Eragon - Book vs. Movie

So if you've been following my blog, Twitter or Goodreads updates recently you'd have noticed that I've been preparing for the upcoming release of the fourth and final Inheritance book, creatively called Inheritance.

(Click image for Goodreads description)

I read Eragon, then Eldest, then Brisinger. Then I had the bright idea to go watch the movie. 

Mistake. 

It just served to piss me off again. Never, ever have I watched a movie as horrible as Eragon. On it's own, without the book to compare it to, the movie would have been okay. Compared to the book? It was repulsive. ALMOST NOTHING was the same. They so utterly and completely ruined the movie that there's no way any true fan of the books could ever bring themselves to watch the next movie (although I don't think they're actually making Eldest into a movie - correct me if I'm wrong on that though).

The movie gets so much wrong I'm left to wonder if the writers even read the book, or just skimmed through the pages picking up a few bits of random info. It's not even just the little things, it's the big, important things that you'd think they'd actually try to get right. I ended up making a list of everything they forgot or changed too badly. The list got long, fast. In the effort of saving time, and actually being able to go to bed at a decent hour, I'm going to shorten it a bit, and just write what I think are the biggest problems.

- First off, Eragon is 15 in the book, 17 in the movie. It's a simple thing, and there's actually no real point with changing his age. 

- Arya is NOT A REDHEAD. I get that the characters can't look exactly like I picture in the book, but Arya's hair is dark. Not red. 

- In the movie, Galbatorix knows exactly who the new Rider is, right off the bat. In the book, he doesn't until Eragon and Brom start causing trouble all over the place.

-The Ra'zac are just... not right.

- Garrow didn't die in the house, like the movie says. He was alive when Eragon found him, so Eragon and Saphira took him to town. In the movie, the three never went to town, instead Brom met them rat the farm.

- In the movie, they speed up Saphira's growth up way too much, and make her name herself.

-  The mark on Eragon's hand was way different. They didn't even bother to try to make it the same.

- Katrina wasn't even in the movie. WTF? 

- The Urgals looked too human. 

- The whole Eragon-meets-Angela scene took place in Teirm, not Daret. And it was too changed. Angels looked funny. In fact, Eragon and Brom never even went to Teirm in the movie. They never met Joed, Eragon never learned to read, or where the Ra'zac lived.

- Arya was almost always shown wearing dresses. Not something she often did in the book.

- The Ra'zac never attacked them in the woods - Urgals did though.

- In the books, the Ra'zac didn't die until the third book. For some reason, Brom and Eragon both killed one in the movie. 

- Durza wasn't responsible for Eragon's Arya dreams, that was something Arya did accidentally.

 - Brom died too differerntly, and at the wrong time.

- Murtagh showed up during the Arya rescue in the movie, and before that, during Brom's death during the book. 

- Eragon was never captured in the movie.

- Arya was unconscious during the book, and mostly conscious during the movie. 

- Durza didn't kill Brom, the Ra'zac did. 

- Murtagh wasn't what I pictured - at ALL!

- Murtagh seemed almost too eager to go to the Varden in the movie, where in the book he didn't want to go at all. 

- They ditched the horses. :(

- What happened to traveling through the desert for days? 

- The Twins. I don't remember them in the movie.

- There's like, no dwarves in the movie. Not even Orik or the dwarf King.

- In the movie, Murtagh confides in Eragon the truth of his father. In the book, Eragon doesn't know this until Ajihad tells him. 

- Murtagh's scar was just... wrong. 

-The never let Murtagh out to fight in the battle, instead they kept him locked up - in the middle of the freakin' battle! - and he didn't get out until Eragon rescued him.

-Nasuada just was not what I pictures. At all. 

- Furthern Dur sucked.

 - Eragon never blessed Elva.

- Saphira breathed fire too soon.

- There were soldiers in the battle against Furthern Dur. Not in the book there wasn't!

- Durza didn't appear until the end of the battle, not right in the beginning. Furthermore, WTF was he riding on? 

- Eragon never got the scar on his back. 

- Saphira and Arya never broke that sapphire thinger. 

-Arya didn't leave for Elesmera until the second book, and she left with Eragon, not alone. PLUS, the movie ended with her leaving, but the book ended just after Eragon's chat with "The Cripple That Is Whole". 

Some of these things I can see leaving our or changing a bit because it would make the movie too long, but some of these things are important!!! With the Ra'zac now dead, who's going to kidnap Katrina and destroy Carvahall? But wait... She's not even in the movie!If Orik and the dwarves are gone, what's going to happen during battle when they're outnumbered? Or when Eragon goes back to Furthern Dur in book 3 to help choose a new king? Is that (rather big) portion of the book just going to get cut out? 

They changed too much, making the movie horrible, and making it almost impossible to make a second or third movie. 

Eragon (the movie) is the reason why I'm always a little nervous to see a book-made-into-a-movie. I'm always wondering if it's going to be as bad as Eragon was. No matter how good the movie actually is, I'm always comparing it to the book. And no matter how good the movie actually is, it will never be better than the book. Not in my book anyway!