Eragon

[Dragon Writer]

[jwiz]

Oh, my god, I love the books!!! But, it did strike me as a bit of a JR T copy. Of course, many fantasy books do. And, when I saw the movie picture thingy at the movie theater, I was sooo happy! . when i saw how everyone looked though, i felt kinda let down.

[Fox]

Ive now seen the second trailer to Eragon which i have to admit is SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE FIRST! I mean did they even put the first one out through a commity meeting? Some 80 year old that has not read the book just sat there and said ' yeah that one will do' I mean any fool would pick the 2nd one over the first And i Get angeslasia news too was quite happy for him to get that wonderful prize.
Fox

[Dragon Writer]

well, i know the characters don't look like we would like, but the auther seems to be ok with the kid playing eragon...at least in his view of the stories.
He said "Last month, I flew out to New York City for an interview and photo shoot with Ed Speleers, the actor who plays the character of Eragon in the movie. We had spoken over the phone once before and had missed each other by a day at ComicCon, so that was the first time we met in person. It was hardly a casual encounter, what with agents, publicists, journalists, photographers, makeup artists, wardrobe designers, and movie executives milling around, but we had a nice chat all the same. He was genuine in his desire to portray Eragon to the best of his abilities. During our discussion, he made a comment about Saphira that was so close to my own concept of her, I felt as if he had put his finger on the essence of her character. To paraphrase, he said that when he was acting across from the neon orange tennis ball that represented Saphira on the set, he imagined her being a combination of his mother and his best friend. What a perfect way to describe her!"

and i don't mean newspapers say he said it...i mean he wrote it in the newsletter he sends out.
ge also threw in a few trailers and such...Apparently they've already got a trailer for a video game of it for xbox 360... and yeah, a lot of stories sound like jr t, copy, i guess, but if you look back far enough, you'll probably find things that do are OLDER then his books and sound like it...Most story lines have been done a thousand times...And considering the guy's supposed to have reinvented how elves are supposed to be, it's kind of hard NOT to copy him in someway if you include elves...But the story line he used can probably be found in books that are a lot older..and i think eragon's written better...i mean, the guy had a great story line, but he was SO long winded i never even managed to finish the book...It was like i had to force myself to read every word, which might have been worth it if i had the seperate books, and read them a bit a time, but i had an all in one eddition, and i kept on thinking about how much there was...so yeah, there may be similarities in story line, but it's by no means the same thing...

[jwiz]

I think it's spelt Alageasia. or something like that . but i know there's no "n" in it. And where do you go to see the trailers? i'd really like to see it.

[InkSlinger]

I like like eragon too, but I think you're being a little hard on eldest. sure, it's alot worse, but I think it wasn't completely boring. By the way, it's alagaesia, only the "e" has a symbol ovr it.

[Dragon Writer]

You can find the US trailer at: http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin2...K6N0B5X0rq70EM

And the international trailer at:
http://www.shurtugal.com/content/mandm/media/2006/october/1/eragon_intl_trailer_hi.php

And here's a high-quality trailer for the Xbox 360 Eragon video game:
http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin2...K6N0B5X0rrA0EX

From the news, once more...i haven't actually had time to view them, but this isn't an r rated movie or anything, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about...


and i'm not being hard on it at all...i'm saying there's probably an actual reason why it was worse, in that it wasn't an adventure so much as a transitions...Much harder to get into.

[jwiz]

Wow. i can wiat even less to see the movie now. And i don't think anyone means to be hard on the second book. it's just that everyone probably expected another exciting adventure like the first. i found it enjoyable but i didn't like what happened to murtagh (though it wasn't completely unexpected). but it does look like Saphira has feathers for wings which is kinda weird.

[maxxrox]

No matter what happens, Eragon, book or movie, will never measure up to great works like LoTR, Pern, Young Wizards ,Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance), and Tamora Pierce. Even Jonathan Stroud (Bartimaeus trilogy) and Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl) were better than Eragon. At least their concepts were orginal and their characters had depth.

[Dragon Writer]

Yeah...the third book should be great, i think, now that they've gotten all of teh transitional stuff out of the way in teh second book, and can leap streight into an adventure...

