Eragon (DVD)

**Synopsis**

Christopher Paolini, the author of Eragon, drew on classic fantasy throughout the ages to produce a fairly standard coming of age fantasy story. A young boy (Eragon) discovers a mysterious stone, that turns out to be a dragon’s egg. His life is changed when he discovers he has a destiny to fulfil, reigniting the legends of dragon riders, and fighting a malevolent enemy whose intent is to destroy all dragons and their riders. From initial tragedy, we see Eragon travel through a ruthless world as he seeks answers to his heritage and his talents; his journey is beset with danger, but with his trusty Dragon he begins to discover his own immense powers.

**The Movie**

First of all, with any book that is transferred to a movie, you always lose something in the transformation. While the movie does stay fairly faithful to the original book, there is a whole section missing. In the book we see Eragon build a relationship with his dragon over time (and several chapters); this is an important part of the book as it defines the link between the two and shows the depth of connection they have. The movie glosses over this part in a five minute segment that almost spoiled the movie for me. To see a baby dragon suddenly become a full grown dragon in an instant was very annoying.

Having said that, the plot of the movie was pretty much the same as the book and flowed very well. Having read the book it’s hard to me to say if the plot of the movie was easy to follow for a newcomer, but I suspect it was.

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