ERAGON - What did you think?

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Regarding critics. Critics aren't a matter of RIGHT and WRONG. Criticism of artistic endeavors is a matter of OPINION. As has been suggested - find sources of opinion that are useful for you. You don't even have to AGREE with them - but you really do need to get a sense of what their critical viewpoint is; what do they like, what do they dislike and why? When you find a critic whose opinion DOES synch with yours that's most useful, but finding critics whose opinions are usefully explained, even if contrary to your own preferences, can be just as useful. It's not WHAT the opinion is, but WHY the opinion is so.

Certainly relying on just one review at random, or just one critics opinion on a consistent basis is setting yourself up for repeated disappointment. Not to mention it is a clear misunderstanding of what criticism is intended to do for YOU the viewer and how it does it. Any mook can give thumbs up/down or slap up a 1-4 star label. Knowing how the details that made up that score matter to you is what you're after.

 

[Jdvn1]

I just saw it. Horrible, horrible movie.

Just... wow.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Sounds like this one is solidly falling into the "wait for HBO or Cinemax to see it" category.

I couldn't really get into the book at all (too much of a fantasy pastiche for my tastes), and since from the sounds of the posts here the movie is a dumbed-down version of an already plot-by-numbers story (to me at least), I may just skip this entirely.

Side note: I think the only thing that was "extraordinary" about the Eragon book was that the author, a teenager, managed to get it published.

 

[Enforcer]

Given that there are so few exceptions to the rule "The book is better than the movie" and that I thought the book was godawful to the point that I couldn't finish it, I'll be passing on this one.

 

[trancejeremy]

Side note: I think the only thing that was "extraordinary" about the Eragon book was that the author, a teenager, managed to get it published.

It's not that extraordinary - from what I've read, his parents had it published via a vanity press, and them a big publisher somehow read it, and thought that with the right marketting, it could be a big hit. It's not quite the same as the literary equivalent of a boy band, in that an original product actually existed, but awfully close...

 

[dog45]

This movie was a predictable pile of crap. I haven't read the book, but I will because I've heard the book is actually decent. There were a number of times watching the film that it looked like they left a lot of stuff out. Like in the Postman, when in the book he is gathering his army, but in the movie it's a montage with dramatic music. There were too many of those moments.

And the dialogue was - well, it wasn't campy, but it wasn't exactly exciting either. The worst line in the movie was in the big fight at the end. Anyone who saw it knows which one I'm talking about. SPOILER Something like "Take to the sky, burn or die. It was so cheesy I immediately wiped it from memory, although not completely /SPOILER

One last thing. Eragon = Aragon. Oh noes, I'm the last one in a long line of an mythical/special group of people, and I have to save the world. Not dissing LoTR, but rather our young dragonrider.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

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.

Oh, I suspect Eragon came from "Dragon" with an "E". If you think of Eragon as Luke Skywalker (last of the Jedi), Brom as Obi-Wan, Uncle X as Owen & Aunt Beru, Alya as Princess Leia, Murtaugh as Han Solo, Durza as Darth Vader, Galbatorix as the Emperor, and the Varden as the Rebel Alliance, substitute magic for the Force, steel swords for light sabers, and a dragon for an X-wing fighter, with the basic plot outline of SW:ANH, you'll have Eragon (and it gets worse in the next segment, when Eragon goes to visit Yoda ...).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh, I suspect Eragon came from "Dragon" with an "E". If you think of Eragon as Luke Skywalker (last of the Jedi), Brom as Obi-Wan, Uncle X as Owen & Aunt Beru, Alya as Princess Leia, Murtaugh as Han Solo, Durza as Darth Vader, Galbatorix as the Emperor, and the Varden as the Rebel Alliance, substitute magic for the Force, steel swords for light sabers, and a dragon for an X-wing fighter, with the basic plot outline of SW:ANH, you'll have Eragon (and it gets worse in the next segment, when Eragon goes to visit Yoda ...).

This certainly makes the whole "a teenager wrote the novel" thing a lot more plausible.

 

[Mycanid]

Eek ... I think I'll skip this one for a while.

 

[Jakar]

What a poopie of a movie. Enough said really.