[jwiz]

yeah, it should. i can't wait to find out what Solembum's advice leads to; it should be interesting. don't know if anyone remembers, but in the first book, he had a dream about two people leaving on a boat and one on the beach yelliing with two dragons in the sky. i think that that will, like, come true due to him always seeing things that are to happen. Also, i'm worried about what will happen to Murtagh. i mean, there were so many loose ends to tie up and i want to know how it all ends!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dragon Writer]

And I say eragon is orriginal enough, and right up there with the other books you mentioned. while i love at least a few of the books you mentioned, and they are orriginal..THEY HAvE ABSOLUTELY NO TWISTS! young wizards and artimis fowl doesn't away...it's great, but there's nothing really shocking in it...SO i think eragon makes up what it misses by a long shot...and you might not realize this, but not much fantasy is orriginal these days...at least not the best ones. Give me almost any good book and i'll tell you half the twists before the come, spot who's going to be with who within seconds of them meeting eachtother, and when someones looking for someone else, through knowkledge of plots alone, say who it's going to be. and that's without even bothering to try...if i did try, it would be worse...but the point is, eragon is not really worse then anything else, and is a lot better then a lot of other books...

[the_peridexis]

Oy! I disagree. Artemis Fowl was indeed a more juvenile series (compared to Eragon) but you can't say there wasn't anything "shocking", as you put it, in them. I mean, you try getting run throught with a troll.

Same with the Bartimaeus Trilogy--those were some original chracters if I ever saw any, and if that book didn't have any "shocking" scenes, I don't know what shocking is anymore.

And Tamora? Admittedly, she tended to create a lot of Mary-Sues, but her books were far from boring; especially her her Keladry books, which I loved because Kel had no magic, wasn't a Mary-Sue, and got to the top with sheer strength of will.

Eragon is a great book, especially for such a young author. Paollini is what, 19, 20 now? But it's not like it's the best; I love the books dearly, but as soon as they introduced the lovely, untouchable Arya, and then the naive, innocent boy, I knew right away, "love". And there were a few other scenes as well; take another look? Now don't get me wrong! these books are amazing, but you can't really compare them to other books when you haven't read "those other books" carefully.

And I've seen the movie trailer...and *sigh*. *slowly, methodically beats head* I think moviemakers hate me. For anyone who hasn't seen the trailer, DON'T READ THE REST OF THIS. Well...Arya's blonde. And so is Eragon. And Brom...? Don't even get me started. Well, there's nothing wrong with blondes, but if you're a devoted actor, how hard is it to dye your hair (even temporarily, if you want) darker? The wardrobes...um...why is Arya wearing pointy gold? Saphira...no, her wings aren't feathered, but they LOOK like it. And if they botch up Eragon's and Saphira's relationship, (he doesn't OWN her, they're friends!!) then...well, keep me away from rivers, pointy objects, things I can bang my head against...heck, lock me up in a straitjacket. No, don't try to tell me, "you shouldn't be so picky, it's just a movie..." stop. It won't work. It's been tried-it will not work. *siiiiiigh* Of course, I'm still seeing the movie. XD

-peri

[maxxrox]

Thank you, Peri. At least someone agrees with me.

To the educated reader, Eragon had no plot twists. When I first saw Arya in the first scene, I guessed that she would end up in some kind of love affair with the protagonist, even though I didn't even know who he was yet. When I first read about the big diamond in the Dwarven kindom, I thought "that thing is going to break before the end of the series." There was nothing original about Eragon whatsoever. He might as well have taken Middle Earth, simplified it, added Pernese Dragons (simplified of course) and a few D&D concepts (yet again, simplified) and there's Eragon. I didn't see a single unpredictable plot twist in the entire series so far. I'm still waiting for Paolini to show me what he can really do.

As I said before, Paolini has great potential as a writer. If he manages to come up with some original ideas and gives depth to his characters, then he might actually write some quality fantasy literature.

[Frivs]

I can't say I agree with the it being completely unoriginal...I thought it had some pretty interesting ideas, ones I haven't seen in other books. Granted, there are similarities, but you could find similarities in just about any book you read

I like Eldest a lot better than Eragon, actually. I thought it had better character depth, more interesting plot, and better writing in general. The beginning was a bit rocky, but after that I couldn't put it down. I was actually more interested in Carvahall than Eragon, though xD But Murtagh was so disappointing...he was almost to box status...(lol, Piper keeps many carefully hole-punched boxes with various secondary charries in them ;D )

And about Pern...I believe Anne McCaffrey makes a comment about how good Eragon is on the back cover, if memory serves. I would think she wouldn't have much to say if he'd simply dumbed-down her own creation