It’s a well known law of the universe that a movie will be at least three degrees of awesomeness below its book origins. Few movies escape this law.
A slightly less well known rule mandates that two awesome source materials when mated in the mind of the less than adept will give birth to an inbred retard. So, with these two rules firmly in our minds we can understand why Eragon is a Now Famous Lousy Movie Night gem. I won’t list why Eragon works so well as a NFLMN movie. That would take far too long and, like most genius flicks, it’s better experienced than explained. Suffice it to say about the only thing Eragon gets right is teen angst. But this isn’t a compliment nor very amazing since the author was, in fact, a 15 year old.
One would hope that a book of questionable worth would be redeemed in the hands of a competent, insightful director and that hope wouldn’t seem misplaced. But it appears no expense was spared to find a director as ‘qualified’ as the author. His skill can be summed up in this quote from the movie’s director commentary, “The sequence was very, um….sequential.” A critic, after watching Eragon observed, “The book was written by a 15 year old and the movie directed by a 12 year old.” If only the director had been 12 he might be viewed more kindly.
But not all was lost in the making of Eragon. No, in fact the movie is so perfectly bad that it stands atop the putrid heights of NFLMN season 1 cinema rottenness, having claimed the ‘lousiest picture award’, and has become a beacon of hope to all who would entertain the critics of NFLMN. On it’s blistered brow reek the pustules of ‘rapid-growth flight sequence’, ‘giant blue pill’, ‘misguided teen angst’, and ‘Jeremy Irons, why are you doing this to your career’. NFLMN exists for movies such as this and Eragon’s sequel cannot be made too quickly.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, ‘Eragon’ is ‘Dragon’ just fraked up.
A bored teenager whose parents were killed when he was a child tries to leave his uncle’s farm in search of adventure but is told to wait until the next growing season. Dejected, he rides into the nearest town and makes the acquaintance of an old man who used to be a soldier for a powerful army that was defeated some time ago. He bonds with the old man and learns the secrets of this forbidden trade, ultimately rising to save the poor oppressed people and bringing back the lost art of…
a.) The Force.
b.) Dragon Riding.
Eragon is what happened with the plot of Star Wars was infused with the characters of Harry Potter and set in the land of Lord of the Rings. Which is disappointing, because it means that anyone who’s seen those movies has already seen Eragon three times over.
But I suppose we have to divorce the book from the movie adaptation. … Nah, they were both lousy.
Well put.
For the record, I read Eragon a couple summers ago. It was entertaining and fast-paced but… lame. The author rather pretentiously talks about writing with “lyric beauty” on his website. It’s almost more entertaining than the novel.
And the opening sentences of the sequal, Eldest, are worth a groan or two:
The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living.
So thought Eragon as he stepped over a twisted and hacked Urgal, listening to the keening of women who removed loved ones from the blood-muddied ground of Farthen Dûr.
Also for the record, ignore pronunciation marks in Paolini’s “works.” Every time he uses a diacritic–cheaply imitating real fantasy writers by sprinkling around diaereses and circumflex accents–it has no bearing on pronunciation.