So I've read GoT books, and watched the series. Up til the end, it captured everything perfectly. The less said about the final series of GoT the better, it was an absolute shower and I'm undergoing therapy to erase it from my mind.
I've also read some Witcher books, and watched some of the series. My comments:
- Ludicrously long amount of time on the Yennefer backstory. She is important, of course, but only marginally more than Triss, for example. She should have been considerably worse looking, as should ALL of the coven - that's almost the entire point. One of them looked exactly the same, but with noticeably bigger breasts, as if a magical boob job was all she needed.
- Yennefer isn't anywhere near powerful or strong enough. I - and CDPR, I would wager - paint Yennefer as a Kate Beckinsale type, statuesque and formidable. The girl in it is just not filling the screen, I don't get how any casting would put her up as the lead.
- Triss is appallingly cast. I'm not racist by any stretch, but I just can't agree with the hugely accurate manifestation of Geralt, yet Triss - known for her flaming red hair and beauty - looks like that. No disrespect to the actress playing her, but just no.
- Cavill as the Witcher is great. Only Viggo Mortensen could do better, but he's already Aragorn, so this works well. The constant "hmph" nod to the Witcher 3 game is subtle and well represented.
- Ciri is also pretty good. I've been watching the BBC's adaption of "His Dark Materials" and the lead actress playing Lyra is awful, so it's good to see that children can actually act.
- The other players aren't great; Dandelion, Jaskier, i'm not sure about. He's again supposed to be a lothario but the casting puts him as a bit of a foolish sidekick. Filavandrel was very uninspiring, as was Eithne.
- Budget seems a bit limited, half hearted perhaps, from Netflix. Compare it to GoT or Stranger Things. Perhaps they wanted to gauge the success first before attempting to do more.
- Screenplay is tough. The books deliberately shy away from the monster killing in favour of the politics, so a straight-to-screen would be dull. However, I think the Witcher for the screen could've been a lot more interesting than the books. More flashbacks to Geralt's start in life would help. More monsters (why not?). Perhaps merge the imagery of the game alongside the tale of the books.
All in all, a solid attempt. Probably 7/10, but then GoT took a little while to get going.