Era-gay?
The troops were gathered last night (the Pants, Ernie, Anthony, L and myself) to march on the local $2 theater to see an abysmal movie adapted from an even more abysmal book, or in short, Eragon.
Not that we have anything against dragons or dragon movies. (Quite the contrary, actually. Just ask the Pants for her opinion of Reign of Fire, if you don't believe me.) No, what we took issue with was a teenage boy becoming a bestselling sensation by blatantly cribbing The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and then turning that trash into multi-million dollar movie. I can only fathom that the books and movie have done as well as they have because they are purely the product of a pubescent boy's wet dream of having power and respect without having to earn it. Either that, or a Faustian bargain with El Diablo himself.
The movie was predictably bad and not even a particularly memorable mashup of LotR and SW. Saphira (a terribly original name for a blue dragon, I must admit) was very striking on screen (and darn cute as a baby), but it was sad to see her play the part of a whiny teenage boy's bitch. (Speaking of adolescence, what was up with her rapid growth spurt? I guess there was no time in the film to spend making us actually want to care for these characters.) I also enjoyed Emo Kid, as he was the one interesting human character, which must've been the reason they decided not to do much with his character?
I am hoping beyond hope that a movie adaptation of Temeraire will redeem the dragon film genre, as I love those series of novels. If there is any justice left in the world, Peter Jackson will do for that series what he did for Lord of the Rings. In the meantime, there's not much to do but continue pissing on the sad, sad pile of Eragon until it fades into obscurity (where it should have remained in the first place).
(Please note, the title of this post is not intended to be offensive to those of a homosexual orientation. It merely is intended to capture the homo-erotic undercurrents that seemed to suffuse the entire film.)
Comments
Was it "Saphira"? I'd thought I was hearing "Sephirah" (a much more interesting, if not boastful, name; though I should have known better than to give that much credit). She was a pretty odd-looking dragon. But at least not as butt-ugly as on the book covers.
Ah, well. It was fun to go see it for the mock factor!
Smoothly re-hashed fiction feels good. Like drinking soda without remembering what all that sugar does to your teeth. Frankly, people just want to feel good.
Face it, sickeningly copied as it is, the story is an upper. Unrealistic, feckless, underdeveloped. I can't say that I gave a damn about any of the zillion characters. I missed Bilbo (the Tolkien character). It's generic fantasy at it's least inspiring. Where's the edge of reality that makes fantasy worthwhile?
[Thank you for hating it too!]