Honestly, what the movie portrayed was a far better ending (again, in my opinion) than the book. There was actually Dragon Rider action! Saphira got to have agency in the battle, not be a set piece to make Eragon look good! Durza got to be far more badass than he was in the book. And it showed Eragon actually giving a damn about Saphira’s well-being to the point that he risked his own life to save hers, even after having been told earlier in the movie that it was far better to just let your dragon die to than die yourself, because if you died, your dragon died, but if your dragon died, then you could keep on living. In the book, Eragon barely gives her two thoughts except to snipe at her and treat her like a disco ball ride-share with wings.
Eragon in the movie was a stupid brat and an obnoxious jerk, but he was still way better than his book counterpart.
Arya is one of the most important characters in the series
Then why did she completely disappear for most of Brisingr?
Arya’s character in the books is much richer and more complex than the movie’s version of her.
LOL. Random personality transplants is not how you do a complex and layered character, my dude. Arya might as well have been split up into three or four different characters who take her role at different times in the "story" while eliminating Arya herself. She's a completely useless character in the sense that she only exists at all to be the "love interest" and has no important defining role outside of that.
I mean think about it. We start out with some elves carrying Saphira's egg and they get ambushed. Two die and the third teleports her egg away before being captured. Now imagine the following: having done so, the nameless elf is also killed (or kills herself to avoid being made to betray her allies to Durza, which would open up some interesting questions in the reader's mind - what was so important that she chose death over being captured? Or is Durza just THAT evil and cruel?).
The plot proper then kicks off with Eragon finding the egg, and from that point forward what actually changes? No plot side-track of rescuing Arya and no subsequently carrying her floppy carcass around. Eragon doesn't know the way to the Varden? But Saphira does! She remembers it from all her time being shuffled back and forth from the place in her egg.
Book two happens with no Arya. What changes?
Absolutely fuck all, other than now there's no creepy forced attempt at a love subplot, so therefore we don't see Eragon acting like a stalker.
Book three happens with no Arya. What changes?
Again, absolutely fuck all. Have Saphira be the one who goes back to look for him, under an invisibility spell cast by the elves. No boring dawdling around the countryside, and hopefully no Eragon murdering an unarmed prisoner in cold blood bullshit.
Book four happens with no Arya. What changes?
More absolutely fuck-all. She does nothing important in this book, and becoming Queen/a Rider doesn't count because it has no relevance to the plot and doesn't happen until the last minute.
My vote: reassign most of the few things Arya actually does to Saphira. It would certainly do a lot to combat the OTHER elephant in the room.
Despite being a dragon who can’t physically speak, Saphira is vivid and layered in the books, something the film completely failed to capture.
...which is of course that Saphira barely gets any meaningful screentime. As you pointed out, she never actually protects Eragon (and most of the time he does nothing to protect her in return other than casting a few FUCKING WARDS on her, which comes at no personal risk). They don't act like friends, and Saphira is ultimately rendered just as pointless a character as Arya is, if not more so.
It's supposed to be a "boy and his dragon" story, so the focus should have been placed on them as the two most important characters and their relationship with each other. But it's not. Instead the focus is placed on Eragon and how amazing and special and important he is while he whines his way between various shiny power-ups and then whines the villain to death while Saphira is relegated to the background.
Another scene that jumps out at me is the scene where Brom is telling Eragon the consequences of a Rider’s dragon dying or vice versa, and there’s a very nice, tense moment where Eragon looks up at Saphira, she looks back at him, and then she has to repeat what Brom says, ruining the impact of the realization that if the Rider dies, the dragon dies too.
Or there's the other option, which the Nostalgia Critic very intelligently put forward: make Saphira a non-speaking character. Or even make her non-sapient for that matter. Let her be a mute if intelligent creature who only communicates through feelings and urges and such. That way you'd have at least some justification in reducing her to Eragon's pet/warhorse.
I think it felt like the “creative minds” were fans of Star Wars and they were getting their digs in at the sameness.
There's no way in hell those shots lifted right out of Star Wars and LoTR weren't 100% intentional, and I'm calling spite too. It just made the blatant ripoffs even more painfully obvious, and boy did critics pick up on it. I laughed so hard. Book reviewers and fans had for the most part insisted upon turning a blind eye, but the movie critics were having none of it.
But the movie then goes on to show that Galbatorix’s influence on Alagaësia is evil by having two of his guards go after Brom for hunting. It then gets rid of the Roran subplot by removing him and Katrina entirely.
Both decisions I very much agreed with. The people in Carp Hat are actually made to look poor and miserable with soldiers bullying them and appropriating food while dragging their sons away to be conscripted and never seen again. And Roran leaving to avoid the same fate is a MUCH better way to begin his book two subplot as a fugitive from the Empire.
Mind you, the bit where Brom starts spouting anti Galby propaganda and the soldiers threaten him only to instantly back down just because Eragon yelled at them is still completely stupid. They should have kicked the crap out of the pair of them.
4) Eragon’s Budget Was Too Low To Do The Fictional World Justice
This is true... but only up to a point. A clever and creative film crew know how to cut corners without it showing on the screen. For example, Citizen Kane was made on a budget which did not allow for depicting the mansion of a fabulously wealthy man. So Orson Welles and his crew compensated by using all sorts of tricks to make rooms look way bigger than they actually were, and so on (look it up; it's a fascinating story).
Bad filmmakers, on the other hand, when handed a lot of money, usually end up squandering it by making stupid decisions (see: the making of Cleopatra)
So no - merely having a lot of money at their disposal won't automatically change anything.
