Eragon

Younger audiences might better appreciate another boy who discovers he has an important life mission to accomplish in the animated film The Sword and the Stone. Older viewers can watch similar epic adventures of good vs. evil in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

If you thought the dragon in this movie was big, just wait until you see the size of the bonus materials on the Two-Disc Special Edition of Eragon. Disc 1 offers the movie and an audio commentary by director Stefen Fangmeier—and is all you will get if you opt for the single disc DVD release of Eragon, being sold in either wide or full screen presentations.

But if you go for the double disc alternative, you will find a fan’s fantasyland of extras designed like a map of the magical world of Alagaësia. Visit Carvahall and you’ll find featurettes about the Inheritance Trilogy to which the novel Eragon belongs, The Storyteller’s Scroll (focusing on turning the novel into a screenplay), Realizing Alagaësia (a look at storyboards, locations, scouting and character design), The Destined Roles (casting the actors), From Carvahall to Farthen Dur (behind-the-scenes footage during film production), Hatching The Dragon (the CGI process of creating the dragons), Just The Beginning (a peak at what’s next in the series) and the Random House Digital Novel where you can enjoy the first two chapters of Eldest, the second novel from the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini. Go to Daret and you can peruse the character profiles of The Inhabitants Alagaësia, or Gil’ead where you can watch seven extended / deleted scenes (with optional commentary by director Stefen Fangmeier). In Urubaen you can meet author Christopher Paolini during an interview, in Farthen-Dur you can learn The Secrets of Alagaësia‘s visual effects, and at The Spine you can see The Vision of Eragon (Arya’s Ambush Original Animatic Sequence, with optional commentary by director Stefen Fangmeier) plus some conceptual art. Teirm provides a pronunciation guide as well as some original and lost storyboards, the Hadarac Desert features Saphira’s Animation Guide (with commentary by director Stefen Fangmeier), and the Beor Mountains will let you Become the Dragon Rider (with a video game test drive). Of course, you also get the promotional trailers. The movie’s audio tracks are available in English (Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround) and Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), with subtitles in English and Spanish.