To begin, I'd just like to quote Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News:
Paolini was 15 when he began writing Eragon, and the book's epic imagination reflects its creator's precocious youth. What a shame a bunch of grownups had to step in and muck it all up.
Eragon was a wonderful book. The ending was kick-ass and shows so much foresight by Paolini... then there's the movie. People trying to capitalize on the success of a novel so much that they make a crappy movie and sell the name make me sick. I mean honestly, if this book had been done LOTR-style (and budget) it would be incredible. It's really obvious that whoever made the movie cared nothing about the book.
I know that whenever a book is adapted for film things are left out. For Eragon, however, that is a dramatic understatement. I distinctly remember reading the first couple of chapters and thinking, "Man, this will look great on the big screen. They could go effin' crazy with this." Guess what - those scenes I was talking about - yeah, absolutely no appearance in the movie. None. The plotline jumped around so much that I can't imagine what watching it without having read the book must be like. Absolutely nothing was developed. Nothing was explained or explored, and there was so much potential. Also, the writing was just plain awful. They should have hired Paolini to do the screenplay. There were many points where I thought to myself that the dialogue from the book would have been amazing, but instead they transformed it into ubercheese that left the audience smirking at the big, beautiful silver screen.
Speaking of big and beautiful, one thing I cannot complain about is the visual effects of this movie. Saphira (the dragon) looked incredible to say the least. Beyond that, though, the sets weren't the greatest thing ever... the producers really shortchanged themselves by not making things accurate to the book. Again, so much potential lost. I want to remake this movie and get double the budget that the current release has. Honestly, it would have been a wise investment. The cast was for the most part solid. The story is more than solid, and has a big enough following to make it a worthwhile investment.
Oh, and if I didn't already mention it, the ending changed. Ugh. This movie could have been so good!
Meanwhile, I'm going to go read Eldest and enjoy it.
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2 comments:
IMDd lists the budget at 100 million. That should be enough to everything you wanted, so I they must be plain incompetent.
No freakin' way. They must have spent it all, and I mean all, on animating the dragon. The sets could have been so much more than they were. Also, costumes either low-maintenance and normalish or detailed and freakin' weird.... I could go on, lol.
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