Eragon

Eragon is a 2006 action-adventure fantasy film based on the 2002 book of the same name by Christopher Paolini. It is directed by Stefen Fangmeier from a screenplay written by Peter Buchman. The film was released in theaters on December 15, 2006.

While it performed well at the global box office, its extremely negative critical reception caused its planned sequels to be cancelled.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) The movie is trying to hard to imitate Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars in a poorly executed way.
 * 2) The presumed main antagonist, Galbatorix, has far too little screen time to be developed into a villain whose defeat we should actually want to watch.
 * 3) Eragon and Brom's first battle with soldiers has a dark setting and shaky camera work that doesn't really allow to see what's happening.
 * 4) Galbatorix going mad from the loss of his dragon, which is a key part of his backstory in the book, is removed in the movie. Instead, he's turned into just another generic power-hungry traitor.
 * 5) Hearing Saphira's thoughts doesn't really add anything to the story most of the time.
 * 6) Most of Eragon's learning in magic/ancient language happens off-screen, making it confusing enough.
 * 7) Triple dose of Deus Ex Machina saving Eragon in his first showdown with Durza: first it's Brom swooping in and taking the arrow (when he hadn't even been shown to be in the building before), then it's Saphira breaking through the roof, and then Murtagh (who hadn't even appeared before this point in the movie) showing up out of nowhere to shoot at the soldiers to prevent them from surrounding Eragon before they can escape.
 * 8) Why exactly did Brom not tell Eragon about arrows needing to pierce Durza's heart to kill him before storming his lair instead of after?
 * 9) John Malkovich is in full-on 'just here for the payday' mode playing Galbatorix.
 * 10) Terrible lip syncing at the 3rd part of the movie, that also includes even humans.
 * 11) Sequel baiting: There is the ending scene where Eragon and his dragon defeating the forces of evil. Then shortly before the credits roll, Galbatorix, the film's Big Bad slices open a large tapestry to reveal his own Dragon (Shruikan, which would presumably do battle with Eragon in the sequel. However, Eldest (the next book in the series) was never filmed and thus officially canceled.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Jeremy Irons gives probably the only decent performance in the film, getting the most out of the material he's given. Also Ed Speelers, while still seeming kind of green, at least does look like he's trying.
 * 2) The soundtrack is mostly good.
 * 3) To be fair, it was a loyal adaptation of the book, the book was also imitating Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, though in a better way.

Reception
Eragon holds a 16% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 4.08/10. The site consensus reads "Eragon is a fantasy epic that lacks any magic, brought down to earth by unconvincing world-building and a litany of stars who seem bemused by the material." On Metacritic it has a 38/100 rating based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews", while its IMDb rating sits at 5.1/10. Time Out's Nigel Floyd called the film "a painful reminder of what fantasy cinema was like before the Lord of the Rings trilogy rewrote the rules." Most of what little praise the film received was for its CGI and Saphira's character design.

The author of the original book, Christopher Paolini, stated that he had enjoyed the film, and praised Ed Speelers and Jeremy Irons for their performances.

Awards and nominations
Eragon was nominated at the 2006 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards in the Least "Special" Special Effects category, losing out to BloodRayne.

Trivia

 * Alex Pettyfer was considered for the role of the title character, but declined due to his fear of flying and production taking part in central Europe.
 * Eragon was the last major feature film to receive a VHS release in the United States.
 * This film is also the first and only work as a director by Stefen Fangmeier, who later returned to his usual field in visual effects.
 * This film was supposed to be the first film in the Inheritance Cycle franchise. However, due to the failure of this film, the planned franchise was cancelled.
 * Fangmeier planned to shoot at the same time the two sequels based on the second and third Inheritance Cycle books (the fourth would be written later on), but they were canceled before production could begin.
 * The movie was primarily filmed in Hungary, with a minor part of the production taking place in Slovakia and a few scenes getting reshot in Vancouver, Canada.
 * In June 2021, Christopher Paolini tweeted #EragonRemake in order to get Disney, the rights holders for the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, to adapt the book series into a television show for Disney+.

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