Is the book better than the movie? (Because I'd rather not get stuck in another one.) It's SO Tolkienlike -- quite like Willow, but Willow, at least, was only (or first) cinema -- that I don't think it's worth taking a better look at the stuff. I have loads of classics to read, that I will appreciate better, not to tell some other readings that I have to think about. (I don't read much; just enough. -- Actually, a little less than enough, to my own judgement ...) I'll appreciate sober commentaries on this. P~
The book, for all its flaws, is a LOT better than the movie. When a book comes first, then a movie, the book is almost ALWAYS better than the movie. Trust me.
I also haven't read the book, but I saw the movie. From everything I saw I assumed that the book must have been way better than the movie. The acting was pretty lame, and the plot felt rather rushed, which to me is a sign that a lot got chopped out to make it fit into a 2-3 hr film. But it had great imagery, and special effects which I hope represent the writing style of the author. But to be honest, I haven't read it because I also have a lot of other classics to read , and while I expect it to be good I doubt that it will match the works of the 'greats'. I bet its good but its not a priority.
Trust me, I've read Paolini's work. He's REAL flashy and will spend paragraphs describing scenery. And he does epic battles, which is good. It's good to read if you're bored or have nothing else to do and it is fairly entertaining, but if you were going for the BIG CLASSICAL BOOKS, I would recommend not picking this one.
Which is better is a completely subjective question. Watch the movie, sure. Then go read the book if you have the patience for his writing. Or do it the other way around. I personally prefer seeing the movie first.
Okay the book is not great, but the movie....the movie....made me want to die! Sure the book was "meh" but the movie was hardly related (they left out pretty much everything whic hwould make you think cool), but no,....it was pretty bad, even for Eragons standards. Note - I saw this because the misses girl wanted to see it and i had to take her. Closing comments, she lked it and hated me for going, "oh my god" every minute. Eragon the book = Poor form from writer (who should have waited until he had some skills under his belt) and Publisher (for printing it) Eragon the movie - Only made for a quick bang of green (cash) My opinion.
I agree the movie was better, especially the ending. But other than that one...yeah, the movie is almost always worse.
I enjoyed them about equally- the prologue to the book was so horrible I didn't make it through, and the movie was bad enough I watched it for less than five minutes.
Yes the book is better than the film, but this says more about the film than it does about the book. The first book was entertaining but not particularly good. By the time I started reading the third book I was already asking myself why I even cared about these characters. Eragon and Arya are the two of the worst lead characters I've ever read in a book series. In addition, their staged "romance" is written so awkwardly that it fails to accomplish any kind of point, as it neither progresses their relationship nor does it does it help to develop their individual traits. Why write "romance" into your novel if you never take it anywhere? Other things like cliche characters and predictable plots are another problem in the sequels.
Nevermind the fact that the second book took all the pleasure and innocence I could sense in the first book and completely murdered it with morality questions of "Would you commit genocide of an entire race that you're at war with?" and contemplating goodness vs evil. All I wanted was to see dragons beat the crap out of each other. Eragon and Arya are just cliched, I'm afraid. He has no flaws, no nothing. Any problems he has, he solves almost immediatly. He learned an entire language he's never spoken of fluetly in a matter of months. Can a normal human do this? No,
I got about a hundred pages through, but I’m a hard-core fantasy fan, and the book just wasn’t quite what I like to read.
I haven't read the book, but I drank an entire bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label and did some shots and watched the movie. GREAT movie, I couldn't stop laughing. The next day sort of sucked, and so did the movie when I watched it again. My advice, read the book if you like fantasy. The movie, however, is best digested smashed on whisky.
I am currently re-reading the book and saw the movie a year ago. The book was good (considering the author's age) but the movie was incredibly rushed. They left out entire towns and places (Teirm, Yazuak, Hadarac Desert, etc.) and a ton of major events (sand storm, Roran leaving for the mill, Eragon paying off Sloan, etc.) Read the book, don't see the movie.
