Netflix just released a new Netflix Original TV series based on the The Witcher book series by Andrzej Sapkowski.
The Witcher is played by Henry Cavill (Superman in DC universe movies) where Yennifer is played by Anya Chalotra a new actress first working on a TV series in 2018.
The series is eight (8) one hour episodes which I watched binged over the course of the last few days.
The Witcher is an eight book series but is also well known from the The Witcher video game by CD Projekt (which is excellent by the way).
The Witcher is based on adventures Geralt of Rivia, a mutant monster hunter known as a Witcher. A Witcher is someone who taken as a child and brutally trained in combat and magical arts. While a Witcher is able to cast a few spells known as signs, they are heavily trained in alchemy and use potions to enhance their combat ability.
I have not read the books, but the show seems to follow the games pretty well. There are a few things I didn't like that prevent me from rating it a AAA. In the games The Witcher depends on using signs to protect himself during combat, there is rarely a fight you do not at least use Quen (a personal shield) spell. In the show, The Witcher rarely uses signs which really irks me. He is seen using a sign in some of the larger fights, but for the most part he doesn't use them. Signs are a really big part of the game and I assume equally so in the books. They would also be a really good opportunity for cool effects and scenes. Quen surrounds The Witcher in a orange translucent circle (shield) and has a large shattering sound when it is broken.
The series does show The Witcher using the Aard sign, which is a telekinetic blast that throws victims a few feet. The Witcher is also able to shoot fire with the Igni sign, create a protection circle ward with Yrden sign, and finally the Axii sign that is able to force an enemy to fight for you temporarily. These signs would be really fun to watch using Hollywood magic. Unfortunately there isn't much of this in the first season.
Another thing that disturbed me is The Witcher's medallion is frequently used to warn the Witcher of near by magic, curses, and creatures. In the show, there was really no significance displayed by the medallion. The medallion in the show also looks a lot different than what is portrayed in the game and the books.
I do like the show a lot, and would normally give it a five star or AAA rating, but these things bother me a lot. There are also a few other things like the casting for Triss and Yennefer and the shows direction.
I really don't want to see the show turn into a Monster of the Week show either. I refer to shows as Monster of the Week when they have a new enemy each episode but very little story development. It doesn't literally mean monster (although that fits for The Witcher series) but any enemy introduced in an episode. A lot of detective shows I refer to Monster of the Week and I lose interest fast as I like story development. The Witcher has the potential of falling into this category but the first 8 episodes showed some good story development.
I highly recommend the show, but I am a bit disappointed so far.
Trailer
Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/71912-the-witcher?language=en-US
Critic: AA
All images are from IMDb
Read the books! :-D
I plan to, but I was thinking about the audio book version.
In Polish :-D
I wouldn't get past the cover.
You watching the series?
Slowly :-)
I was going to do a rating on this show as I am bout 4 episodes in. Haven't read the books, nor do I game, but so far the only thing really going for it are the fight sequences. It does look good, but a lot of the acting is sub par (I think Cavill is pretty good in the role). The worst thing however is that the dialogue is atrociously written and clumsy. I don't see it lasting, but then it also seems targeted toward millenials, and they have no taste.
I will keep watching it because there are so few episodes and the seasons are so far apart, and the fight scenes are decent.
Yup, I'm about to watch 5th episode and I heard that the plot is going to be thicker since then.
I didn't play the game much, but I read all the books in the original language because I'm Polish.
Funny thing is that in my humble opinion the dialogs are the strongest selling point of novels and saga. Word fights between witcher and villains or his friends are as fast and tight as sword fights. A scathing and incisive (often offensive and hurtful ) replies are flying around and you just wanna clap your hands and scream "Burn!" all the time :)
I don't know about English translation, sometimes it is hard to translate idioms and wordplays from one language to another.
At this point, I'm like dudes who read Tolkien before the movies. I'll be never satisfied.
Anyway.
Episodes of tv series are getting better and better from the first one. Henry Cavill is veryveryvery ok. Joey Batey as Jaskier is cool. The rest... meh++. But fingers crossed, hope for better in the rest.
