Eragon

Grievous55 · **on:** December 30, 2006, 12:43:17 AM

Well, who here has seen the new movie Eragon? I just finished reading the second book roughly a week before I saw the movie, and I must say, I disliked it a great deal. It was far too different from the novel, and it really emphasized how derivative the story was. With the book you could acknowledge that and still greatly enjoy it, but the movie just made messed it up.
I was wondering how this happened, until I read this on Wikipedia:

Quote

The screenwriter is Peter Buchman, who is best known for his script for Jurassic Park III.

Now I get it!

Anyway, I'd like to hear your opinions about it. Any of you chaps seen it?

Stitch · **Reply #1 on:** December 30, 2006, 12:55:01 AM

I have. I also noticed how different the film was from the book. I think the film was alright, but the book was better. I hope they stay closer to the book if they make Eldest into a movie.

Malte279 · **Reply #2 on:** December 30, 2006, 03:24:21 AM

I haven't read the books yet. At first I planned to watch the movie, but meanwhile I have heard so many unanimously very negative criticisms that I guess I will trust the critics and save the money for a better film.

Ratiasu · **Reply #3 on:** December 30, 2006, 03:42:58 AM

I haven't read the books and I plan on seeing the movie only after it comes out on DVD. Just for a laugh, you know.

DarkHououmon · **Reply #4 on:** December 30, 2006, 04:31:00 AM

I have watched it the day it came out to theatres. I haven't read the book, so any changes made I did not notice. I was a little disappointed; I didn't get into the movie as much as I thought I would, and it didn't feel like a "whole" story to me, sort of speak. It wasn't bad really; it just could have benefited from more character development and a better portrayal of the plot.

Littlefoot Fan · **Reply #5 on:** December 30, 2006, 05:26:07 PM

Oh man. When I first saw this topic, I was excited to see what everbody had to say about the movie.

I haven't read the book yet (I own it though), but only because I knew they were making a movie for it. Movies always take large amounts of parts out of the story when they're based on a book, so you actually benefit from seeing the movie first.

As for the movie, I loved it! Nothing in it ever striked me as *bad* (except for some cliches in the story). Call me crazy but this is probably one of my favorite movies in the world.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #6 on:** January 01, 2007, 02:13:17 AM

As one who hated the book (Paulini is lucky the Tolkien Estate and George Lucas don't sue his ass off), I found the revisions and changes from the book refreshing for the film, which I rather liked a lot.

DarkHououmon · **Reply #7 on:** January 01, 2007, 01:31:59 PM

Jana absolutely loved the book, so of course she was rather disappointed in it. I'm considering reading the book myself.

I did read about how Eragon, the book, plagiarized Tolkien and George Lucas's work, but if that were true, then Tolkien and George Lucas would have noticed by now and would have sued Paulini. Since they didn't, then Eragon is just heavily based on their stories, just like I've heard Star Wars is heavily based on old Asian movies/stories.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #8 on:** January 03, 2007, 11:34:14 PM

That, or perhaps it just wouldn't be good publicity to see Lucas or the Tolkien Estate (Tolkien is dead, by the way, he won't be using anyone ever again) using a seventeen year old kid.

Noname · **Reply #9 on:** January 03, 2007, 11:58:03 PM

Star wars isn't based on any asian stories; it's based on Jospeh Campbell's "Hero With A thousand faces." The only thing really Asian about it is that some elements of the movie come from Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" movie. Of course, Leni Reifenstahl's "Triumph of the will" was another inspiration as well.

DarkHououmon · **Reply #10 on:** January 04, 2007, 12:02:23 AM

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Star wars isn't based on any asian stories; it's based on Jospeh Campbell's "Hero With A thousand faces."

Ah I see. My brother told me that it was based on old asian stories. It's just what he heard, but he wasn't sure if it was true or not.

