John Malkovich (Galbotorix) must have been bored out of his mind in that role! He literally never leaves his throne room the entire movie, and barely has more than 5 lines.

 

[dirk45]

Ok, I don't think that I want a slice of cake from JANUARY! But I read it anyway. Currently I'm wading through book 3 and you all are mostly right. But it is too easy to call it a simple rip-off. First of all the books are getting more and more away from the Star Wars plot and while you could simply replace the names it takes much more to write a good book. And you can't deny that Paolini has a great writing style. When you start reading you can really immerse into the world, something not many writers manage to achieve. The plot is stolen from many storys (you could even say that Star Wars stole from the Nibelungen Lied, a story from Medieval Germany).

 

[Phase_9]

That movie needs to burn in hell. It is not a rip-off, it's the result of having a bunch of lazy people on the production team.

"Welcome to the first day of Eragon! Has anyone read the book? No? Good, then lets pull some random character names and rewrite it into a piece of shit"

That was the movie. Even a rip-off of Eragon would have been better.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Everyone should remember that Star Wars is NOT original... and NEVER claimed to be...

The plot of Star Wars is classic "Heroes Journey" mixed with the plot of Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress with some heavy Western Elements thrown in with the whole package being sold as a Fairy Tale in Space, complete with a Princess, Wizard, Fairy Mentor, Magic and a Dark Overlord.

But again, Eragon (The Movie) does some direct stealing from Star Wars in terms of scenes. Also the fact that Star Wars isn't original doesn't change the fact that Eragon is derivative tripe.

 

[Fortesque]

Very well written, and I totally agree with all of it.

However, i had finished reading Eragon and my girlfriends little brother told me not to because it was horrible compared to the book. I still wanted to just too see how it was, and when started watching, immediately picked up on mistakes. But I watched this movie with my mother and she, having not read the book, liked the movie.

So maybe if the book hadnt been written and the movie being an original idea. It might have gotten somewhere

 

[Sphinx86]

No offense, but the book was pretty blatantly ripped off from several sources, and while that alone is barely forgivable, it was so thick with purple prose and one-dimensional characters, I know many people who couldn't finish it.

The movie, though...
Oh god, the movie.
I had to turn my brain off during it. There's an Agony Booth review of the movie that goes through its' many flaws, and I recommend it to you, since you're a fan of the book and you hate the movie.

TL;DR:

I thought this very well written. I didn't like the movie, but I loathed the book. Still do.

several sources? STAR WARS

Similarities: Guy lives with his uncle, finds something important to killing empire, family gets deadified, leaves town with old man, goes to other random town, learns magical superpowers, rescue love interest (at least in the first star wars she was love interest) who had escorted said empire killing artifact, go to rebel stronghold, rebels get attacked, rebels kill something important to the empire. Part 2: leaves rebel stronghold after it was attacked, goes and finds really old guy who everyone thought was dead but is teacher who teaches him, he senses love interest gets attacked, goes to help, gets ass handed to him, finds out he is the son of the second in command to big bad guy, loses sword/saber, end part 2
keep in mind that I haven't read part 3

Lmao I've never thought of it that way, but it's so true.

Personally the book was utter tripe and I'm convinced his parents did him a disservice but publishing his book. He took one of the most Epic creatures in all of human mythology and turned it into a talking pet for 15yo boy and thus make adults listen to him. Does it push the buttons of children, Yes, it is worthy of literary praise, (personally) No. The second gets better but not quite good yet, and I've heard the 3rd is all the first should have been.

Movies always have to cut sections out of the book due to the differing media, people need to get used to fact and judge a movie by whether it follows the spirit of the book rather than the word for word plot detail.

Also the movie to me at least tries to add some Epic to the storyline by tweaking the story a little (ie adding the dragons fighting in the final battle sequence, Brom dying to save Eragon from his own rashness rather than just randomly, etc).
Though yes I will admit the Galbotrix scenes are 10 levels of horrible (pretty sure they aren't in the book)

 

[almaster88]

I am glad you brought that up I have been reading about and studying the subject of dragons for many years and I must admit, I was little confused, when I saw that Saphira had feathers on her wings. I had understood that dragons had leathery wings

Studying dragons for years? Really? thats like studying the loch ness monster for years... no wait, worse.

Anywho, I had no idea about all of this. Personally I saw the movie, never read the book, and thought that the movie wasnt terrible, and that the story was not bad and put togeher well.

That was before I read this... I had no idea the arya chick (or whatever) was an elf? I cant believe this much was left out of the movie, damn I'm gonna get the book from the library tomorrow.

Thank you for showing me the truth