Legend of the seeker, Beowulf and 2006 Eragon....But very nice editing, top notch pace, good music. Applause for the creator
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It's the series that spelt dragon with an E for its title. Ooooo. Witty.
Then again what do you expect from a book by a 15 / 16 year old who got published because his folks are high up enough in the industry. I've heard it's pretty much Star Wars fanfic in a medieval fantasy setting.
The Eragon books were the drizzling shits, they might be worse than the Twilight books.
I'm a guy who's pretty forgiving of recycled plots, the reason a cliche becomes a cliche is because the work it's based on is either good, or arouses people sexually, since Eragon was pretty sexless, you would think ripping off Star Wars wouldn't be a problem, but the execution was atrocious. Way too many unnecessary adjectives, conversations that had little humor, and rarely developed the characters, and a horrible overuse of the thesaurus killed any chance the books had of being enjoyable.
Then the characters, I could live with the fact that they went through almost the exact same plot arc as Star Wars, complete with a destroyed village, Obi-Wan's death, an evil relative, and the evil relative's redemption, but Eragon is such a twat, and he's not even the least likeable character in the series.
Eragon had no weaknesses that held him down, he was a master hunter by his teen years, learned to read and use magic in a matter of months, gained elf powers, immortality, and for the things he can't do himself, his 50 ft pet dragon covers everything else. I'm fine with extrordinarily skilled or powerful characters, but they need a serious weakness in order to make them compelling.
Vash from Trigun had similar powers to Eragon, but he was a great character because he refused to take a life with his powers, no matter how much of an evil bastard he was dealing with. It broke me apart to see Vash stare down a slimy motherfucker like Legato and beg him to pull the trigger, but still being torn that taking a life would destroy everything Vash worked for.
I'm even fine with extraordinarily powerful characters being ruthless as well, but in order for that to work, they need to have an even eviler bastard fuck them over at every turn. Stone Cold Steve Austin became more popular than Hulk Hogan because Vince McMahon had unlimited ability to screw him over, and because they represented completely different ways of life, Vince and Austin went after each other every chance they could get, and it invested people into them.
To this day, I can't remember one philosophical quandary that kept Eragon held down in any way. He killed hundreds of soldiers and demons with little challenge, and never seemed bothered by any of it. He killed the Shade even though it was just an innocent man possessed by a demon, and it never mattered to him. None of the other characters call Eragon out on his motherfuckery. But the worst part is that the antagonist never seemed like a big enough asshole to justify this behavior. How is King Galbatorix supposed to draw peoples hatred if he's never seen until the third book? Let alone give the character free reign to kill hundreds with minimal difficulty, and not feel the least big guilty about it?
I could go into hundreds more words about the amount of dick the Eragon books suck, but they're really not important enough to waste my time. They got popular because Paolini's dad knew people, and Paolini himself had a marketable idea. Paolini's not like Stephanie Meyer, he still has several decades to become a good writer, but he needs to get far away from the fucking Palencar Valley before that's even a possibility.
I have to disagree with a few things... Of course the Starwars plot is blatantly obvious but a few things about the book itself. Eragon was not a master hunter, if you remember, he came home without killing anything... And he had the scar from the shade which was his weakness for a while. Also, he needs help from 13 elves to draw level with Murtagh, so it's not like he's uber powerful. So to be honest he was extremely weak compared to the other characters. And the thing is, he is a 16 year old boy, so he's going to be annoying and childish. And he did feel upset about killing the soldiers as it repeatedly says throughout the book... And the shade is possessed by evil spirits, there was nothing he could've done but free him by killing him.
the books aren't great (everything you said about them is true), but they are nowhere near as bad as the twilight series
If only Eragon and Paolini and everything didn't suck harder than slutty hoover on vegas
I also thought the books were terrible, I stopped in the middle of the second. What confuses me is how Paolini is always speaking at conventions with other outstanding fantasy authors, hanging out with them, being referenced by them etc. I'm wondering how he's accepted into that group with such a terrible series.
You know, I realize this is an unpopular opinion, but I enjoyed Eragon. I think it has certain merits to it, and I think that now Paolini is out from underneath it, he might be able to go and write something that is more original, more meaningful.
As far as ripping off other fantasy staples-- maybe I'm too forgiving, but that just never really bothered me. Everything is recycled- the stuff that Paolini "ripped off" were retellings of old myths and basic ideas of the hero with a thousand faces. But, as they say, to each their own.
I pretty much feel the same way. My biggest problem are how he handles Elves. They do everything better than all the other races, EVERYTHING! It's a wonder that humans even exist in that world, much less as the dominant race!
Should I point out that we got an awesome Eragon movie in 1977? I'm wondering why they haven't made Eldest? I mean, you can just delete the whole bathing scene with Yoda...I mean, Oromis. It added nothing to the plot but giving me and my fellow riffers a slash joke.
