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August 2006 Alagaësia Newsletter
Kvetha Fricaya! Greetings Friends!
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.
After my visit to the studio, I went to the offices of Vivendi, the company
behind the Eragon video games. To be precise, Vivendi is distributing the games,
while Stormfront Studios (Lord of the Rings games) is the company that actually
developed them. The people who work there have some of the best jobs in the
world.
As I count it, four-and-a-half Eragon games are developed. There’s an action
adventure game for consoles and PC, a dragon flight combat game for the PSP, and
a different RPG for the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance respectively. The half
I mentioned comes from the fact that the Xbox 360 version of the main console/PC
game not only has beefed up graphics, but two new levels that further explore
the world of the book. One level even has the Kull in it! To my delight, the
game designers made the Kull look almost exactly as I originally imagined them,
horns and all. Even though I invented them, I have to admit that the sheer size
of the Kull surprised me. I knew they were big, but to actually see one next to
Eragon . . . Wow!
Given that I haven’t played the games from start to finish, what I did see was
exciting. Controlling a computer-generated version of an actor portraying the
character of Eragon or Brom or Murtagh in a video game based upon a movie
adaptation of a book I wrote . . . is certainly one of the most surreal and
weirdly enjoyable experiences of my life. You can run around and hack-and-slash
things, and if you press the right buttons, Eragon shoots a magic arrow and
shouts, “Brisingr!”. Very cool.
I next drove to San Diego to speak and sign books at Comic-Con International:
San Diego, one of the largest science fiction and fantasy conventions in the
world. For those of you who have never attended Comic-Con International before,
here’s a brief description: Imagine a large, modern, multistory convention
center designed to hold about seventy thousand people. Over a hundred thousand
people show up. Some wear clothes you see every day on the street and in the
office. Others dress in black leather and plastic or skin-tight unitards or
Stormtrooper armor or large gold wings or strange contraptions that make
avant-garde fashion appear dowdy or, quite often, almost nothing at all. A wall
of heat, humidity, sound, and moving bodies hits you as soon as you set foot on
the convention floor. Display booths are everywhere: large, loud, blinking,
flashing, moving, crawling. Costumes . . . movies . . . games . . . comics,
cartoons, graphic novels, and manga everywhere. Swords everywhere. And if you
love even some of this stuff, your head feels as if it’s about to explode from
the amount of input.
Before my events began, I visited the Vivendi booth and spent some more time
playing the PS2 Eragon game. How could I not? At Comic-Con? I’m still grinning
from the memory.
My speaking event was structured as an interview, with renowned author Peter
Beagle asking me questions on writing, fantasy, and what it means to be an
author. Peter is a wonderful person: wise, generous, and full of stories. It was
an honor to meet him, and I’m glad he agreed to do the event with me. The
highlight of it came when a thirteen-year-old girl stood up, said it was her
birthday, and asked if I would sing her Happy Birthday! Fortunately, everyone
else joined in and helped me out.
Peter is an amazing writer, an icon of the fantasy genre. Some of his books
include The Last Unicorn, The Inkeeper’s Song, and his most recent, The Line
Between. His plots and prose occupy that magical place between waking life and
sleep, between reality and dreams. If you’re interested in checking out his work
go to conlanpress.com (click on Books).
After the interview, I signed copies of my books. I love signings because it’s
an opportunity for me to meet my readers face-to-face. Some of the stories I
hear are remarkable. One man told me he had flown from London, just to get his
book signed!
As soon as the last person came through the line, I was whisked into a taxi, off
to the airport, and onto a plane only minutes before a flight attendant closed
the hatch.
That was my California adventure. It was a hectic trip, but I had a great time.
Still, as much as I enjoyed it, the only thing that matters now is Book III. It
looms above me like a giant mountain. Every page is a step forward, and while
many steps lie behind me, my journey to the summit is not yet over.
May your swords stay sharp,
Christopher Paolini
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