The Witcher (Netflix)

[MT 917]

 

[Tassifox 418]

Having no knowledge of the Witcher stuff period. Looks visually beautiful. And interesting.

[Vic Boss 612]

I feel like this is gonna get trashed because it's not GoT

[Mera'din 308]

Having read the books I was worried about the direction they might go with this, but I was really impressed when I saw this yesterday. I recognized a lot of what was going on, it looks like they expanded on story points that were only mentioned in the books and I only saw a couple things that look like they may have been changed/added that I wasn't sure of the purpose for. Looking forward to it.

[webhead 519]

Looks cool.  Still haven't played the games yet.  Good chance I'll watch this series before I actually manage to do that.

[Mera'din 308]

That would honestly probably work out. This is supposed to follow the book, and all the games take place after the books ended. XD

 

One plus for this too is apparently Henry Cavill is a huge fan of the games and has been pushing for this to be made for a while so he's super into it. One of the actresses too, after she auditioned, ended up reading all the books (had only heard of the games before then) and got super into it as well. 

 

Kind of wonder where it's going to be set during the story though because stuff shown in the trailer is from all over the damn place. Like, scenes that would have been from near the beginning of the books, and one from the end of the last book (or at least one that looks like it would be from that part) along with stuff that would have happened even before the books were set. Wondering if it jumps around a bit or does a lot of flashbacks and stuff or how they're going to do this. Seems like they're skipping the earliest books (which were just a bunch of short stories put together into books) at first but will maybe use them for flashbacks since some of the stories are super important later on. Seems like they're going for the bigger "epic" storyline right off to hook people. The short stories would be perfect for a TV show setting, but there's not a lot of cohesion to them at first so it's probably a smart move.

[Mogwai 6]

If you look at the casting lists, it really looks like it's going to be all over the place, too. My guess is we start off with the Butcher of Blaviken and Nennekes place. I wouldn't be terribly shocked if the "present" is Nenneke's and everything is flashback. 

 

They're clearly expanding Yens backstory, so it makes sense that Last Wish will be in there. We saw Brokilon so we know that's there. Child of destiny is in it so I'm sure Duny and Pavetta is there. Might as well shove in the other Ciri story. You can tie up the short stories with a nice little bow if it's really just Geralt and Yen at Nenneke's telling stories to us. 

[MT 917]

 

[Revolver 27]

I was a little worried after some of the first looks but that trailer was awesome

[Mera'din 308]

Really happy with everything visually that I've seen. Definitely looking forward to Dec. 20th.

[webhead 519]

I did not realize how soon this thing was coming.

[Blackjak 57]

1) Watched it all and loved it.

 

2) It didn't hit me until a day later. But I knew I knew the actor that plays Jaskier (The Bard) from somewhere... and it hit me. It's because I actually know him (Well, have met, at the very least). And gotten rather shitfaced with him.   Every year Cambridge University does a tour in America performing Shakespeare and they often stop at my alma mater because we're awesome like that. He was part of the 2009 production that rolled through. When they come through, we watch their show, then us theater students throw a big ass party that's usually shut down by the cops where there's US v UK drinking games and flirting and all that fun stuff. I spent a lot of that night on a patio a group of us having drinks, smokes (regular and weed), and singing together while one of us played an acoustic (Jason Mraz "I'm Yours" was played a lot).... Don't recall if Joey was apart of that particular group or not, as it was 10 years ago... but we definitely have partied together.  

[Mera'din 308]

That is awesome. I'm 5 episodes in and it is everything I could have wanted from a Witcher series. The casting is damn near PERFECT. You can tell Cavill really enjoys the role and wanted to do it right. Probably my ONLY complaint and it stems less from how I view it and more with how I anticipate others may view it is the haphazard time skipping they're doing. Episodes have subsequent scenes that are set DECADES apart and it's constantly jumping back and forth between present, distant past, and semi-distant past with no indication of it unless you're paying attention which is probably going to annoy and confuse people that don't really know much about what they're watching. For anyone who doesn't know the series well and plans to watch it: Anything with Ciri is essentially "current" time. Assume everything else is the past (more or less) possibly excepting a couple things with Geralt.

 

It was hard enough to tell that at first I thought maybe they just completely squished all the events together instead of stretching them over 80+ years of time like Lord of the Rings did, but then it became clear that was not the case. It's a bit jarring even knowing everything. Other than that it's relatively accurate to the books. Only a few things I noticed that they took liberties with but they clearly care about the source material even then. I'm actually a little surprised they stuck with Jaskier's original name though. Even the English translations of the books renamed him Dandelion and anyone familiar with the games knows him by that name as well. 

 

I'm ultimately happy they did the time jumping thing though since it means they could adapt some of my favorite short stories. The fact that they were able to do "A Question of Price" and "The Last Wish" made me unbelievably happy. Seems like they don't plan on rushing this either so they'll have time to really do the story justice if it keeps getting renewed. Should be able to get a solid 4-6 seasons out of it depending on how they do it.

[Tassifox 418]

I very much approve  of this
 

 

[Mera'din 308]

Thank god. Someone finally did a good one. This is the 4th "metal cover" I've seen for the song and all the others were not that great. Was hoping Skar Productions would do one finally so there would be a good one floating around, but this will work.

 

Forgot to post again after I finished the season. Overall I was really happy with it. Only part that bothered me that much was the Battle of Sodden Hill. They kind of butchered that whole thing and it was gimped pretty hard. Wondering if it wasn't a budget issue honestly because it was kind of blah compared to what I was expecting after the rest of the series. X_x

 

With the attention the show is receiving though, they'll hopefully have a nicer budget going forward.

[Vic Boss 612]

Two episodes in, finally got around to it with the simul-watch buddy

 

Holy shit, that attention to detail and casting

 

I haven't played the third game, only heard of Yennefer, I didn't realize she was the hunchback girl at first, "oh shit"ed when they said her name

[Vic Boss 612]

Episode 8.

 

Dick fucking move

[webhead 519]

Just finished episode 3.  I haven't played any of the games yet so I'm going in blind.  It has been interesting so far.

[Mera'din 308]

Probably better that way honestly. All of it happens before the games, and there are a few details (especially from Witcher 3) that would spoil some things.