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The Witcher on Netflix 2: Man of steel and silver


3CityApache

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I've watched the first two episodes so far and it seems... fine. Better than a lot of the run-of-the-mill epic fantasy/historical fiction shows that have been popping off the past few years, but nowhere near the top tier stuff.

Henry Cavill is far and away the best part of the show though and the Ciri and Yennefer parts have dragged a lot so far. I've only played half of The Witcher 2 and all of The Witcher 3 and never read the books, but even though the show so far is covering stories that I'm not familiar with (maybe I skipped some side conversations in the games that covered them) I just find them kinda dull. Turns out I don't like origin stories even when I haven't already seen the story a thousand times (like Spiderman). So Geralt's monster-of-the-week stuff is much more interesting than Yennefer in training or Ciri learning that life sucks in this world.

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Finished the show.

Linda and I liked it, although it's certainly true that much of the secondary cast is at best okay in the acting department, and there's a number of walk-on characters who are just plain not good. I don't mind the production value issues -- not everything can be late-series Game of Thrones -- and in fact

Spoiler

we very much liked the design of the golden dragon, Borch/name-too-long-to-remember. Yes, of course it was more obviously CG than the GoT equivalents, but that's fine; the painted canvas sets of I, Claudius don't bother me either!

On the other hand:

Spoiler

The place where I could tell -- from looking at the wiki and just considering the way the show framed it -- that budget was an issue was conveying the Battle of Sodden Hill properly. The scale felt very small for something that presented itself with the idea that this huge army was coming and so on. But then, I think in general the writing and structure around this final episode was not good. Things like showing Follest's forces arriving was nice, but there's a surreal emptiness to everything that makes it feel disconnected. Especially Yen just sort of wandering around outside...

In any case, it's uneven, and Ciri's story is very drawn out in a way that wasn't too interesting thanks to her extended time in Brokilon (I do like that Sapkowski transposed the medieval legendary forest of adventure, Broceliand, to his setting) but the actress is fine. I liked how the timelines worked. I like Yennefer and her story (though felt that the general problems in the final episode also led to her seeming rather unfocused). I really like Geralt, and how Cavill plays him and carries himself. He was born to the play the role, it seems.

I'm hopeful  the second season will find a better footing for itself, especially in terms of hiring of actors to fill speaking roles. It seems like there's a lot of promise there, even if it's not entirely there yet.

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I liked the show and watched it pretty quickly but when I got to the end and thought about it, I realized I was ultimately unsatisfied. For the most part, the characterization and motivation of the characters was pretty limited (do we learn anything about Cahir at all?) and the ultimate plot arc of the season was uninspiring (mostly because the motivation of Nilfgaard is unexplored). I'm hoping the second season will change that.

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The Witcher season 2 will have a 'much more focused' story

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The priority for the first season of The Witcher, showrunner Lauren Hissrich said in November, was setting up stories "that really capture audiences for years at a time." With the show now live and a second officially locked down, Hissrich gave GamesRadar some insight into what fans can expect in season two.

"What’s great about season two, I can tell you, is that, in what we’ve written, the story becomes much more focused. There’s a stronger drive in the story, because all of the relationships that we’ve been setting up in season one actually start to come into fruition in season two," Hissrich said.

"Characters start meeting and interacting more. That goes well sometimes. It doesn’t go well sometimes. But it’s kind of like, all of those building blocks that we set up for the world finally start to come together into something a little more concrete."

 

 

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But it was one review in particular that Hissrich took issue with. Darren Franich at Entertainment Weekly wrote that he had skipped ahead to the fifth episode without watching the first few because “life’s too short for Netflix drama running times”. He also described the show as a “borefest”.

 

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1 hour ago, Mexal said:

For the most part, the characterization and motivation of the characters was pretty limited (do we learn anything about Cahir at all?)

The only real thing we learn to explain his single-minded focus is that, and most of the Nilfgaardians, are essentially fanaticaly devoted to the "White Flame", the emperor who (we get through the various timeline references) overthrew the Usurper to win back his rightful throne and I think is said to be seen as a messianic figure by his people.

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and the ultimate plot arc of the season was uninspiring (mostly because the motivation of Nilfgaard is unexplored). I'm hoping the second season will change that.

Me, too. I think Nilfgaard needs a lot more attention if it's the central enemy for what's going on for Ciri and Geralt going forward.

Edit: Speaking of Hissrich, Mark Hamill was responding to articles about the fact that fans were lobbying to have him play Vesemir, Geralt's mentor, saying that no one had offered him the part yet... with the hashtag #CallMyAgent. Among the replies was Hissrich with a wide-eyed emoji, so... that could be a thing.

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I wanted to like this show, I really did, but something just didn't feel right. To be fair, I'm not particularly a big fan of the first two Witcher novels, since they're only short stories, but they do have their moments. That being said the final short story had me in tears when Geralt and Ciri meet again. I find it strange, that out of all the short stories they adapted, they skipped over the Sword of Destiny, which is the story in which Geralt and Ciri meet for the first time. It's a pretty important story and I suppose it's the reason that when Geralt finds her again at the end of the book, after assuming she's dead, it feels more impactful.

