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The Witcher on Netflix.


Macklunkey

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5 hours ago, David Selig said:

What is "slavic looking" anyway? I am from a supposedly Slavic country and I have no idea what's that supposed to mean. 

And the books take place in a secondary fantasy world which isn't medieval Poland or even mostly based on Polish mythology or history anyway. 

 

4 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

Yeah, I'm Polish and I have no idea what "slavic looking" looks like. :) Blond hair, blue eyes? Plenty of Poles look like that. Black or brown hair, brown eyes? Sure, myself included. Red hair, green eyes? Be my guest. Dark blonde, grey eyes? Plenty. And so on.

 

3 hours ago, red snow said:

Good to hear from people with some authority on the matter! I think "slavish-looking" is either being used by people with limited understanding of Slavic people or is just being used as short hand for the narrow view of "not African/Asian etc"

Yeah just using what I have seen people online (on other websites) saying about the Witcher who didn’t like the idea of the possible ciri casting - I don’t know what it means either 

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1 hour ago, Theda Baratheon said:

 

 

Yeah just using what I have seen people online (on other websites) saying about the Witcher who didn’t like the idea of the possible ciri casting - I don’t know what it means either 

The PR side of the show definitely needs to get the casting out of the way and giving people other details to scrutinize. I guess it's the rub with adapting a popular franchise, people will find out and discuss every little detail

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It's probably not a look thing for representation from Slavic culture, but more that an actor from that region, who has the natural accent of that region and is known to the population there is in the show. It's about time Hollywood (including TV) stopped casting British and American actors and using generic east European accent.

As for dark skinned people playing elves, haven't we had "dark elves" in pop culture for decades now? It's about time "dark elves" weren't just the evil elves and they are just part of elvish diversity. Would still be cool for dark-skinned elves to have platinum grey hair.

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1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It's probably not a look thing for representation from Slavic culture, but more that an actor from that region, who has the natural accent of that region and is known to the population there is in the show. It's about time Hollywood (including TV) stopped casting British and American actors and using generic east European accent.

As for dark skinned people playing elves, haven't we had "dark elves" in pop culture for decades now? It's about time "dark elves" weren't just the evil elves and they are just part of elvish diversity. Would still be cool for dark-skinned elves to have platinum grey hair.

I've heard it said that one of the reasons we've never gotten a Drizzt movie is because of the headaches caused by that very issue (as exemplified by the D&D episode of Community). I mean Drizzt is a hero, but every other single dark elf we meet is a homicidal maniac, apart from Jarlaxle who is a magnificent bastard but still a villain.

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2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It's probably not a look thing for representation from Slavic culture, but more that an actor from that region, who has the natural accent of that region and is known to the population there is in the show. It's about time Hollywood (including TV) stopped casting British and American actors and using generic east European accent.

As for dark skinned people playing elves, haven't we had "dark elves" in pop culture for decades now? It's about time "dark elves" weren't just the evil elves and they are just part of elvish diversity. Would still be cool for dark-skinned elves to have platinum grey hair.

What do you mean by this?  The show's in English right?  So you mean speaking English with the right Slavic accent?  Which brings up -- which slavic language English accent?  According to wiki:

Quote

 

The Slavic languages are divided intro three subgroups: East, West, and South, which together constitute more than twenty languages. Of these, ten have at least one million speakers and official status as the national languages of the countries in which they are predominantly spoken: Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian (of the East group), Polish, Czech and Slovak (of the West group) and Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian (of the South group).

The current geographic distribution of natively spoken Slavic languages covers Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Central Europe and all of the territory of Russia, which includes northern and north-central Asia. Furthermore, the diasporas of many Slavic peoples have established isolated minorities of speakers of their languages all over the world. The number of speakers of all Slavic languages together is estimated to be 315 million

 

IOW, this discussion is silly.

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19 hours ago, Zorral said:

What do you mean by this?  The show's in English right?  So you mean speaking English with the right Slavic accent?  Which brings up -- which slavic language English accent? 

with an authentic slavic accent (regardless of actual country of origin) rather than an English person faking an accent?

