Netflix's The Witcher - Season 2

[Spockprime]

"This IP is popular, let's fundamentally change the setting and turn characters into something they are not"

Show gets cancelled.

"How did that happen?!"

And the saddest part is that Brooks was an executive producer on the series, making him at least partially directly responsible for the destruction of his literary achievement.

As far as I know, Sapkowski has no direct involvement in this project; although I suppose that he had to sign off on it, and is getting paid for it.

 

[Garrison72]

Netflix is like the Walmart of fantasy adaptations. There's dozens to choose from and they're all low quality. Sapkowski would have been better off going with any other company. They also have a tendency to sanitize 'problematic' source material. There's no way in hell they'll cover the darker side of the novels.

 

[Guest 3847602]

Good to hear. Maybe I'll do some binge watching tonight, since I'm taking a couple of days off.

To the Witcher folks who like the books / games, but are troubled by the deviations in the Netflix series: I understand completely. The departures are odd, and don't add anything positive, or even reduce confusion regarding missing background material, as far as I can figure. I'm the same way about Tolkien's work. I despise the Peter Jackson LoTR movies more than I can put into words without getting banned. I watched each of them once, and never will again, even if I'm at a friend's house and that's what they have on.

However, last year's episodes are somewhat entertaining as a stand alone loose derivative. Not great, but enough that it's worth watching, at least for me. I just think of it as a DC or Marvel Comics sort of thing: every character has at least a dozen different and conflicting story lines, which each have to be treated as a separate reality.

I've read all of LotR books before seeing the films, and yeah, it's far from perfect adaptation (Fellowship being the best of the lot), but based on what I've read about season 1, Peter Jackson's trilogy has got nothing on Netflix's Witcher when it comes to the changes and missing the point of source material. Like, not even close... Looks more like a fever dream of someone who read the synopsis online and decided to record their recollection of events while in delirium.

 

[incomingdamage]

Sorry to say that, but season 1 was absolutely awful. I don't expect much improvement in the second one and don't feel inclined to watch it.
Also, this is maybe not very popular opinion, but I hate Henry Cavill's performance, not Geralt I imagined at all.
But all this is rather subjective, so if some people enjoy the series, good for them

 

[Feline_Witcher]

If I understand correctly, some of the changes are because Netflix wants to take the series in a somewhat different direction than the books, and write their own independent stories for the Witcher world and its popular characters. This very understandably has some people who are fans of the books fired up. Those characters already have stories, and the way a lot of essential things in the lore of the world work are already established. The series is partially relying on those existing stories and lore for its current stories to make any sense, but is also altering them as it goes. That's a tough pill to swallow.

I've never really thought of this book to TV conversion as being like GoT. It seems to me more like the Shannara television conversion, which thankfully went up in flames. (sorry but not sorry Terry Brooks -- you shouldn't have sold your literary soul to MTV).

I think the Netflix version of the Witcher is vastly better than Shannara, but I'd be shocked if it ever achieves anything on the level of GoT acceptance. The scope is just too narrow, being focused around two or three characters, rather than an epic conflict in which the characters are mostly storytelling devices. However, I think Netflix is hoping for something big, and the changes are what they think will give their expanded story lines broader appeal. I'm skeptical, but I guess we'll see.

All that aside, I enjoyed the first season, and have read that the second season is better. So, I'm looking forward to it.

All I remember from the Shannara show is Manu Bennet playing some semi-cool warrior-wizard and a few softcore lesbian scenes lmao

 

[Hexipoo]

Netflix is like the Walmart of fantasy adaptations. There's dozens to choose from and they're all low quality. Sapkowski would have been better off going with any other company. They also have a tendency to sanitize 'problematic' source material. There's no way in hell they'll cover the darker side of the novels.

Ye there's a couple of scenes with Ciri and a certain Bounty Hunter I'm curious about what they gonna do with.

 

[DRK3]

I want to remind everyone the topic of this thread, which is in the title - The Witcher Season 2.

Please do not offtopic into other fantasy shows or talking about season 1 or what is in the books, or i will request a mod to start deleting those derailings.

Ive started watching ep.1 but was kicked out of the living room.
Also, its quite a sunny day here somehow, and watching dark shows during the day is awful, i will probably finish ep1 and see ep 2 at night, then i'll share my first impressions.


Also, you can expect the Gwent deck i promised centered around this series in a few hours.

 

[Pacifixer]

The 1st season wasn't that bad. If i remember corectly, the characters were mostly OK and the "big" story happened with reasonable changes.
What bothered me the most were the small changes - Geralt was meeting everyone for the first time, Vilge was a push-over at the end, the story with Renfri got totaly butchered, Brokilon . . . .
So i'm mildly optimistic about the second season. But if i see a dryad with a F-ING CROSSBOW again i will F-ing lose it!

 

[lelxrv]

Started watching the first episode and I'm not feeling it at all. It's just not "it". You read the books (especially first 4-5) or play the games and feel at home. Not the case here.

 

[Feline_Witcher]

Ye there's a couple of scenes with Ciri and a certain Bounty Hunter I'm curious about what they gonna do with.

The Rats-Bonhart affair is one of the first things that come to mind when thinking about the show adaptation. One of the most, if not the darkest, moments in the books, to which this show's style and aesthetics of choice simply can't do justice

Post automatically merged: Dec 17, 2021

The 1st season wasn't that bad. If i remember corectly, the characters were mostly OK and the "big" story happened with reasonable changes.
What bothered me the most were the small changes - Geralt was meeting everyone for the first time, Vilge was a push-over at the end, the story with Renfri got totaly butchered, Brokilon . . . .
So i'm mildly optimistic about the second season. But if i see a dryad with a F-ING CROSSBOW again i will F-ing lose it!

OMFG the only Butcher of Blaviken in this show was the writer who butchered Renfri... she was SO MUCH BETTER in the polish show

 

[ReptilePZ]

Well... I wanted to give the show a second chance after Season 1. And I did, but I don't think I'll be coming back to give it a third chance in Season 3. I also feel pretty safe skipping the spin-off/cartoons they have coming up.

Season 2 is better than Season 1 in terms of overall quality - the show, in my opinion, has gone from below average to average, source material and prduction quality perhaps pulling it up to above average - but it's even more clear to me now that Netflix has no intention of adapting the actual books, and I also don't feel that the team behind it understand what to do with them. I genuinely believe they just don't see a way to do a faithful adaptation that translates well and successfully to the screen, which is why they feel compelled to do what they do. A shame, as I feel like they've now wasted the material from 3 of the best books, aside from Baptism of Fire.

It seems to me like they'd still be able to stick closer to the books next season if they wanted, even after all the things they pull this season, but at this point I just no longer care if they end up doing that.

Still, I think the show does at least feel/look competent now, unlike last season's amateurish feel. I can see people enjoying it for what it is, at least.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

It was... entertaining. S2 seemed better compared to S1. It was more coherent overall. I couldn't find any glaring faults with the acting quality. Some of it was quite good. The actors playing Ciri, Fringilla and Jaskier stood out the most to me (their roles as defined within the show depiction of those characters). Monster behavior and visuals received a substantial upgrade. It can be a bit slow at times and perhaps rushed in others but nothing deal-breaking.

The events appear to deviate from the source material in a number of areas. My thoughts for S2 are exactly as they were for S1 here. So long as it's entertaining and manages to capture elements fitting the source material it gets a pseudo-pass. In general I would say the show achieves this. It's not perfect. It's better or worse in specific areas. It isn't really off the rails at a conceptual level though.

Others might take issue with the deviations. Some arguably do go a bit too far. I didn't like some of the choices in those areas but understand the motivation behind it.

Spoiler: Not Important But Maybe a Spoiler

It was slightly amusing hearing a certain character use the words scrotum and Nilfgaard together in a sentence at a specific moment. I wondered if the S1 feedback on the Nilfgaard armor had influence there.

 

[BigWezz69]

Ok but why tho.


Machiavellian, not brutal for the sake of brutality. It's better to crush your enemies in a short war than drag it out. You'll spare lives in the long run and deter opposition and uprising.

It's what all "great" conquerors have done in history. From the days of Assyrians to Alexander, Caesar, Attila, Genghis and the like.

Slaughtering a city full of civilian's is not the same as destroying an army in the field ..

And just because its happened before in real life does not mean that its the correct thing to do. Because if it was, then it would not have to keep getting done

The wholesale slaughter/genocide of a people is not a victory, nor does it guarantee peace

 

[Spockprime]

I'm not very far into season 2 yet. However, my general impression so far is that anyone who was disturbed by the changes in season 1 probably will be very unhappy with season 2.

 

[Vaultmaster2000]

I never read the books, but am a big game fan (particularly Witcher 3). I found the first season a bit disappointing, but it was still watchable. In a way It filled in a lot of background info to the games, although I'm not sure how accurate to the books it was. I think the biggest 'flop' for me was Yennefer! However I will definitely watch season 2.

 

[Feline_Witcher]

Okay, whose idea was to give Geralt an armor that looks like fetish gear?

 

[Hexipoo]

Slaughtering a city full of civilian's is not the same as destroying an army in the field ..

And just because its happened before in real life does not mean that its the correct thing to do. Because if it was, then it would not have to keep getting done

The wholesale slaughter/genocide of a people is not a victory, nor does it guarantee peace

I wasn't trying to justify it, just give a reason why some choose to wage war that way.

There's a famous quote that I can't remem who said it: "You create a wasteland and call it peace"

It's famous what Mongols would do. They would send an emissary to a city and say that they can either surrender or all be killed. Cities whose leaders refused were completely eradicated, even the animals were killed.

Romans had a custom that if you surrendered before the ram hit the gates, you would be spared. If not, oh well.

The point is, that when it comes to warfare, brutality towards the losing side was expected until VERY recently, and you can't single out a nation as "evil" for doing something everyone does.

Post automatically merged: Dec 18, 2021

although I'm not sure how accurate to the books it was.

It wasn't.

 

[lelxrv]

Geralt's outfit from season 3:

 

[Feline_Witcher]

Geralt's outfit from season 3:

Season 4: dog mask?

 

[Hexipoo]

Geralt's outfit from season 3:

He's also gonna sleep in a box.