Daniel Gonzalez // Blog Writer
So imagine this: you’re a 3rd grade bookworm. You devour any book you come across, from the children’s series of Henry and Mudge to the five Harry Potter books. You’ve discovered a fascination with the vampire bunny, Bunnicula, and somehow made your way through the Butt Wars series backwards (somewhat fitting, really).
Reading has opened an entirely new world for you. The simple Disney fairytales your young mind has been exposed to so far have done little to sate your appetite for a good story, and your DVD collection was nothing compared to the massive library in your closet.
Around this time you discover a particularly dull-looking book. Always seeking a challenge, you pick it up, as all the hardest books in the library are the most boring-looking ones. You don’t expect to enjoy it based on what you see, but of course at this point you hadn’t learned the expression “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The cover is a deep blue, with a detailed drawing of a dragon staring at the reader. Underneath it, the word “Eragon” is spelled out in a font that you will later describe as reminding you of runes. The book is thick, flipping through it you notice one of the page numbers: 624. 624! By far the largest book you have seen to date.
If you can’t tell yet, we’re talking about me, not you. Eragon is one of my favorite books of all time. It’s what brought me into the world of fantasy. I had never read a story about elves, dwarves, dragons, and magic before—well, untrue, but those were more along the lines of Peter Pan and DragonTales. This is what fantasy was supposed to be.
Now, don’t get me wrong. This novel was written by a 15 year old who was first selling manuscripts outside of his local supermarket (talk about determination!). It doesn’t have masterful writing. I didn’t read this thinking “Wow now there is some excellent symbolism” or anything like that. But what it lacks in technique, it makes up for in its world. The book is about a young farm boy named Eragon who finds a dragon egg and goes on this incredible adventure through Alagaesia to free the land from the tyrannical King Galbatorix. It was an epic story with interesting characters and plot twists that 3rd grade me could not possibly see coming. The story goes on for another 3 books, and I have to say they were all equally as amazing. It was actually this series that motivated me to write more fantasy stories.
Now, imagine my elation when I discovered they were making a movie. Other than Harry Potter, I had never gotten to see a book come alive on a movie screen, so I was pretty excited to see the epic battles and awesome depth that came with this book. I could not overhype this movie enough. I was running around telling my friends (who, of course, didn’t care, because “Who reads?” right?) and excitedly counting down the days until the movie came out.
When we got to the theater, my brother and I (he had read the book as well) sat down in the best seats with an ungodly amount of popcorn and twitched with anticipation as the previews played, when finally, the lights dimmed and it began.
That may have been the biggest disappointment of my life.
I’m not a film guy. There’s a reason I’m at Emerson as a Writing, Literature, and Publishing major and not a film major. But even I can tell a bad movie when I see one. And this one was absolute trash. I’m sure there’s worse out there, but in comparison to what the book was, this movie was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. From terrible acting to cheap effects, I could not wrap my head around this movie. What had gone wrong?
One of the main problems with this movie was that they had changed the plot around, for reasons I’ll never understand, and it was different to the point that it could no longer follow the source material if they decided to make more movies. This was one of my first experiences with a movie adaptation from a book, and it set my expectations very low for years to come.
The book is good. I promise. Everyone should read the book. But never, ever watch the movie.