Malte279 · **Reply #11 on:** January 04, 2007, 03:40:16 AM

Sometimes I think people exaggerate in trying to accuse authors of plagiarism. I cannot say anything about Eragon, having not read the book nor seen the movie. J.R.R. Tolkien however took uncountable inspirations from old legends, Atlantis, Beowulf, ancient greek and nordic legends... Tolkien's writings are full of this, but it doesn't diminish his works the least in my opinion. Tolkien himself, when asked about his sources, somewhat annoyed responded that one should enjoy the soup rather than asking for the bones of the ox it was made of.
Of course I see that there are books which overstep a certain border to the degree where they really change way too few elements from a known story to be perceived as individual works. However I also find that there is hardly any new book, in the genre of fantasy in particular, which is not being accused of being plagiarized.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #12 on:** January 04, 2007, 07:42:46 AM

Believe me, Malte, the accusations against Paulini (author of "Eragon") are not over-exaggerated. For one thing, the title character's name is only two letters shy of "Aragorn".

And those legends Tolkien based his story off of were religious in nature, and hardly "works of fiction" to those who believed, as they were their creator's attempts to answer the questions about the world around them. Completely different situations there. Paulini didn't even acknowledge Tolkien as a source anywhere in the book, which would have been respectful, at least. Oh, there is little doubt that the Tolkien Estate would win that lawsuit.

Nick22 · **Reply #13 on:** January 04, 2007, 04:10:35 PM

Yes, Eragon is basically LOTR Jr... After reading it, I likedit.. but it did not compare to LOTR.. And Paloini islucky he didn't get sued, apparently his folks publidshing company edited it enough soo it wasn't a extremely blantant plaguism..

F-14 Ace · **Reply #14 on:** January 04, 2007, 06:19:08 PM

I just finished reading the book. I'm about to start reading the second book. Quite frankly, I liked Eragon better than LOTR. For some reason, I just couldn't get into the LOTR books. I also thought the Eragon movie was alright. Sure it left out about 90% of the book but I still thought it was alright.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #15 on:** January 04, 2007, 06:33:01 PM

Bleagh... My personal standards were just not met by "Eragon", making the story "LotR Jr. " just isn't good enough for me, since we already have "LotR Sr". In the fantasy noevl I'm working on, I'm deliberately trying to not copy Tolkien, Lewis, Beagle, Lucas, as well as the other iconic fantasy authors.

General Grievous · **Reply #16 on:** January 04, 2007, 11:40:36 PM

I thought the movie was alright but it didn't follow the book at all. Basically the only thing that the book and movie had in common was that the egg hatched and it was a dragon. But I thought that baby Saphira was so cute!

: I thought she looked cooler in the movie than in the book too.

DarkHououmon · **Reply #17 on:** January 05, 2007, 12:07:09 AM

I don't really believe Eragon deserves to be stuck with the reputation of being plagarism. I mean coming up with ideas that are 100% original nowadays is extremely hard, if not impossible.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #18 on:** January 05, 2007, 06:07:31 AM

I know that, but putting ideas into different mixes and putting your own twist on it helps create the illusion of originality and gives the work more credit. Paulini didn't even try to mask the fact that he followed the backbone of "Star Wars" and "The Lord of the Rings" to a tee. One of the goals in writing is to try to, at least, mask the fact that you're taking heavily from some other source. It should be your own work, and it should be easy for others to look at it as such. For people like me who read "Eragon" and think "I've already read and seen this before in SW and LotR", it becomes old very quickly. In the book I'm writing, I'm trying to not copy anyone as much as I can.

Littlefoot1616 · **Reply #19 on:** January 05, 2007, 08:11:36 AM

I saw Eragon over Xmas and I enjoyed it for what it was. Being neither a fan of Star Wars or LOTR (but not shunning on anyone who is

), I didn't really see much resemblence between Eragon and other mentioned movies. Maybe that's because I've never watched either of them in great detail so I cannot make a fair comparison. Still, I thought the movie was kinda cool (despite the fact that I spilled my entire tub of popcorn before the bloody flick even started! <_< LOL

). The story was nice and the action was definitely up there! I'd advise it for anyone who's into fantasy or dragons or anything of the sort. A good watch :^.^: