Someday, Ted and I will learn that the evening trains from Cork to Cobh run at 6:30, and then at 8, rather than at 6:30, 7, and 8:30 as we persist in believing. Every time, we say, “Well, next time we’ll know,” and we never, ever know. So what was theoretically a 3 hour trip into town to watch Eragon turned out to be a six hour trip, since I was hungry and made us miss the 12:30 train and therefore the 2:00 show, but we took the 1:30 train and the next show wasn’t until 4:30. And then there was no 7pm train. Sigh.
Anyway, Eragon. I haven’t read the book. Ted and I spent quite a lot of the movie wincing over, “Oh, look, the Star Wars tribute scene! Oh, look, the Peter Jackson fan shots!” and admiring how various characters were really, really clearly cobbled together versions of, say, Arwyn, Goldmoon & Ce’Nedra, or Belgarath, … ok, mostly Belgarath. Or how I went
Anyway. There was a lot of that. And we would lean over to each other and say, “Oh, *spoilery spoil spoil*,” as scenes came up or finished or whatever.
However. Somehow, despite being completely cliched and fairly full of bad lines and totally predictable to anyone over the age of eleven who’s a fantasy reader, by the climactic scene, they had me. I was caught up. I can’t say it was a *good* movie, but by God, it worked. I went away from it happy. Possibly if people went in expecting brilliance they’d be disappointed, but I went in expecting not much and came away happy, and that’s about all I can ask for from a movie. :)
I did think the dragon was really quite good. Not exactly my idea of perfect dragon stylistically, but still, she was well-animated, didn’t look distractingly CGI’d/greenscreened, she retained her size ratios, and overall I’d say she was the best screen dragon I’ve seen so far. (It turns out I’m a horrible snob about dragons. I have yet to see one I thought was really flawlessly excellent. The Harry Potter dragons were very good, the best I’d seen up til that point, but I think Sapphira beat ’em out. She had a lot more screen time in which they could’ve screwed up, for one thing. I do, however, look forward to Smaug. Either Smaug will be It, or …well. I’ll be crushed. :))
I dunno… DragonSlayer is a good representation of a dragon.}:P
A friend lent me the book. I got a few pages in and decided it wasn’t well enough written to hold my interest. Too much exposition, for one thing. Given the amount of mind-candy I read, that’s… pretty descriptive.:-)
I somehow managed to get through that book. It was well-written for a sixteen year old, and I think in a few years he’ll likely be a great writer, but for the most part all the plot cobbling you saw was also in the book. It felt totally like a teenager mimicking his favorite books and you could see the plot turns being guided in like a docking 747.
Thanks for taking one for the team.
And also for your contribution to the neighbor’s auctionlet!
I haven’t read the book either, but my brother read it and liked it (he’s a fantasy fan) But I do plan to take the kids to see the movie, because it looks like great fun and adventure – and everyone loves that!
My Mum saw the movie in New Zealand. She got on IM later and said, “Cam, you could write a better story than this. You should write a screenplay after you’re done with your novel.”
Uh huh.
I’m a snob for dragons as well. I haven’t read Eragon, but I’m looking forward to the movie. I think I won’t mind cliché, bad plot… As long as the dragon animation is good. I just go for the dragon anyway.
Smaug had better darn well be ‘IT’ or else there will be serious crushage – grrrrr!
Interesting to hear good things about Eragon. I haven’t heard much in the way of feedback at all on it from my FList.
You know, from the comments below, perhaps you should start a dragon snobs community :)
And speaking of dragons (as yet another dragon snob), I suggest Reign of Fire. In particular this shot. I’d have linked to a clearer one of the dragon, but there don’t seem to be any online :/
The problem with the dragons in that movie was that they changed sizes *wildly* to suit the scale of the shot. They were in design quite good, but wow was the inconsistency of size annoying to me.
I do not propose to start a dragon_snob community. Heaven knows what kinds of people would end up there. :)