Some friends lent us a copy of “eragon” (subtitle: The First Chapter of the Inheritance Trilogy), which we were bored enough to watch tonight. We probably wouldn’t have even bothered, but the pirate dvd packaging made it sound just too good to miss. The quote on the back:
The things that Eragon has going for it don’t count — once again, the difference between a good film and a bad one is almost always the script. And the book is just too derivative to take seriously. – David Bezanson
It was indeed one of those “so bad it’s funny” movies, ala Battlefield Earth or The Mummy. We spent the entire time calling the characters by their Star Wars alternates, because in every case there was one. Betcha it turns out Luke (I mean Aragorn.. err, Eragon)’s boistrous princess love interest is a blood relative. The culture, sets, races, costumes, etc, are all ripped from LoTR.. except for the dragon which would be straight out of the Pern books if you added an “-eth” to her name. Terrible directing and just shit-poor dialogue; even Jeremy Irons as Obi-wan and John Malkovich as Emperor Palpatine couldn’t do a thing for it.
The only good thing about this movie is that for once the rest of the world saw what was obvious to me & Colin. It scored a whopping 15% on Rotten Tomatoes and just about every critic panned it. Yay! Kids deserve better than such terribly written recycled crap. Warn your little cousins and neices and nephews: Eragon SUX!
Aww, I just read the author was only fifteen when he started the first book. Well, I guess it’s hard to blame him then; everybody writes dumb derivative junk when they’re fifteen. But how did it get published?? Oh, his parents own a publishing company! I guess the movie producer was some college buddy of his dad’s, and his richass uncle shelled out a few mil for marketing. For shame people! Hopefully the author’s writing improves in time (or he gives up; yes they put out a movie and he’s not even done writing the third book). It seems he’s destined for success with or without any real talent.
