08.25.06
Eragon movie - may not be that much like the book
I recently received this email. You read it. Does it sound like the movie is not that close to the book? We get the Alagacia News emailed to us. It’s written by Paolini.
News! Last month, I traveled to Los Angeles and visited Fox studios, where I met some of the many people involved with the Eragon movie.
I also got to watch clips of the film itself. It was both strange and exciting to see images based on something I wrote! The teaser trailer Fox showed me contained only brief glimpses of the world and characters, although a dragon is always memorable, no matter how fleeting her appearance. The other sequences I saw were in various stages of completion—with rough CGI and temporary music—but even so, I got a pretty good idea of how the scenes will play in the final version of the movie. Based on the footage I saw, Jeremy Irons makes an excellent Brom. He and Ed Speleers (Eragon) seem to interact very well, with the sort of old-wolf, young-wolf dynamic the story requires.
I learned that the reason Fox made certain changes to the book was to produce a movie that looks and feels as real as possible. For example, in the novel, I describe Saphira as having sapphire-blue scales. When they applied this color to her on-screen form, however, she looked cartoonish. So after much testing, they settled on a leathery-blue skin tone, which makes her appear more like a living creature. And I saw how, bit-by-bit, computer animators are bringing Saphira to life. Fox is pushing the boundaries of current technology. The time needed to create her is so great that work is now divided between ILM, in California, and WETA, in New Zealand.
As with every book-to-movie adaptation, the filmmakers have their own vision of the story. I learned that hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been and are working on Eragon. I look forward to seeing more, to get a better idea of how the plot flows and the characters interact. The way I think about it is that Eragon provided the inspiration for the movie, but that they are separate works with their own unique attributes. I find it fascinating to see how other people interpret the land of Alagaësia. It’s like seeing my own dreams reflected back to me through a thousand different prisms.
August 26, 2006 at 8:31 pm
What a great opportunity for Paolini. His story is so inspirational and I love to hear how he’s continuing to succeed with his dreams. Amazingly, I’ve not yet read the book (though my boys have). I must get to it before that movie comes out!
August 27, 2006 at 10:48 am
Wow! What an amazing experience for this young man. I haven’t read the book yet, but I know what you mean. When I love a book, it’s hard for me to watch a movie that’s not faithful to the original material. By the way, my ds’s birthday is coming up and I’m looking for some directions for a dragon cake I nicked off someone’s blog. Was that you?
August 28, 2006 at 8:17 pm
I did do it. But I got it from Kixque. http://thehouseofus.blogspot.com/
She has the link to the formal directions, though she may have posted in my comments somewhere. I found them somewhat confusing about the head, but just took what I had and played with it until it worked.
I did add the wings. They were melting chocolate poured onto waxpaper (underwhich I had drawn an outline of what I wanted) and then cooled in the freezer until just before the party.
kixque said,
August 29, 2006 at 7:46 am
So THAT’S how you got the wings. For the head, I just used two cupcakes and a triangle piece left from one of the cuttings. BTW, he loved seeing pictures of your Saphira cake, esp. now that we are well into the book.