Frankly, the trailer looks about on a par with the film itself. I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Gah!! Every time I see that guy they picked to play Richard in Legends of the Seeker I just want to punch someone involved in it in the face!!!!!!1!!!1
As awesome as that was I have to say: the Eragon books weren't actually that well written. That's why I sort of expected the caliber of movie that the world did end up getting. The story is incredibly clichéd. It all just felt borrowed from other high fantasy novels to me (especially Dragonriders of Pern and Lord of the Rings). The writing seemed lazy and didn't really draw me into the books. That said, it was a teenager's first novel, and it was self-published, so it likely didn't go through a very rigorous editing procedure.
(also I love reading down the comments after reading this and seeing other people agree ^_^)
Much like the real film, it looks like half of it came from a video game and the other half was some television show, or better movies. But at least this one would be delightfully free of John Malkovich.
Is it just me or does the main "voice" sort of sound like Sam Worthington?
Fuck you know what they do need to remake this now and cast Sam as the lead. I need SOMETHING new to mock to the ends of the earth.
I don't know. I think that this would be a better trailer for a Eragon remake. It's practically the same thing.
Aaaahh...I read Eragon in elementary school (I was too young to like LotR, alright!), and I was quite excited for the movie. My parents took me to see it as an early Christmas present. I remember being mildly disapionted at the inaccuracies. I got the game even though I was aware of the nature of movie-games...And now I will be getting the final book tomorrow along with the collector's edition of Skyrim.
Holy shit, the dam thing's finally finishing? I might have to read it just out of sheer fascination.
I've been reading it forever, you're damn right I'm gonna finish it!
After I play Skyrim...
Eragon was a bad movie because the source material is bad work. That book was published because the child-author's father ran a minor publishing house and "knew people".
Now, if someone wanted to mix Eragon with Twilight, we could see if bad work multiplied by itself ends the universe or becomes somehow compelling.
He's gotten better, I think. The problem is he's still working on a story he wrote as a kid, so no matter what, he can only take it so far.
I have this private bet with myself that he'll finish Eragon, and move on to write okay books.
I can't speak to his improvements, honestly. To me, he'll always be the kid that got a spotlight he didn't deserve. Everyone was looking for another J.K. Rowling, and he just happened to have the vehicle in place to meet the demand.
But you can say that about several popular authors. The best books I've ever read are by largely unknown authors from smaller publishing houses who just don't have the resources to compete like that.
It kills me to think that the vast majority of people consider Eragon and Twilight to be "good literature." Abhorrent.
Rita had a good henchman. Then he turned good and suddenly she had six color-coded pests to deal with.
The problem with Twilight is, honestly, it makes literature for girls so misogynistic. The most important thing in the world is to have a boyfriend, even if he's a vampire and therefore a cannibal. And don't start the interracial relationship with the dude a year younger than you; go for the sparkly guy that is 108 years old. Oh wait, most of the fanbase ships Jacob with Bella (or Edward)? I'll just make Jacob a pedophile. (Man, I thought Return of the Jedi was disgusting in the way it resolved the triangle.)
(Or Rita Repulsa.)
I think it's said best this way:
“Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.” - Stephen King
i'm conflicted about the folks who hold twilight to such high esteem. on one hand that truly makes them twisted and evil. on the other hand, not the brightest henchmen. and it's so hard to find good henchmen (ask mummra, cobra, shredder, etc).
Werewolves riding vampire dragons that ate whiny teenage girls? I wouldn't even care if the dragons sparkled. That would be awesome!
You're forgetting that the werewolves have to be 100% Sherman Alexie pastiche. Well, except for the werewolf part. And when Sherman Alexie has age-disparate relationships, unless it's older woman/younger man, the older partner's always a villain. And Sherman Alexie has written a lot about using white people to play Indians. *waves at Lautner* And Sherman Alexie characters are never shapeshifters. Time travelers, yes. Immortal serial killers, yes. Survivors of the apocalypse, yes. Women who taught every musician of the past century of note everything he knows, sure. But never shapeshifters.
Please, explain what a velocigina is.
The hilarious thing is, Twilight took the more lustful horror trope, the vampire, and neutered it. But the motifs of Twilight are color-coded for our convenience. Bronze versus sparkly. Clairol-black versus blonde.
Maybe their breath sparkles when they burp after eating vampires? Call it a compromise.
Ha, Eragon was the one and only time I actually walked out of a movie 30 minutes in and demanded a refund. (I SHOULD'VE done it with Transformers 2) The theater got a chuckle out of it and happily obliged, even they knew it was terrrible.
It would still be a copypaste of Star Wars with the lightsabers replaced with dragons.
Let's just throw out the dead weight of bad actors & hacky plots & shit and just have lightsaber wielding dragons beat the stuffins out of each other!
I remember the only thing I liked about the movie is how Jeremy Irons really made an effort to turn a one-dimensional cliché-based character into someone relatable and believable thanks to a pretty decent, nuanced performance. Kudoz for him. Everything else, meh...
I was really impressed on how he managed to pull it off. An island of gold in a sea of shit...