I was completely happy when the movie wouldn't work in my DVD player 15 minutes in. The movie, what I saw of it, was horrible. The book, in my opinion, is just as bad. The kid was ... 16? 18? when he wrote it. His parents (or one of them) were in the publishing business, so that was one of main reasons he was published. The main character is a Gary Sue if there ever was one. Think of every fantasy cliche and you have Eragon. He can wield a sword that was more or less made just for him. Only he can ride this dragon. He's an orphan with tremendous power, he learned a language in no time at all. I got halfway through the book before I couldn't read anymore. Luckily, it was a gift and I didn't pay any money for it. I'd rather re-read Dragonlance than try to read Eragon. I even got through the first 2 books of the Twilight series, but couldn't finish this.
I thought the books were entertaining, and you can breeze through them fairly quickly. Not particularly well-written, but not the worst either. They do get better as they go along. By the 3rd book you could tell the author was maturing a bit. It's not high literature by any means, but it's good for light reading before bed or when home sick or something.
I read the first few pages of Eragon and I wasn't particularly impressed. He over-describes to the point where I skip entire pages, I'm sick of the sceneries, and there's too much information about the land where the characters live. Eragon seemed a bit bland, the typical lead character who is doing everything... Not impressed, I was expecting much more for the bucketload of cash he got. Brisingr, first 20 pages, better, but still not something worth reading till the end. All of these books are perfect to learn from. Don't do the mistakes the others are doing.
I like all three. Perhaps not the Good vs Evil discussions in the second. And also not the forty pages in the third about the way dwarfs elect a president or whatever. There has not been a second movie yet. I'm not even sure if there will be. What does that tell you...
My bet Paolini was internally horrified at how badly Hollywood botched up his book and swore to never let them do "Eldest".
I still don't understand why they had Roran join the Army rather then send him off the the Mill. I mean that pretty much butchered the idea of a sequel considering large parts of the second revolve around Roran. The movie was horrible. They skipped way to much and left out just about everything out. I enjoyed the books. Though the whole part about how they elect a Dwarf King was rather... long and boring. It didn't seem to provide anything to the story except drag it out. Eragon does annoy me at times. It seems he can't do any wrong, and if he does everyone sorta looks the other way. But I enjoy them anyways.
Three notes I made about the franchise: 1.)The only two movies that did their books justice were "Jurrasic Park" and "A Clockwork Orange". I know the first one by expirience, the second by reputation. 2.)I personally felt that Paolini's philosophical topics in the book were incredibly shallow. His style was also uneven and sometimes awkward. 3.)I still enjoyed the book for what it was. I'm confident there are better fantasy novels out there, but I'm not a fantasy fan myself, so I don't really care. peace out, -nick
The Godfather was based off a novel. It is the best movie I've ever seen, and its reputation far exceeds that of its original source material. I hate this 'the book is always better than the movie!' because it is often wrong. For example, Forrest Gump is far more famous as a movie than as a novel. As for Eragon, the one thing it has over the novels is at least the movie can be endured in a shorter period of time.
More often right than wrong. I feel the same thing happens when a videogame is made off a movie. Normally, when mediums are confused, the quality of a work goes down. That is because companies want to jump in and exploit the franchise rather than expand it.
It would depend on the source material- 2001: A Space Odyssey is another case in which the film tends to be more well known than the original source material- although it is quite different than the short story it grew out of-, as is Blade Runner. However, when people throw out the 'books are always better!' comment, they often ignore the Godfathers of the film world specifically because the film has eclipsed the book. Now, it can be the case that when a film is made as a cash-in off of a successful book or series of books, that they turn out inferior to the originals- and of course they are the movies people point at and shout 'books are always better than the movies!' And yet, I doubt I'm alone in preferring both the LOTR and Harry Potter movies over the originals. This isn't to say that movies are always better than the books from which they are adapted, or even are better more often than not. I just think that as a means of engaging in critcism of two different art forms, 'the book is always better than the movie,' is often misguided. I have met very few people who consider The Godfather novel superior to the movie.
I can understand your argument, but I often don't consider movies based on books art simply because they do not expand the material. A good movie takes the text and expands it with good acting and presentation. A majority of book based movies fail in that regard. The Godfather, Space Odyssey, Forrest Gump etc. actually expand upon the material they are given, therefore being anomalies of the movie biz. But, there are also a greater number of good original movies than those based on books. peace out, -nick PS Lord of the Rings was a good movie, but I prefer the book. There's a deeper asthetic about it that only the first movie manages to sortof capture. PSSI thought that all the Harry Potter movies, with the exception of the second, were terrible.