No idea about the books, but the dialogue is not great, and timing of delivery seems off. Hopefully it gets better - if not, there is hopefully some good fight choreography. :)
The dialog could use a lot of work I got to agree with that, there are a lot of things I am not a fan of. If the game wasn't so damn good I would seriously question if I would keep watching. The show makes the story very difficult to follow, you will notice this in a couple episodes.
The game (and I assume the books) is heavily based on the broody Witcher fighting monsters, playing a timely secret weapon to kings, and lots of sex.
The Witcher tends to be the smartest, strongest, ethical man in the room.
The story in the games gets really fascinating.
When I try to get people to check out The Witcher game, I always send them this video.
This was the intro video for the second Witcher game which is almost 10 years old now. The third one is even better.
The show has a lot of potential but it does make the story pretty hard to follow.
It is hard for them in so few episodes so far to get the space of time feel, I think. I was hoping something that had the initial draw of GoT , but it hasn't so far, but it doesn't mean it won't in time to come as characters and plot develop.
I remember seeing the trailer for the game re-release, but I have never really been into those kinds of games and I was on the way out of gaming at the time. One day, I might take it up again.
$trdo
Played the game (but not quite finished it) and listened to all the unabridged audiobooks.. they are fantastic and not to be missed.
I heard about this series but havent picked up on it yet.
I am planning on going through the books. The game and it's story is fantastic.
For a season 1, I thought the show did a pretty good job. Some of the cast like Triss didn't convince though. I'm glad they were monsters and some humor. It did feel a little rushed. Season 1 was just intro so season 2 should be better on paper. We'll have to wait and see.
I've heard if you don't read the books it gets a little hard to follow as the time jumps around quite a bit, but some of the characters don't age or age really slowly, so it makes it hard to understand what "time" you're in if you're not paying close attention.
I was thinking about that after I wrote this, if you haven't read the books or played the games, the way they set up the first season it has to be super confusing due to the lack of character development.
The flashback in season one is very confusing.
I never played "The Witcher" but i think is so cool! I want to watch this :P
Just watched the whole season and to be hinest its kinda dissapointing. I was waiting for him to meet that girl for fuckig 7 episodes and its nothing to be bragged about. However, i think upcoming season might be better, at least i hope so
I am pretty disappointed as well but I still enjoy it a lot.
In my opinion, they didn't spend enough time on character development and introducing the audience to what a witcher is and what they went through.
Anyone who hasn't read the books or played the games are likely completely lost. Especially the interesting dynamic that binds the three people.
That's exactly what I think as well. Let's hope the next season brings more story with better directing. I want it to be good because I just loved the games.
One small interesting thing that made me laugh was the line "you made a choice, but you will never know it was the right one".
If you played any of the games, you will know that every time you choose a path you can never be sure if it was the good one.
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I watched 5 episodes so far. Sometimes its kinda slow when the focus moves away from Gerrald towards Yenifer and especially Ciri. Overall pretty cool and I'm enjoying it a lot.
One episode bothered me when Yennefer was fighting side by side with Geralt... using swords!? WTH she's a powerful mage, why didn't she use her magic to kick everybody's ass? As much as I would like to love this show, I find it somewhat lacking in consistency and logic on many occasions.
She learned how to fight. She can’t use magic (chaos) all the time as it is very limited.
A quote by Yennefer from the last episode: "We're mages, damn powerful ones."
I didn’t like how she went from not knowing anything to all of a sudden knowing all spells.
The timeline was flakey. There was 10 year jump between two episodes at some point, so it rushed through what could have happened (learning spells etc..). Also, I liked her better when she was humble and weak, then she turned powerful, beautiful and worst of all, arrogant. The arrogance was a turn off for me, that's when I realized their script was sliding.
If you played the game, that's how she is. The way they both are and their background defined their characters works really well to make their interactions interesting.
I like the game Yennefer way better in so many ways, same with Triss.
I hear the TV series is closer to the books than the game.
Recommend watching this video: