“Eragon” A movie of what could have/should have beens.
By: Tim - aurora - Dunn

Eragon - yet another dragon/knight story and somehow this one managed to make it to the big screen. The book has been widely popular among young and I guess old alike, almost as big as 'Harry Potter'. Eragon follows the story of a young lad who is the answer to prophecy living in troubled times in a land ruled by an evil king. Basically this is a story that has been done over and over again, at least the movie version of it. Eragon seems to be a massive blend of 'Lord of The Rings', 'Dragon Riders of Pern', the Shannara series, a hint of the 'Shadow Wars' trilogy (sequel trilogy of the classic Willow movie written by non-other then George Lucas) and yes you can't leave out 'Dragon Heart' either.

The story starts out with a semi-decent history of how the evil king Galbatorix(John Malkovich), a dragon rider himself, turned against the dragon riders and destroyed them all save himself and his dragon (which we only see for a split second at the very end). Well that obviously is not totally true because we rapidly switch to a young lady, Arya (Sienna Guillory) running from some of the Kings henchmen carrying a sapphire blue dragon egg which she stole from the king. She and her merry band of menare confronted by Durza(Robert Caryle) the kings 'shade', who we are told is possessed by demons and posses some pretty potent magical powers. As he confronts Arya she uses her magic to transport the egg away. The egg re-appears in front of Eragon(Ed Speleers) as he is trying to shoot down a deer with his bow. He takes the egg, not knowing what it is into his little village and tries to trade it for a steak but when he announces where he found it the butcher cowers in fear and tells him to be gone. We then get a short glimpse of Eragon's family and learn he was abandoned by his mother and left to live with his uncle and cousin. Here, hiding in the barn, the dragon hatches and Saphira emerges. Eragon obviously not knowing anything about dragons is not sure what the creature is but he learns quickly.

Quickly seems to be the theme of this story. From here we quickly meet Brom (Jeremy Irons) a disgruntled man who does not care about what anybody thinks of him or what he has to say not even the king’s soldiers nor Eragon at first. Eragon quickly learns about dragons and dragon riders. Saphira quickly grows and develops as does her bond with Eragon. Eragon quickly joins forces with Brom after Eragons uncle is killed. They quickly leave the village and start heading towards a land where a band of rebels against the king (the Varden) live. Eragon quickly learns magic. Eragon quickly finds and saves Arya from Durza and then quickly escapes and meets up with the rebels. A massive battle quickly develops wiht Durza, his magic and henchmen followed by a huge army of the king’s army. The climax quickly comes and quickly goes as does a setup for a sequel.

Not having read the book, yet (which the paper back I just bought and is over 700 pages), it seems that this is a story that in and of itself could have been a trilogy. Its a short movie at only 99 minutes that could have and should have been extended another hour to develop the story and the characters properly. Treebeard, from The Lord of The Rings, would be extremely upset on how 'hasty' everything in this movie is. The movie almost seems more like a 75 page Readers Digest version of the story then a decent adaptation from the book.

Eragon himself is rash, rude, crude and an extremely arrogant kid. Yet at a pivotal point between him and Brom, who turns out to be a dragonless dragon rider and who seems to have been the one to kill the last dragon, he almost turns into a person worthy of being a hero. But yes, he quickly reverts back to his normal cocky, hasty self. Eragon is supposed to be a character worthy of legends yet from the movie you could really care less what happens to him, nor any other character in the story. The huge climax, OK not as huge as it should have been, is between Eragon on Saphira against Durza and an extremely poor twin to LOTR's Balrog. This should have been a huge battle but it came and went so fast that you're left sitting there wondering why they even bothered filming this movie. I'm sad to say that the story as presented by the movie is a complete mangled mess.

Enough with the story lets leave all that behind and get to the power of the movie the CG and effects. OK, so maybe we won't leave all of the messed up story behind as it seems some of the script writing lack of skill bleed into the VFX. As a massive fan of dragons I was really hoping for something magnificent from this movie. Sadly it did not live up to my hopes. Don't get me wrong Saphira is magnificent and worth going to the movie to see but in the end she is only slightly better then Draco from DragonHeart. The big difference from Draco is in the detail and design of Saphira. As a baby she is actually cute with huge Meg Ryan eyes (literally so as they were the inspiration for their creation and texturing.) The wings are pretty dang nice with scale like feathers and in fact her whole body is nicely scaled. Plus she is also adorned with some nice horns and hair. The modeling and parts of the animation of Saphira is definitively the highlight of the movie. Up close you begin to see some nice detail all over Saphira. But as with everything else it stops short of true greatness. It seems like they got done what was needed and then stopped. Saphira could have easily become legendary in the world of CG and hopefully in what’s appears to be a jump into a coming sequel hopefully she still can be.

