I'm not a stickler for lore, and I've clashed with hardcore book fans in the past on these very forums, but I got annoyed watching this series. The jumbled timeline added confusion and didn't help. I get that you have to adapt and cram the stories into a 1 hour episode format, but I didn't like the unnecessary changes.
If anyone is thinking about watching this series to better understand the games, I would advise against it. The deviations from the source material will lead to confusion. Just read the books. Then if you must, watch the Netflix series.
It's obvious the show doesn't have an HBO Game of Thrones budget as some armor and sets look phony. I'm not trying to bash the show for its budget. You have to work with what you have. At the same time, I've seen more convincing armor in cosplay. The Nilfgaard armor is so bad.
I coudn't bring myself to accept the Netflix versions of Yennefer, Triss, Foltest, and Fringilla. Anya Chalotra (Yennefer) is beautiful and has a nice rack, but all the gratuitous nudity in the world could not win me over.
Cavill's Geralt is decent. I liked the fight scene in the first episode. They did a good job creating a dark fantasy look with most of the scenery without overdoing it.
I give it a 5/10
side note: CDPR's Witcher music is superior.
It's too bad CDPR wasn't creating this series
If anyone is thinking about watching this series to better understand the games, I would advise against it. The deviations from the source material will lead to confusion. Just read the books. Then if you must, watch the Netflix series.
It's obvious the show doesn't have an HBO Game of Thrones budget as some armor and sets look phony. I'm not trying to bash the show for its budget. You have to work with what you have. At the same time, I've seen more convincing armor in cosplay. The Nilfgaard armor is so bad.
I coudn't bring myself to accept the Netflix versions of Yennefer, Triss, Foltest, and Fringilla. Anya Chalotra (Yennefer) is beautiful and has a nice rack, but all the gratuitous nudity in the world could not win me over.
Cavill's Geralt is decent. I liked the fight scene in the first episode. They did a good job creating a dark fantasy look with most of the scenery without overdoing it.
I give it a 5/10
side note: CDPR's Witcher music is superior.
It's too bad CDPR wasn't creating this series
Yes, that's what I'd recommend. Read the books first, then watch the series. It's actually quite enjoyable in that fashion, once you are past the initial discomfort of deviations from the original.
I think Anya Chalotra plays very well, she is a great fit for the role.
Soundtrack is good, but I agree, it's not exactly CDPR grade. Still, it blends well.
More like blands (sorry, could not resist
), but sound effects and ambient sounds I found to be top notch.Watched through E4 and it just solidified my opinion that the storytelling is discombobulated. Also the Geralt/Yen scene was not written well (the theme of the entire show, actually). Actors tried, but it was just not written well. Did not find it convincing.
One more thing I need to point is after two episodes of Yen being with crooked face, when she got her fix... I still see her face as crooked. It's really disturbing (or I am wrong in my head).
Decided to return to the show next weekend, to watch with my girlfriend, cause if I watch it alone, I find myself spreading my attention to stuff like clicking on sites or forums or whatever. One thing she said to me is (as we watched E1 together and she had to leave for a week so we decided to watch it separately): "If I need you to explain to me what is actually going on, it means someone did not do their job".
That's totally intended though, so they did the job the way they wanted. Not everyone would like it naturally. That's why I'd seriously recommend reading the books before watching.
Dude... I didn't need to read the books for GoT to know what is going on. This is not excuse - what it is is a sign of bad writing, plain and simple. Then there's the fact that the director could do a better job while cutting the scenes, you know, directing the episodes. There are a lot of cut offs that make zero sense and take you out of the show. What THAT is, is a sign of bad directing. It's even more glaring when you've actually watched shows or movies with good or competent screenplay and/or directing.
I wouldn't compare. Witcher is literary more complex and deep as well. And not just because it has many names and places. It's just overall on different level. Serious work shouldn't shun complexity. But it comes at the cost of newcomers having hard time with adaptation.
Still haven't read the GoT books and have no intention to do so, but even from the series - you've got be kidding, trolling, or being a fanboy here.
If you didn't read, what are you comparing then? Compare the source material. Series creators didn't take the stories out of thin air, they are basing them on the sources. And they work with what they have. Witcher is more complex, and especially with short stories is harder to adapt. I actually quite like that they didn't try to make every thing easy to understand, because that would have lowered the quality of the series.
TL;DR: not everyone should like it. If you want to understand things better, read the books first.
I'd really like to hear how Witcher is more complex than GoT (only books ofc).
IMO it was watchable but it didn't really capture the feel of the Witcher world for me. It focused way too much on mages and magic in general, spending too much time in Yennefer's POV and backstory. Half of the episodes felt like a darker version of Harry Potter, when the story building should be more centered around the eyes of Geralt as a witcher. The structure of the plot is a mess, with different timelines and constant flashbacks, many things happening at once in the first episode with characters dying in it, who then reappear at the next ones... That was weird to watch. I can't imagine how someone unfamiliar with the Witcher world can really understand what's going on. Also, some key moments to Geralt's character development shown in the show such as Renfri, the Striga, the dragon hunt and his sympathy for nonhuman races didn't hit me emotionally as they really should. Cavill was believable as Geralt, Yen and Ciri were ok but the rest of the cast were mostly hit and miss. Mediocre CGI, VFX and costumes I can forgive but in short, this show is crippled mainly by bad acting / casting and writing.
I enjoyed more the older TV adaptation of the Witcher, which is called the Hexer. It's a polish production which was very low budget but the stories were more coherent and overall it was a more faithful adaptation to the world of the witcher.
I enjoyed more the older TV adaptation of the Witcher, which is called the Hexer. It's a polish production which was very low budget but the stories were more coherent and overall it was a more faithful adaptation to the world of the witcher.
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All this talk and none of you have even mentioned Roach! How can you overlook that pure vision of equine beauty? That shiny brown coat and those soulful eyes... They picked the perfect mare for the role!
Well... technically (not in this thread and about one of the trailers rather than the series itself):
I'm happy to hear her actress does her character justice.
I've read both. Game of Thrones has a larger and more complex plot, though the Witcher series probably has more complex and subtle themes. Both have entire subplots that are only 1/4 explained and the rest left to the reader to sort out.
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.
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.
Yennefer is a much more important character in the books than Triss. Triss is a relatively minor character.
Triss is really only a major character in the game series.
This.
Although I agree with nedders on the casting being mostly totally wrong. Triss was never known in the books for "flaming red hair". Can't remember that line.
Keep in mind that Game Triss is also completely wrong.
I'm not a Yen warrior but I've got to agree here. Geralt, Ciri, Yen and Dandelion are the four main character of the books - in that order.
There's a reason Geralt, Ciri and Yen are only ones remaining at the end of the assault on Strygga Castle, and find Dandelion on the way back from the assault. They're the main cast.
I don't know why people are saying you can't just follow the book roadmap? Because if you read the books it's easy to follow?
And while you can dumb down plotline or plot threads and remove minor characters, GoT did it for the TV series. You really shouldn't completely changed plotline and characters just for the sake of changes especially if the (remake) is worse then the original.
And while you can dumb down plotline or plot threads and remove minor characters, GoT did it for the TV series. You really shouldn't completely changed plotline and characters just for the sake of changes especially if the (remake) is worse then the original.