Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Boy, I wish they had come out with Eragon when I was a kid. I would have loved it. Not only would I have fallen in love with the dragon, but I would have had girl-crushes on Eragon and all the other cute boys in the film. What a fantastic film for kids!

Now – that said, if you are a grown-up, and you are a fan of Eragon, the book, you might end up hating this movie. At least, that’s how a lot of book fans felt when they saw this. Well, I think they are being a bit harsh. No, the film Eragon is not a classic on par with The Lord of the Rings films, but it does what it does reasonably well.

My main complaint with this was the pacing – the story felt rushed at points, and obviously a lot of backstory was missing. Sometimes this led to strange continuity problems. For example, how on earth is a man on horseback going to follow a flying dragon across an entire countryside, to show up just at the right moment to save our hero? Impossible!

So if you want to ruin the film for yourself, you’ll focus on the problems instead of the good stuff. But the good stuff still wins out, in my opinion. Better to have fast pacing but a film that moves along at a good clip than a slow snooze-fest, for one thing.

The dragon itself took some getting used to. She starts off as a cute little baby dragon and then one day, flies up into the air into some storm clouds and flies back down as a full-grown dragon with an adult voice! When that happened, I thought for sure the film was ruined (I have bad memories of Sean Connery playing the voice of a dragon once, ouch!). Thankfully, once I got used to the idea of a telepathic dragon, it worked for me.

As for the CGI, Eragon’s dragon is probably one of the first full CGI creatures that actually felt like it had weight to me. The special effects on this were terrific. At times, things were happening a little too fast in some of the flying battles, but I felt like they were well done overall.

So what’s the big problem with this? Well, as I’ve said, it’s just not high art or cinema. It is a brief film adaptation of a story that is much longer and more complex. So if you want meat, you won’t get it here. But if you can let go and remember that kid inside you who loved fantasy growing up, then you’ll enjoy this.

I just wish adult fantasy fans could relax a bit and support these types of films more instead of ripping them to shreds. Fantasy readers, I have to tell you: Your expectations are way too high after Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson accomplished something that may never again be accomplished in our lifetimes. And don’t expect every fantasy film to be even as good as Harry Potter – Harry Potter already has a huge following. These films are expensive to make. Not all of them are going to be top-notch, but they can still be good.

So when you go and trash a fantasy film because it doesn’t match the book, you are killing the film genre for other fantasy films that don’t already have a huge audience like LOTR and Potter. So relax, please. An adaptation is an adaptation. If you don’t support these films, they won’t make more of them. Be happy that major studios are even making fantasy films now. I remember when Willow was a big deal and touted as the first major fantasy film for the big screen, and how much that flopped due to high expectations and lack of support from the fantasy community. (I liked Willow too, but then again, I was a kid when it came out.)

I think we adults sometimes forget that a main audience for these fantasy films are children. Children and teenagers. And we should support the making of films like Eragon, because they are wholesome adventures that you can take your 9-year-old to go see. Not once did anyone swear, have sex, or dance around a stripper pole in Eragon. Not to sound like a prude, but isn’t it time we started supporting more fantasy films that the whole family can enjoy?

It’s a shame this didn’t do better in the box office, since I would have liked to see another installment (and they certainly left it open for one). Oh well. Next time, try to be a little less brutal, book fans. A “bad” film adaptation is better than none at all.

July 1st, 2007 | Category: Fantasy, Movies | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL