Looking forward to someone making series based on the Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. A bit surprising, no one did it yet. It's IMHO a lot better than a Song of Ice and Fire for example, which for some reason became extremely popular in the film adaptation.
I'd love to take a crack at
The Wheel of Time. Or do something with R.A. Salvatore's work. The whole Drizzt Do'Urden saga is just begging to be made into a series of high-fantasy / action films.
Despite
@4RM3D being gone, I'll respond then get this back on how this may reflect on The Witcher series:
i.e. make it understandable and enjoyable for the current generation.
Yup. By which we automatically lose the lens that the piece was trying to create. It intent may be similar, but it's both virtually impossible for it to be the same, and completely impossible to for us to tell even if it is.
I understand now why I was conflicted. If you want to create a time piece, you need to highlight the differences of that period, either because it isn't clear to the viewer/reader or because you want to add weight to the given differences. For example, travelling during the Middle Ages was much slower and more difficult. Everyone knows that. But if your story is about the journey you might want to explicitly mention the aforementioned fact.
That's a fair example. Even more destructive is the evolution of language -- especially slang expression. Even worse is accepted social and cultural norms. Which can literally be the
opposite of the modern day, such as how "turning the other cheek" would be viewed by society. Suffice it to say such a scene would read extremely differently to someone in the A. Roman Empire, and vice versa, any such scenes written back then are prone to be horribly mis-interpreted by a modern audience.
The conflict arises when it's actually not a time piece but a piece from that time. Oh yes, that was one brilliant wordplay, if I say so myself. Certain things that were obvious then, might be lost to the viewer/reader now and need to be explained. You mentioned jokes, which rarely stand the test of time.
You can feel it, can you not, what's coming next? Then there are the time pieces from that piece of time. For example, when during the French Revolution a tragicomedy is performed about the Roman Empire.
I agree it goes both ways. On the one hand, you've got things happening for reasons that seem random or insane, and on the other, we've suddenly got kilts and stirrups in 1100 AD Scotland.
To get back to the point. If you want to make a story understandable and enjoyable for the current generation and culture, you need to change the context of the source material. However, this is only an issue if you want to remain authentic. A medieval tale made in 1960, will be different from one made in 2020 because people's viewpoints have changed (ignoring the technological advancements in recording). That doesn't mean it's more difficult now. It just means the feel of the movie has changed and certain aspects of said time are (more) noticeable.
Speaking of time, I am out of it. Gotta go.
It's like a great big game of "telephone", where one person whispers something to the next person in line. By the 20th person, whatever was originally said is often mangled beyond all recognition. And that's just 20 people.
Actively trying to get it
right. Oh...yeah...I'm sure we're so terribly accurate remembering what happened 1,000 years ago based on a few scraps of writing, a rusted weapon, and some pottery shards. Sure we are...
But I think the whole concept of The Witcher Universe, people's modern day contextual awareness of high-fantasy, and the industry's level of skill in dealing with it meaningfully and effectively (compared to fantasy movies in, say, the 1970s and '80s) mean that I would expect the creators of the series to be able to do a good job.
Now is definitely the time.
As for all the "tribulations" surrounding the show...well...that stuff isn't going to be a recognizable factor in 30 years' time. I think that Sapkowski's work has enough meat to stand on its own. I think the story has enough universality to survive and do well.