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Silly / irrelevant, yes, as this is a fantasy world, not an actual, medieval, historical slavic country.  Shoot, for that matter, even if it was actual history, it could be someone speaking Bulgarian with a Turkish accent.  Or a Greek one.  Or even an English one; for one instance Captain John Smith was in Hungary back in the  16th C, fighting Turks, and became a Turkish slave.  Then there are the tartars and huns.  Not to mention the Jews.  Also the Chinese brought in numbers by the Mongols for administration and accounting back in the 13th - 14th centuries. Or German -- the Holy Roman Empire still existed and extended real influence and power in the regions.

These people all mixed and matched throughout history, yes, even in Eastern Europe.

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5 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

I think you’re missing the point here, the Eastern European actress is to appease the fans (some of whom consider the saga the greatest national good :p) and not to provide any sort of “historical” accuracy.

Yes, I've seen a few comments on the interwebs from (apparently) Polish nationals who strongly feel these stories are an important part of Polish culture and they feel very slighted at the notion that representation may be given to other ethnicities possibly at the expense of Polish representation. I get the impression Polish fans would not be completely miffed if there was racial diversity in the top 10 characters of the show, so long as there is one Polish national cast in the top 5. And I think that's fine. I think it is appropriate for the culture of the author to be represented among the leading cast.

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I thought the show was going to be filmed in Poland/eastern Europe? Surely this should naturally increase the number of polish actors present?  GOT has a lot of European cast members thanks to the filming locations. I think part of the deal to film in northern Ireland was that a certain percentage of staff have to be from the UK. 

I guess the problem is how many prominent characters the show will have. Lots of polish actors in small parts probably won't cut it but the show might be limited by the number of roles available. It's probably a good time to be a black polish actor fluent in English though!

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1 hour ago, red snow said:

I thought the show was going to be filmed in Poland/eastern Europe? Surely this should naturally increase the number of polish actors present?  GOT has a lot of European cast members thanks to the filming locations. I think part of the deal to film in northern Ireland was that a certain percentage of staff have to be from the UK. 

I guess the problem is how many prominent characters the show will have. Lots of polish actors in small parts probably won't cut it but the show might be limited by the number of roles available. It's probably a good time to be a black polish actor fluent in English though!

We know now that the production will be based in Budapest, Hungary, but there will be some filming in surrounding countries as well, including Poland. Specifically, the showrunner was location hunting and found a half-ruined Polish castle that looked really great and some people are thinking it will be Kaer Morhen (annoying the video game fans as it doesn't look anything like the video game version, ignoring the fact that Netflix don't have the rights to the video games so it has to deliberately look completely different etc).

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4 hours ago, Werthead said:

We know now that the production will be based in Budapest, Hungary, but there will be some filming in surrounding countries as well, including Poland. Specifically, the showrunner was location hunting and found a half-ruined Polish castle that looked really great and some people are thinking it will be Kaer Morhen (annoying the video game fans as it doesn't look anything like the video game version, ignoring the fact that Netflix don't have the rights to the video games so it has to deliberately look completely different etc).

It's good some locations are being shot in Poland.

I wonder if the characters in the show have to significantly different from the game versions too? That could explain changing the skin colour of some characters too. I guess it depends on how closely descriptions from the book match those in the game.

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1 hour ago, red snow said:

It's good some locations are being shot in Poland.

I wonder if the characters in the show have to significantly different from the game versions too? That could explain changing the skin colour of some characters too. I guess it depends on how closely descriptions from the book match those in the game.

I doubt that, but I wonder if they have to change some of the classic outfits? I've no idea how book Geralt dressed and what weapons he used.

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Given there's no one who actually looks like any of the game characters, since they aren't modeled on any actual person. It's unlikely the show will need to do anything in particular to make characters not look like game characters. I doubt even costuming would come into it, unless the show exactly replicated a character's iconic costume form the game. Thinking Dandelion perhaps. Most other characters have pretty generic clothing / armour. Yennefer being dressed in black is hardly going to be a rights issue, I would think. Neither would Triss being a red head. Perhaps the double pony tail on Triss might run afoul of the game's rights? Triss's TW3 outfit might also be a bit iconic to the game.

