Eragon the movie
December 18th 2006 00:08
The cover of the new edition of the book.
Well, Eragon-the-movie has been released in America and is sure to hit our shores soon enough for the school holiday season. The book has also been re-issued with a new movie tie-in cover to help synergise market forces or whatever. So how's it faring up in America with the critics?
Well, apparently not too well... it seems a lot of people are labelling it as a rip-off of Lord of the Rings. Now, I have neither seen nor read Eragon so I can't really comment too much, but I can't help but feel the critics who say this sort of thing are most likely not fans of the fantasy genre. I'm not defending Eragon, considering it was written by a 17 year old and contains all of the hallmarks of the genre's most known entries, it could most likely be a Tolkein knock-off. Lord knows we don't really need too many more of these. But as for certain critics expressing distaste at the films 'cutting and pasting' of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings... I dunno, it just sounds ignorant from here. You know how you have this uncle who knows fuck all about anything and then Lord of the Rings comes on the telly and he doesn't really pay attention to what's going on in the film but still bellows to all and sundry that it's a ripoff of the 80s fantasy film Willow, well this kind of reminds me of that.
Eragon is an adventure film with dragons and elves and stuff like that in it, it sounds like it's primary objective is to be fun. A lot of reviews have commented that the dragon in Eragon is very well-designed and it's easily the star of the film... I suppose this is a good sign, as dragons seem so central to the trilogy. I look forward to enjoying this movie... if there was a reason for me not to enjoy it it would be poor acting, plotting or direction - NOT the fact that on a superficial level it looks a bit like Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, I don't want to blather on too much about the subject. Like I said, I haven't seen or read it. It just sounded like a few critics out there might be missing the point. Fantasy has become a viable genre in the film industry ever since Lord of the Rings made about a billion dollars. Mainstream fantasy films have been few and far between prior to LOTR, so we're going to be seeing a lot more of them in the near future. To label it all as a rip-off is kind of obtuse and would be like saying all gangster films are a rip-off of the 1933 'Scarface' (yes, even 'The Godfather' and 'Goodfellas'!) It's almost snobbery.
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Comment by Cibbuano
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Comment by JohnDoe
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I was planning on seeing it, but everything i have seen from the film has convinced me it is not worth the effort.
Couldnt be any worse than Reign Of Fire or Dragonheart, I guess.
Comment by Luke
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I don't mind people accusing it of being a bad film, but I think it's lazy to bemoan it just because it 'rips off' Lord of the Rings.
Comment by JohnDoe
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This looks more like it borrowed from Dragonslayer, which I do wish was on DVD.
Comment by Luke
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