Eragon Deserves Justice

Eragon Deserves Justice “The greatest enemy is one that has nothing to lose.” This quote is one of the many notable ones in the book Eragon, written by Christopher Paolini. The book was published in 2001, followed by the movie in 2006. The book is well written for the age of the author, but the movie is horribly adapted and barely follows the bare bones of the storyline given in the book itself. The Eragon movie is awful because it lacks major elements and events, has many unnecessary additions, and atrocious casting. The movie lacks major elements in multiple ways. In the book, an important part of the final battle – and the book series further down the line- is the shattering of the Star Sapphire, which is completely ignored in the movie.

The bad acting caused incorrect characterizations where the characters’ personalities mattered most. Arya, a key character, was altered so greatly from the book that it was difficult for me to discern that it was her and not a random sit-in. In the book, Arya is stoic, closed off, and obviously quite cold, compared to the movie, where she is very flouncy, blond, and fits the “damsel in distress” trope. Durza, the enemy, acts very strangely throughout the movie as well. He should be somewhat more menacing and angry, like in the book, rather than acting very creepy. He is immensely powerful in the books, and uses that to his advantage, but flaunts it very uncharacteristically in the movie in order to throw off the main character. One may describe him as a puppeteer of sorts. The actors cast in the movie don’t look like the book describes the characters. The only actor that really did well was the man who played Brom. Brom in the movie is a very important character, as he is the man who trains Eragon. In the book he dies to the same creatures that killed Eragon’s uncle, though to save time, he dies to Durza instead. His burial is also on top of a mountain instead of in a cave like it should have