I've never read the book (and so can offer no opinion on it), but I have finally watched the movie Eragon. When the movie initially came out the previews intrigued me; later, I heard a review for the movie that described it as LotR redone badly; still later on, I picked up the book in a bookstore, read the back cover and the first couple pages, and wasn't interested enough to choose that particular book over something else.
Well, someone else decided to go ahead and rent it, and as I somehow neglected to not still be sick and unable to go to work, I went ahead and joined the viewing last night. I can happily say that Eragon is the worst fantasy movie I have ever had the privilege of viewing, though it would make a great MST3K. (To be fair, I must also admit that I haven't seen all that many fantasy movies, as I usually only view them after someone else has recommended them to me.) The filming of the movie, if not the story itself, involved a large helping of LotR with a bit of Star Wars and Harry Potter (movie, not book) thrown in for fun, all mashed together and melted down in a way that would have made a much better parody of popular fantasy than a new movie.
Most of this has little reflection on the book's author, as he probably had no say whatsoever in the way the characters looked, various creatures were designed on film, or anything else to do with the appearance of the movie. To his (and possibly the book's) credit, the actual storyline itself when dissected from the filming of it is fairly original and likely more coherent and captivating than the movie, judging by what any other movie tends to make of its preceding book. In fact, the sheer indescribability of the movie's awfulness may have convinced me to pick up the book someday, if only to do the author the favor of not judging his writing based on someone else's wish to recreate his own favorite movies rather than direct a new one. If anyone has beaten me to reading it, feel free to leave comments to encourage or discourage this event.. I already have a fairly large pile of books already waiting for me in my room.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
A Strange Conglomeration
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2 comments:
I've seen Eragon, but if you can believe it, there are worse. Far worse.
It's main problem was being absolutely predictable. Because for the most part, the CGI was good, the scenes and costumes were colorful and emotive, and that girl is cute (though I'll admit that I've a soft spot for pretty redheads.) They had all the iconic stuff that fantasy should have, they just have no clue what any of it means.
Nowhere does it ever say that anyone has to be cute! Ever. And she looked like Arwen.
Ahem. Moving on. I didn't think the movie was terribly more predictable than other fantasy, and until proven otherwise I'm willing to assume there was more tying the scenes together than the movie shows. The book might very well be as bad, or it might be the process of making it into a movie that cut out anything showing the author understood some of what he was doing (I don't think it's likely to be brilliant, but it might not be quite so bad). It was the CGI, scenery, and costumes that I personally had the most problem with. Yeah, they were good, but they ought to have been; they were not quite exact copycats of other very well done CGI, scenery, and costumes.
And there are far worse, hmm? Which? I'll be sure to avoid them.
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