Here, let me fix that first sentence for you. “Eragon’s upcoming TV show in Disney+ can outperform the movie for several reasons, but chief among them is that the writers can take more time to adapt the script and decide what needs to be included and what needs to be deleted in order to make the show cohesive and entertaining”. I really don’t think having Chris participate on any level is going to get this show out of development hell
Fuck yes followed by fuck no. Back before the movie came out I thought it might actually be good because if someone who actually knows what the hell they're doing redeveloped it they could so easily turn it into a fun pulpy adventure story about a boy and his dragon friend fighting monsters and joining a rebellion against Darth Galby. They could have toned down the stolen elements and the lame attempts at being "grand" and "profound" and leaned into the popcorn entertainment aspect. But they didn't, and if you ask me that's what really killed the movie.
Nor will attempt number two work if they give Paolini any serious creative control. The guy's a pompous ass who thinks he knows better than his editors and cannot tell the difference between "plot" and "random irrelevant crap that doesn't go anywhere". Or the difference between an objectively admirable and heroic character and a pathetic, nasty little asshole either, for that matter.
no subject
Eragon in the movie was a stupid brat and an obnoxious jerk, but he was still way better than his book counterpart.
Then why did she completely disappear for most of Brisingr?
LOL. Random personality transplants is not how you do a complex and layered character, my dude. Arya might as well have been split up into three or four different characters who take her role at different times in the "story" while eliminating Arya herself. She's a completely useless character in the sense that she only exists at all to be the "love interest" and has no important defining role outside of that.
I mean think about it. We start out with some elves carrying Saphira's egg and they get ambushed. Two die and the third teleports her egg away before being captured. Now imagine the following: having done so, the nameless elf is also killed (or kills herself to avoid being made to betray her allies to Durza, which would open up some interesting questions in the reader's mind - what was so important that she chose death over being captured? Or is Durza just THAT evil and cruel?).
The plot proper then kicks off with Eragon finding the egg, and from that point forward what actually changes? No plot side-track of rescuing Arya and no subsequently carrying her floppy carcass around. Eragon doesn't know the way to the Varden? But Saphira does! She remembers it from all her time being shuffled back and forth from the place in her egg.
Book two happens with no Arya. What changes?
Absolutely fuck all, other than now there's no creepy forced attempt at a love subplot, so therefore we don't see Eragon acting like a stalker.
Book three happens with no Arya. What changes?
Again, absolutely fuck all. Have Saphira be the one who goes back to look for him, under an invisibility spell cast by the elves. No boring dawdling around the countryside, and hopefully no Eragon murdering an unarmed prisoner in cold blood bullshit.
Book four happens with no Arya. What changes?
More absolutely fuck-all. She does nothing important in this book, and becoming Queen/a Rider doesn't count because it has no relevance to the plot and doesn't happen until the last minute.
My vote: reassign most of the few things Arya actually does to Saphira. It would certainly do a lot to combat the OTHER elephant in the room.
...which is of course that Saphira barely gets any meaningful screentime. As you pointed out, she never actually protects Eragon (and most of the time he does nothing to protect her in return other than casting a few FUCKING WARDS on her, which comes at no personal risk). They don't act like friends, and Saphira is ultimately rendered just as pointless a character as Arya is, if not more so.
It's supposed to be a "boy and his dragon" story, so the focus should have been placed on them as the two most important characters and their relationship with each other. But it's not. Instead the focus is placed on Eragon and how amazing and special and important he is while he whines his way between various shiny power-ups and then whines the villain to death while Saphira is relegated to the background.
Or there's the other option, which the Nostalgia Critic very intelligently put forward: make Saphira a non-speaking character. Or even make her non-sapient for that matter. Let her be a mute if intelligent creature who only communicates through feelings and urges and such. That way you'd have at least some justification in reducing her to Eragon's pet/warhorse.
There's no way in hell those shots lifted right out of Star Wars and LoTR weren't 100% intentional, and I'm calling spite too. It just made the blatant ripoffs even more painfully obvious, and boy did critics pick up on it. I laughed so hard. Book reviewers and fans had for the most part insisted upon turning a blind eye, but the movie critics were having none of it.
Both decisions I very much agreed with. The people in Carp Hat are actually made to look poor and miserable with soldiers bullying them and appropriating food while dragging their sons away to be conscripted and never seen again. And Roran leaving to avoid the same fate is a MUCH better way to begin his book two subplot as a fugitive from the Empire.
Mind you, the bit where Brom starts spouting anti Galby propaganda and the soldiers threaten him only to instantly back down just because Eragon yelled at them is still completely stupid. They should have kicked the crap out of the pair of them.
This is true... but only up to a point. A clever and creative film crew know how to cut corners without it showing on the screen. For example, Citizen Kane was made on a budget which did not allow for depicting the mansion of a fabulously wealthy man. So Orson Welles and his crew compensated by using all sorts of tricks to make rooms look way bigger than they actually were, and so on (look it up; it's a fascinating story).
Bad filmmakers, on the other hand, when handed a lot of money, usually end up squandering it by making stupid decisions (see: the making of Cleopatra)
So no - merely having a lot of money at their disposal won't automatically change anything.
Fuck yes followed by fuck no. Back before the movie came out I thought it might actually be good because if someone who actually knows what the hell they're doing redeveloped it they could so easily turn it into a fun pulpy adventure story about a boy and his dragon friend fighting monsters and joining a rebellion against Darth Galby. They could have toned down the stolen elements and the lame attempts at being "grand" and "profound" and leaned into the popcorn entertainment aspect. But they didn't, and if you ask me that's what really killed the movie.
Nor will attempt number two work if they give Paolini any serious creative control. The guy's a pompous ass who thinks he knows better than his editors and cannot tell the difference between "plot" and "random irrelevant crap that doesn't go anywhere". Or the difference between an objectively admirable and heroic character and a pathetic, nasty little asshole either, for that matter.