I'm sure they'll have had lawyers all over the look and feel elements in relation to the games. I'm sure the TV producers want to evoke a lot of the game's look and feel, since they are dependent on game fans for decent viewer numbers. So I think they'll want to get as close as possible without creating any lawsuits with CDPR. Getting some racial diversity, particularly Asian and African, could actually help defend against rights violation claims, because the TV show will be able to claim these create a stark distinction with the games.

I was just about to go out and see if I could buy The Last Wish, and get started with reading the series. And then I thought about something my son said a few years ago: Books ruin TV shows (and movies) and TV shows (and movies) ruin books, because you already know what's going to happen, so the books are inherently less interesting to read. And he's mostly right. One way or the other you end up being disappointed. I am wondering if it's a good idea to start reading the books when I have every intention of watching the TV series. The LOTR movies are mostly an exception where having read the book there were only minor disappointments with the movies. But they were still there, and they probably wouldn't have been disappointments if I hadn't read the book. If I'm going to enjoy the TV show to the greatest extent possible, I probably should not read the books. 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

https://www.mmorpg.com/mobile/news.cfm/read/49986/ismb/1/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-witcher-novelist-demanding-16m-in-royalties-from-cd-projekt-red.html

 

Sapkowski sueing CD Projeckt for more money (16mill).  The basis seems to be he made a shitty deal, refusing a cut of the royalties for a one-off payment.

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The basis per his lawyers is that Polish law has protections for artists having their rights exploited if the licensee ends up earning much more than was expected.

I think he has a moral case that regardless of his lack of business acumen and regardless of the fact that he's a pretty unpleasant person, his work is vital to the success of CDPR's franchise and that it would be a show of good will and respect to share in some of that. And CDPR's response suggests that they aren't rejecting the argument. They aren't going to agree to 16 million, but that's doubtless just an opening position. The proper and ethical result should probably be a couple million (from 2015-2018 they've cleared over $220 million in profit, after taxes and expenses, so $2 million would be like a retroactive 1% royalty on net profit) and a percentage of any further products (including DLC) that uses the setting.

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But it's too expensive to make high production value AAA games without nickle and diming the gamers with lootboxes, micro-transactions and live services. How could CDPR make $200 million in profits from 3 single player games with just a handful of well crafted and expansive DLC?

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1 hour ago, Ran said:

The basis per his lawyers is that Polish law has protections for artists having their rights exploited if the licensee ends up earning much more than was expected.

I think he has a moral case that regardless of his lack of business acumen and regardless of the fact that he's a pretty unpleasant person, his work is vital to the success of CDPR's franchise and that it would be a show of good will and respect to share in some of that. And CDPR's response suggests that they aren't rejecting the argument. They aren't going to agree to 16 million, but that's doubtless just an opening position. The proper and ethical result should probably be a couple million (from 2015-2018 they've cleared over $220 million in profit, after taxes and expenses, so $2 million would be like a retroactive 1% royalty on net profit) and a percentage of any further products (including DLC) that uses the setting.

In most cases I'm all about protecting artist rights and ensuring compensation for their work. But in this case, I really don't think so. CDPR offered him a profit-sharing percentage and he rejected it, and more than that, he's made clear in interviews over the years that at the time he thought he was swindling them! That the first game was going to be a total failure and he was just trying to take the money he could and run. Maybe that's not enough to satisfy the provisions of this Polish law, but I really feel it should be. There's a difference between regretting a decision (like he does here) and making a mistake because you didn't understand what was being offered, and an even bigger difference between regretting a decision and getting swindled by a company.

Also, considering all of his statements over the years about CDPR and the games, and his insistence that the books drove sales of the games (outside of Poland at least) and his denials that he's seen any increase in books sales from the games, I don't think he has any moral high ground here.

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Yeah, creators aren't necessarily nice people or wise people, doesn't really change the fact that CDPR has made a much greater success from his work then anyone ever imagined. When the LOTR actors banded together to get a substantial bonus because if how successful the films were, I don't recall too many people saying the should just suck it.

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