ERAGON - What did you think?

[Templetroll]

I agree with these points. This was an okay movie that had really nice dragon effects and magic effects. The shade and the undead assassins were cool. The baby dragon was made for a plushie or Happy Meal toys.

Now, would using Campbell's outline of a heroic journey as a template for writing a novel or scripting a movie be a bad thing? It could get trite quickly but how much originality has Hollywood ever been accused of anyway?

It was a watchable film and not as bad as the terrible, terrible trailer made it out to be (The trailer made me actively not want to see the movie; I went today because I was invited by friends). It was a C+ with effort, but suffered from bad editing and direction.

The dragon effects were wonderful, and infant Safira was very cute. Really, I could have spent a more enjoyable two hours watching just that growing up period near the beginning of the book. They captured the natiure of both a dog and a cat perfectly.

I saw the movie today not having read the book.

I'm in complete agreement. Eragon, the protagonist, is supposed to go on this Campbellian journey of development from boyhood hunter-farmer to adulthood warrior-hero. To make this journey plausible, the film would have had to have been longer with more convincing acting and a better script.

On the plus side, I did find Brom, Jeremy Iron's character, engaging and I would have liked to have seen more of the evil sorcerer. The CGI used to portray magic was well done.

Overall, I thought that the professional critics including Jonathan Ross, the BBC's film critic (who happens to be a gamer), were a bit harsh. While Eragon, the movie, was not brilliant, it isn't bad either and I did enjoy it in part. I wouldn't return to the cinema to see it but I'd gladly watch it again if it were on TV. I may even get it on DVD in due course if I can find it on sale. My score: 6/10.

 

[Thanee]

Maybe I should watch the movie then before reading the book.

Bye
Thanee

 

[frankthedm]

I found it to be a fine 'dumbfun' fantasy movie. Did not try to think too hard about the movie and enjoyed it just fine. Far better than most things on the sci-fi channel. Quite predictable, but watch able.

The evil spell caster had a warlock vibe with a full round action fireball eldritch blast.

The dragon was not as fearsome as i like them, but not that cutesy other than the hatchling stage. The egg did look like a huge jellybean.

The Nightwing looking critter was a nice flying mount.

 

[Jdvn1]

Oh, and Eragon sucks at looking for bread.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

The best way for me to describe this film was that it is better than I feared but worse than I'd hoped.

EXACTLY.

I went in with really low expectations for this, given the bad CGI from the commercials, and the fact that it has Jeremy Irons AND John Malkovich in it.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised; it was actually OK. Not spectacualr, but certainly not as bad as the D+D movie.

Sure, it was "Paint by Numbers" fantasy (complete with unnecessarily portentous voiceover in the opening credits), and largely paralleled to "Star Wars", and used every dramatic fantasy cliche known, but it defnitely held my interest for 90+ minutes.

 

[billd91]

We went and saw it today. I had pretty low expectations, having read the books ... and therefore wasn't disappointed. The movie doesn't do anything to salvage the hackneyed cliches of the source material. You can be the best director, with the best actors and writers, but if your source material is crap ... and sadly, the writers made a few decisions that made the movie worse than the source material.

The movie suffered from bad pacing. It needed to be 45 minutes longer, to avoid the poor character introductions and complete lack of character development ("Hi, I'm &*(^$*#^>" "Cool, come join us!"). Dialogue was lousy -- poor John Malkovitch: "I suffer without my stone" - WTF? Acting was wooden.

On the plus side, the dragon CGI was great, and Jeremy Irons actually does a halfway decent job (at least, far better than the D&D movie). It would be really fun to give it the MST3K treatment (I was whispering appropriate Star Wars quotes to my wife -- "Your father's light saber ...", until she got annoyed and told me to shut up). If you treat it like a brainless popcorn fantasy, rather than expecting epic fantasy, you'll be entertained. It's far better than the D&D movie, at least.

Overall, score of 3 on a scale of 10.

This is the post I agree with most so far. I thought Malkovitch was shockingly wooden as the Emperor and most other acting in the movie wasn't any better (Jeremy Irons excluded).
The movie felt at least as amateurish as the book (which at least showed promise in a number of scenes even if most of it was excessively adverbial). The movie takes things that are supposed to be enigmatic but are actually easy to figure out like Murtaugh's relationship with Eragon and makes them completely baffling.
I took my 8 year old daughter to go see it. Kids aren't all that discriminating about the movies they like. She liked it. I didn't, but that's pretty much what I expected.

 

[reapersaurus]

Those fantasy fans that hate this movie are too jaded or cynical or something. It was a 6 out of 10 movie.

but I think that if you just go there and watch the movie (and aren't stuck on pointing out cliches and predicting what is next, just go and watch) that most fantasy fans will enjoy themselves.

Most fantasy fans are simply unable to watch a film like Eragon anymore WITHOUT pointing out the cliches and guessing what comes next.

Adults, on the whole, are unable to see things thru the eyes of a child. Adults have too much mental baggage that comes from their constant exposure to the fantasy genre conventions.

Adult fantasy fans should see the movie with a child of less than 12 years old to see the movie the way it was intended.
This is NOT an adult movie.
And I truly have pity for any youngster that would pick apart the obvious cliches and hackneyed writing, instead of marvelling at the FREAKING DRAGON-RIDING in the film! :\

And there IS a big reason to see Eragon in the theaters, instead of waiting for it to come to TV - it's much cooler to see fireballs being launched at a streaking dragon w/rider on a 100 ft wide screen, then it is to see it on a few feet-wide screen.

I mean, for how few times dragons have been shown on screen, you'd think fantasy fans would embrace the well-done scenes of action in Eragon. But no - they'd rather nitpick the literary merits of the film and make themselves feel superior by dissing what they should be supporting - solid family-friendly fantasy movies.
This movie couldn't have been made without Lord of the Rings being so successful. I say bring on more fantasy (even kidfriendly fantasy)! It's much better than seeing yet another cop/crime movie or uninteresting drama movie.

 

[takyris]

Reaper, I've got a two-year-old son. Kidfriendlly !necessarily= Bad. Bad == Bad.

 

[Klaus]

Most fantasy fans are simply unable to watch a film like Eragon anymore WITHOUT pointing out the cliches and guessing what comes next.

Adults, on the whole, are unable to see things thru the eyes of a child. Adults have too much mental baggage that comes from their constant exposure to the fantasy genre conventions.

Adult fantasy fans should see the movie with a child of less than 12 years old to see the movie the way it was intended.
This is NOT an adult movie.
And I truly have pity for any youngster that would pick apart the obvious cliches and hackneyed writing, instead of marvelling at the FREAKING DRAGON-RIDING in the film! :\

And there IS a big reason to see Eragon in the theaters, instead of waiting for it to come to TV - it's much cooler to see fireballs being launched at a streaking dragon w/rider on a 100 ft wide screen, then it is to see it on a few feet-wide screen.

I mean, for how few times dragons have been shown on screen, you'd think fantasy fans would embrace the well-done scenes of action in Eragon. But no - they'd rather nitpick the literary merits of the film and make themselves feel superior by dissing what they should be supporting - solid family-friendly fantasy movies.
This movie couldn't have been made without Lord of the Rings being so successful. I say bring on more fantasy (even kidfriendly fantasy)! It's much better than seeing yet another cop/crime movie or uninteresting drama movie.

<applause>

Very well said, sir. Were this Circvs Maximvs, I'd posrep you!

 

[Mouseferatu]

I mean, for how few times dragons have been shown on screen, you'd think fantasy fans would embrace the well-done scenes of action in Eragon. But no - they'd rather nitpick the literary merits of the film and make themselves feel superior by dissing what they should be supporting - solid family-friendly fantasy movies.

What we "should" be supporting are good fantasy movies, family-friendly or otherwise. I feel no "duty" to support a movie that is poorly written, fantasy or not. And I'll thank you not to assign me underhanded motivations for my opinions on the subject.