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Netflix The Witcher Discussion

Almost stopped watching after the flashback episode about Ciri's hedgehog dad and law of surprises. Just felt so corny like a Lifetime movie or something.
 

GreyHorace

Member
Almost stopped watching after the flashback episode about Ciri's hedgehog dad and law of surprises. Just felt so corny like a Lifetime movie or something.
It's exactly (well almost) the same story as in the book. Give or take a few plot tweaks, it follows the short story A Question of Price faithfully.

And I'd hardly call it a Lifetime movie, given that some of the horrible stuff happens later in the books because Geralt in his stupidity demanded his reward by the Law of Surprise.

Cls22LB.gif
 

RAL1992

Member
should i watch this?

i never played witcher, although i own witcher 3. it looks good but im just wondering if i should play through the game first then come back and watch the series or if it doesnt matter.

Personally I'd recommended that you play the witcher 3 first, It will give you more context about the world and the characters as it crosses over but my missus is loving it regardless despite knowing nothing of the lore, so play the game if you have the time to spare I suppose 🤷‍♂️
 

Nobody_Important

“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
should i watch this?

i never played witcher, although i own witcher 3. it looks good but im just wondering if i should play through the game first then come back and watch the series or if it doesnt matter.
Read the books. You will get alot more context if you read the books. And since the show is based on the books you will have a better understanding of the story direction as well as having the benefit of knowing who is who.


Unless you are just wanting to be completely surprised by the show in which case he play the Witcher games.
 
I've turned around on the actress that plays Yennefer, she really pulled off the ballroom scene in episode 3. Dandelion and Assire Var Anaheid were also excellently casted.

Calanthe and Triss did not really work for me, Calanthe was an old woman when Cintra fell with white hair. Calanthe was the "Lioness of Cintra" a fierce old woman who took shit from no one.

Ep3 discuss though.
That transformation scene was grueling, but excellently done with Geralts fight against the Striga.

Also good lord with the gratuitous nudity. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
 
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Contica

Unconfirmed Member
I wish whoever mixed this knew what the hell they were doing. I had to put subs on cause I can hardly make out a single word. There's been a fair bit of inaudible stuff lately, but this is a new low.
 

Keihart

Member
I wish whoever mixed this knew what the hell they were doing. I had to put subs on cause I can hardly make out a single word. There's been a fair bit of inaudible stuff lately, but this is a new low.
594329.jpg

Your avatar makes want to rip my eyes and erase my memory.
 
Three episodes in.

Its alright.

Cavill really tries to be game Geralt and while one could anticipate it to feel forced... it works and is kind of endearing even.

I admit I chuckled at that 'choices matter' ending of the pilot ep.

The scripts are a bit over the place though and in terms of special effects it is sadly too low budget.

Worst parts until now are without a doubt Triss cast and that starter.
 
I ended up not liking the show because of how they kept jumping between the past present and future. I started getting bored at the dragon, although there we highlights after. Loved yennefer in more ways than one.
 
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Larogue

Member
Not really digging it. Also the story is hard to follow as someone who never read the books (Unlike GoT and how nicely they introduced us to the world in S1). Stopped after episode 3.
 
I was lost in Ep 4. I had to google on what's going on that episode.....only to find out that Geralt's, Ciri's and Yennefer's story, they are not in the same timeline....that's pretty new in term movie story-telling wise
 
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iorek21

Member
Just finished it...

It’s good, but eps 7 and 8 are underwhelming IMO.

Geralt doesn’t really has much to do and Yennefer taking the spotlight didn’t appease to me.

Also, I think that this, being the first season, should’ve developed the world in a better way, this seemed like a collection of adventures barely connected to each other.

Overall, I think it set a decent start, here’s hoping for a better paced Season 2.
 
I've seen two episodes. First was incredible and really made me want to go back to playing The Witcher. The sword fights were unbelievable. Amazing how in one episode they surpassed any sword fights that ever happened in GoT.

Episode 2 was awful though and I hate it more the more I think about it. Geralt was barely in it, and when he was, it was bad. He is made to look like an idiot who gets caught by random elves and is at their mercy? It's just terrible.

And he's saying that devils don't exist, well his whole thing is fighting monsters! So is the show instead going to be about a bunch of misunderstandings between humans and elves like this? Oh he's not a devil, he just looks different. The whole thing just made me worried about what the rest of the show will be.
 

Mahadev

Member
How does Netflix manage to make most of its shows so generic and bland? Do they have clauses in their contracts to always create lowest common denominator mediocrities or are they incapable of choosing decent show runners? The writing on the fourth episode is fucking atrocious, I don't care how it was written in the book but the adaptation in the show is incomprehensible and ridiculously cheesy. The two leads carried the show but my God it's so underwhelming.

And btw CGI is supposed to be discreet and used cleverly not to draw attention to it something that Game of thrones did very well, can't say the same for this show. Monsters get a pass because it's difficult to make them look realistic but when even your backrounds often look fake and videogame-y it means you suck at your job. Netflix for the love of God please step up your game.
 
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finowns

Member
Watched the first episode and it was quite the info dump too many names and places. That said watching this they have something here but I don’t trust Netflix to do anything with it. Also have some problems with the way the period feels it’s not quite right and the random token minority is cringe.
 

Corrik

Member
I thought the show was awesome. It wasn't perfect and does Triss' casting choice totally fail. But, I liked it a lot. Yennifer is amazing. Perfect cast. Henry is great as Geralt. In episode 3 it should dawn on you that there is multiple timelines going on. And, I felt this was worked well actually. Some will get turned off by it because they fail to pay attention to what is going on, but it provides incentive to do a rewatch to those who couldn't figure it out. I don't think not holding your hand regarding it should be a fair complaint.

The transition in Yen is quite remarkable through the show. While the show doesn't have a real overarching big bad, it was a good first season for exploring the characters and getting to know who they are before shit really starts to hit.

Hopefully Triss can undergo another transformation tho lol.
 
Finished the show today, enjoyed it, they did a good job adapting the first book, but damn Yennefer is just miscast, that actress is trying her best to be arrogant and commanding but I'm not buying it for a second, a shame that they made such a huge miss on that department. I even don't mind Triss, Ciri is perfect in my opinion and as much as I doubted Cavil, he was really good by the end of the whole show. Looking forward to season 2.
 
I would be OK with the Triss casting choice if she was actually a capable mage and had a personality that fit the books/game better. That lame attempt at creating a tree branch barrier and then getting burned by a torch was anti-climatic as fuck.
 

gatti-man

Member
Binge watched the whole season.

I didn't like the first episode. But it got far better after ep2 when they introduced Yennifer and some other good characters.

Yennifer is the star of this show. Not Geralt. He was good but not good enough to keep me watching or carry the show on his own. But the actresses playing Yen killed it.

The weakest main character is Ciri. Really need to be improved for the next season. Or swapped for another actress.
Agreed. Yen balled out and episode 8 was fantastic for her. Cavil Is consistently good but I also think that’s the script not giving him a ton to work with.
 

finowns

Member
Finished it. I liked it overall but they could have really hit it out of the park given all the source material but they didn’t. Cavil was way better than I thought. Geralt and the bard were my favorite characters. Yennefer was given really lousy writing and the acting seemed forced; I rolled my eyes at her complaining about how tough women have it, everyone has it bad in a medieval setting and she was born a hunchback so she knows this. Now I want to play the game.
 

ruvikx

Banned
I hate everything about it except Cavill and Ciri.

It's cheap. It's amateurish. It's embarassing.

It looks very cheap. I don't know what Cavill is doing in this (considering his filmography & stature, i.e. even The Tudors comes across as way, way more expensive in terms of production values). Oh & Triss is a very bad joke & something I have very little patience for (aka some twisted little troglodyte extremist weirdo in the casting department laughing whilst shitting all over a beautiful white character).
 

gatti-man

Member
It looks very cheap. I don't know what Cavill is doing in this (considering his filmography & stature, i.e. even The Tudors comes across as way, way more expensive in terms of production values). Oh & Triss is a very bad joke & something I have very little patience for (aka some twisted little troglodyte extremist weirdo in the casting department laughing whilst shitting all over a beautiful white character).
Cavill played the games and wanted to do it. Cavill has been a gamer for 10+ years afaik. Although the money might have been huge too who knows. Cavill isn’t as big a star as you would think.
 