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The animation of Saphira was nicely done as well. Yet again all too quickly done and then moved onto other scenes. For example you have Saphira, a moderate sized young dragon probably fifteen to twenty feet long with a wing span more then twice that. When she takes off its with a huge flap of her wings. So think of a helicopter landing/taking off. You have lots and lots of dust and debris flying around but not in this world, this land of magic must be dust/debris free. For that matter when she fly's through trees you can just barely see the smallest, lightest branches moving. The dynamics on Saphira while she’s flying (as in the scaled feathers) is almost non-existent, which is sad because there is so much potential to push the limits there. I will say I really enjoyed several scenes with Saphira. Her fire breathing was not really one of them though. Here is another skill developed way to quickly, as in one minute she’s to young and the next she’s an old pro at breathing massive army destroying fire.

Then there's the extremely important issue of communication. Dragons communicate with their riders via telepathy. Communication is only one part verbal and at least three parts visual. When Saphira and Eragon talk via telepathy you do not expect mouths to need to move, but man it sure would have been nice to at least see some facial expressions, especially on Saphira. And here I have to bad mouth one of my favorite actresses, Rachel Weisz, who was the voice of Saphira. As with so much in the movie the delivery of her lines were flat and emotionless. Being emotionless that leaves the animators with nothing exciting to work with. Notes, for future screen writers, make all creatures speak with their mouths!

Makeup and costumes. Ughhhh, again you 'want' to compare them to LOTR but you cower in embarrassment at just thinking about it. The various creatures are not real all that distinguisable from each other. The make up was bland and non exciting and their costumes complimented that blandness well. Then there’s these creatures Durza rises up from the ground that I think they modeled off of Imhotep from 'The Mummy'. These creatures have some sort of sinewy shifting thing going on with their faces but it looked more like a quick shift of procedural textures then anything else. In fact if you are not a CG artist of any sorts you might easily miss this whole creeping face thing.

The last part I'll pick on is the sets. Durza's keep is one of the least impressive buildings I have ever seen, including my own work! Happily as with everything else you only get a short quick view of it. The valley of the Varden which borrows heavily from Peter Jackson's Minas Tirith, is left two dimensional in view and only one dimensional in impressiveness. It could have been breath takingly magnificent. The pieces were there but alas quickness must have been a mantra recited many times a day, everyday among the artists. Before you get to the Valley of the Varden you are in a narrow valley with waterfalls, you naturally think of Rivendell, then after that first second of viewing you scold yourself for the comparison. The waterfalls are OK but not great by any sense of the imagination and in a couple of instances they don’t even seem to be completely finished effect shots. When water falls from those heights there’s lots of splashing and mist but not in this world.

In my opinion, with the power we have seen with ZBrush this year I was left wondering why extra time (probably a time and money matter literally) was not allotted to really pushing Saphira. Indeed the whole movie could have been pushed up a couple of levels and ILM is diffidently capable of it. Anybody see 'Dead Man's Chest'? Why oh why couldn’t that level of work have been in this movie? Why could it not have been loved into existence like LOTR was? Where was the energy from Pirates while this was being made. Do the various departments at ILM have such distinction between them that the energy from one project can not be contagious among other departments? It had all the base pieces to be worthy of true greatness and even direct, happy comparison to LOTR. But alas you feel horribly shorted.

Now having bad mouthed the heck out of the movie, I do have to admit this is a great movie for young kids. In fact if you have young kids I highly recommend taking them to see it. If they are old enough let them go alone, if not, hey that’s what spouses are for. I'm sure it will become an important and integral part of the development of their imaginations, leaving them with pleasant thoughts as they grow up. If you're a book reader, like I am, the purchase of this book is, hopefully, worthwhile. It would be great to learn what the heck happened at several points in the movie. I'll also admit that there’s a high probability I will purchase the DVD when it comes out IF its as an extended edition with an additional hour of never before seen scenes, ala LOTR!

Ratings:

- For a movie going experience I give “Eragon” - 2.5 out of 5 stars.
This is a movie of what could have been more then Wow you have to see this to believe it.

- For a technical piece of CG and VFX work I give it a - 3 out of 5 stars.
It could have and truly should have been something worthy of 5 stars but alas it needs more. More of everything.

Credits:
CAST:
Eragon - Edward Speleers
Brom - Jeremy Irons
Arya - Sienna Guillory
Durza - Robert Carlyle
Galbatorix - John Malkovich
Ajihad - Djimon Hounsou
Murtagh - Garrett Hedlund
Uncle Garrow - Alun Armstrong
Roran - Chris Egan
Hrothgar - Gary Lewis
Voice of Saphira - Rachel Weisz
Horst - Richard Rifkin
Sloan - Steve Speirs
Angela - Joss Stone

CREW:
Director: Stefen Fangmeier
Screenplay: Peter Buchman
Based on the Novel By: Christopher Paolini
Producers: John Davis and Wyck Godfrey
Executive Producers: Gil Netter and Chris Symes
Director of Photography: Hugh Johnson
Production Designer: Wolf Kroeger
Editor: Roger Barton
Costume Designer: Kym Barrett
Visual Effects Supervisors: Samir Hoon and Michael McAlister

Running time -- 99 minutes
MPAA rating: PG