I mean in this version they basically go out of their way to show us Ciri is perfectly fine this whole time, so when Geralt meets her in the final scene, I felt nothing. I mean who's idea was it to skip over The Sword of Destiny, where their bond is suppose to form anyway? From the characters on the shows POV, both Garalt and Ciri are basically strangers to each other.

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What Netflix and showrunners demanded not be talked about in professional reviews, and how silly just about all of those demands were:

https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/the-witcher-season-ones-biggest-spoilers.html#comments

As for Showrunner's assurance that it's all going to be fixed in the mix, er, the next season, I have very strong doubts.

I really really REALLY have only a single hope, which is Cavill articulates better in the next season than the barely comprehensible low growl he used throughout season 1.  That was my only criticism of his fulfillment of the role.  All my criticisms are for the writers.  They blew it.

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6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

What Netflix and showrunners demanded not be talked about in professional reviews, and how silly just about all of those demands were:

https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/the-witcher-season-ones-biggest-spoilers.html#comments

 

At least two or three of the things on that list were, I think, aimed at critics within the F/SF and gaming spheres who might have felt moved to fill in the blanks on things from their knowledge of the Witcher books/games, basically cautioning them not to do so.

I can't understand why they decided to treat the fact that there were several timelines as a big secret, though. Just because you know doesn't mean you necessarily know their inter-relations, so it's more a head's up about it.

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On 12/24/2019 at 12:15 AM, Gigei said:

 

Now there's only one dryad forest, Brokilon. The monsters are also much fewer now, so much so that people think they don't even need witchers anymore. They omitted it in the dragon hunt story but in the books, there were regular humans (a shepherd? and a blacksmith?, I mean not even soldiers or knights, just regular people) who were convinced they could kill the dragon themselves. They poisoned a sheep that the dragon ate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wawel_Dragon

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Finished it. Quite average for a show starring Cavill (he's not a very good actor, but still a big name like his, you'd expect more). The production values are also really shitty in this. The Last Kingdom does more with much less imo. It all looks quite ridiculous. 

I don't think the show did a good job of convincing me why the character of Yennifer exist. Ciri's storyline was trash too. I also felt like the uniqueness of Sapkowski's work wasn't really on full display here. It felt very Americanized to me, which is a shame.

Favourite episode was definitely Geralt vs. the Stryga. 

 

7 hours ago, Mexal said:

I liked the show and watched it pretty quickly but when I got to the end and thought about it, I realized I was ultimately unsatisfied. For the most part, the characterization and motivation of the characters was pretty limited (do we learn anything about Cahir at all?) and the ultimate plot arc of the season was uninspiring (mostly because the motivation of Nilfgaard is unexplored). I'm hoping the second season will change that.

 

:agree:

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3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Finished it. Quite average for a show starring Cavill (he's not a very good actor, but still a big name like his, you'd expect more). The production values are also really shitty in this. The Last Kingdom does more with much less imo. It all looks quite ridiculous. 

I don't think the show did a good job of convincing me why the character of Yennifer exist. Ciri's storyline was trash too. I also felt like the uniqueness of Sapkowski's work wasn't really on full display here. It felt very Americanized to me, which is a shame.

Favourite episode was definitely Geralt vs. the Stryga. 

:agree:

Anyway, I, too, consider the Striga episode the best of the bunch.

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18 hours ago, Mexal said:

I liked the show and watched it pretty quickly but when I got to the end and thought about it, I realized I was ultimately unsatisfied. For the most part, the characterization and motivation of the characters was pretty limited (do we learn anything about Cahir at all?) and the ultimate plot arc of the season was uninspiring (mostly because the motivation of Nilfgaard is unexplored). I'm hoping the second season will change that.

I'd say this closer to Sword & Sorcery than to Epic Fantasy, so I am fine with the intentions and details of big nation states staying vague.

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1 hour ago, Seli said:

I'd say this closer to Sword & Sorcery than to Epic Fantasy, so I am fine with the intentions and details of big nation states staying vague.

And I'd agree with this completely if I felt that the show had a definite direction or tone. I don't think it's trying for epic fantasy, but I also don't think it's pulling off fun adventure.

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3 hours ago, Seli said:

I'd say this closer to Sword & Sorcery than to Epic Fantasy, so I am fine with the intentions and details of big nation states staying vague.

I'd agree with this if the entire overarching plot wasn't about a nation state invading another, killing their queen and trying to invade the north, all to get a girl that we know absolutely nothing about and we're supposed to be against them simply because they're doing it.

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5 minutes ago, Mexal said:

we're supposed to be against them simply because they're doing it.

The whole savage brutality in their conquests that led people to commit suicide rather than be captured wasn't something suggestive of why they should be seen as bad guys?

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