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
Cavill wanted this role really bad. Dude deserves praise for his Geralt. Its obviously a rendition of the game version as well.

I hate sjws as much as the next guy but this show was pretty mild in that department. The women in this show act like second wave feminists (the good kind) and not third wave feminists (the screeching kind). Most strong "normal" women these days act the way the women in this show act. My wife liked Yennifer a lot and thought the show was good. She knew nothing about it prior.
 
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Just finished it on Christmas Eve. Overall I really enjoyed it and can’t wait for season 2. I do hope Netflix increases the budget or gets more talent in SFX because it was kind of on the cheap side. Also really didn’t like what they did with Triss. The actress is just not that good and they make her very lame in the show and Triss is like my favorite side character from the games.

7/10 for me
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I hate everything about it except Cavill and Ciri.

It's cheap. It's amateurish. It's embarassing.
Man people are really spoiled nowadays. For a TV show I think this looks amazing, it wasn't so long ago that fantasy shows were pretty much people in cheap rubber suits in a polystyrene and cardboard set. Now we get full scale movie level productions. I mean I didn't see anything that looked worse than some of the terrible CGI in that Black Panther fight and that was a Marvel blockbuster. Or the Cavill potato face in Justice League for that matter.
My only complaint so far is the lack of pointers for the time switches, it can get a little confusing knowing 'when' we are in the story.
Also, every Cavill 'fuck' has been gold so far.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
You got used to mediocrity.
Nah. For every GoT level of production show there are ten or twenty CW level productions. I don't see anything in the Witcher that ruins my suspension of disbelief.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
On episode 6. I think the Ciri story is suffering by the writers trying to jam in several short stories worth of material in tiny segments in between Geralt's portions, stories that included Geralt and other characters, but instead they've been replaced here. As a book reader it's jarring.

But overall the show is still really good.

Edit: also, the story for this, episode 6, was way better in the books. It's kind of a shame they changed it so much here. I get they have to abridge things in an adaptation and make concessions for budget reasons, but they radically altered some of the best parts of the story.
 
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I'm not 100% thrilled with Triss's casting, but hopefully they can at least invent a bullshit reason for her to get her signature fire-red hair in a later season. All in all it's a minor gripe that's not going to color my enjoyment of the series. I hope from time to time they can CG Cavill's eyes into cat's pupils (fun fact, Geralt's eyes actually look like the series' Geralt's eyes most of the time, he can contract them into cat's eyes to see better in the dark and doesn't want to tox up for perfect night-vision).

Spoilers for the horrible, horrible scrotal armor of the Nilfgaardians.
The sack of Cintra was done by the order of The Usurper. By the time in the plot that Emporer Emhyr takes back the throne hopefully the showrunners will spring for proper Nilfgaardian armor, putting in some bullshit about how they are returning to tradition or something.

All in all I loved the show, fuck the critics and the triggered.
 
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DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
I like the casting. I agree on Triss being a little off, but she wasn't terrible, and I didn't read the books so I don't know if she was closer to the book. I liked it. I thought some of Ciri's stuff got a little dull and some of Geralt's early quests felt formulaic, but once it all came together it continued to get better.
 
I like the casting. I agree on Triss being a little off, but she wasn't terrible, and I didn't read the books so I don't know if she was closer to the book. I liked it. I thought some of Ciri's stuff got a little dull and some of Geralt's early quests felt formulaic, but once it all came together it continued to get better.

You're not wrong, I'm about quarter-way through the "1st" book, which along with the 2nd is a prequel collection of short stories that as far as I understand is all of the 'Gerald' storyline from the 1st season of the show. I've gotten through the Striga plotline in the books (which made me think I bought them out of order, as apparently the 'Butcher of Blavikan' story takes place later in the books). If that story is an example there are certain points changes, certain characters combined, etc. to make it flow better for a film, but they all end up in the same place.

As far as I understand the 2nd season will start a little way's into the 'official' 1st book, 3rd book for us Americans. I'll be able to confirm in a few weeks after I catch up, as I just bought the whole damn series with saved up Audible credits. Just remember that just about everything you saw from Geralt in season 1 was adapted from short-story anthologies.
 

lock2k

Banned
Loved the show. Cast was spot on. Great stuff. Can't wait to see more.

Also, Yennefer is fucking hot.
 
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