The Witcher S3: Bye Bye Henry

[SeanF]

8 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Watched episode 6. The Witcher has succeeded in taking the crown from GoT for dumbest fucking battle in a big TV show.

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So much plot armor and standing around. Who directed this crap? Not to mention the writing going with it. 

There was hardly any room for any scene to breath. Redania does a coup, no it's Vilgefortz + the elves, but wait Cahir actually had a change of heart. Hey look Fringilla is here, too. Stregobor is going to go out like a boss, except we see this explosion from above and that's it. 'Member in season 1 when like 20 mages fought an entire army. Now they just wave their arms like idiots.

The never ending rollercoaster of Geralt, Ciri and Yennifer randomly finding each other continues. (And I guess add Triss to the mix)

At least Geralt v. Vilgefortz had something to it.

 

Well, it was a dumb battle, but that's the point.  It was a coup d'etat, launched by Philippa and Dijkstra that went badly wrong, and which reflects the corresponding scene in the books.  Tissaia released the spells that bound the mages, who had been taken prisoner by the plotters, but she had no idea that the Squirrels were planning their own commando raid, simultaneously, nor that Vilgefortz was in fact a traitor. 

In that situation, there was no opportunity to plan proper battle tactics.  So, it became just a huge, messy, brawl.

I thought it a very good episode.

Edited July 28, 2023 by SeanF

[Corvinus85]

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

Well, it was a dumb battle, but that's the point.  It was a coup d'etat, launched by Philippa and Dijkstra that went badly wrong, and which reflects the corresponding scene in the books.  Tissaia released the spells that bound the mages, who had been taken prisoner by the plotters, but she had no idea that the Squirrels were planning their own commando raid, simultaneously, nor that Vilgefortz was in fact a traitor. 

In that situation, there was no opportunity to plan proper battle tactics.  So, it became just a huge, messy, brawl.

I thought it a very good episode.

A battle for dumb reasons is one thing, this was just badly directly and written. 

Spoiler

Like I said, actors waving their arms around, standing around but having the plot armor of not being hit by arrows, and so on. And everything was rushed. 

It also doesn't help that they broke up the season here, so it jumps straight into Redania's coup, and the viewer is probably struggling to recall every line a dialogue that could help one understand at what point did Redania gather mages to their scheme, for example.

 

[SeanF]

3 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

A battle for dumb reasons is one thing, this was just badly directly and written. 

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Like I said, actors waving their arms around, standing around but having the plot armor of not being hit by arrows, and so on. And everything was rushed. 

It also doesn't help that they broke up the season here, so it jumps straight into Redania's coup, and the viewer is probably struggling to recall every line a dialogue that could help one understand at what point did Redania gather mages to their scheme, for example.

 

Splitting the season made no sense, I agree.

[sifth]

Well that sucked

Watching this hurts my brain.

[karaddin]

And then the finale feels like a really weird spot to leave it, is there a 3rd part to this season?? 

Spoiler

Really shitty last hurrah with Cavill's Geralt if not, half of these last 3 episodes healing from an injury and then a random fight kicking the ass of random shitty Nilfguard soldiers.

On a less serious note, the scene in the 2nd of these new episodes

Spoiler

With Ciri finding the water was completely undercut by the unicorns enormous balls hanging behind Ciri's head in the background. They really could have used some better framing there.

 

[Zorral]

Spoiler

“Vol. II” - First episode non-stop action/fighting. The battle in the hall of Aretuza is reminiscent of the final battle under Sunnydale concluding Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with only our invested-in characters from the entire run still standing – though one who isn’t will, return, as presumably will, in some way, when if ever as season 4 of Witcher arrives, will revive in some form a character from this show.  Liked Aretuza burning on the side of the mountain, looking like the 19^th C imagined Acropolis after the Persians. Liked Jaskier too.

Second ep. is an entire episode that is A Girl's Own Dune and Maudib w/a soupcon of the young, isolated  Daenerys with unicorn subbing for dragon, and the Temptation of Christ or of Galadriel. Waste of story-telling time.  Used up too much budget in the first ep. Big Battle?

 

I'll get to the third episode at dinner time.  They broke the season into two 'vols.' for ...3 more episodes only?

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

 

On a less serious note, the scene in the 2nd of these new episodes

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With Ciri finding the water was completely undercut by the unicorns enormous balls hanging behind Ciri's head in the background. They really could have used some better framing there.

 

I noticed that too.  In the earliest scenes it looked as though they attempted to paint, darken, conceal that area, and then, just threw up their hands and gave up!  This is such a weird production!

[sifth]

The worst part is that second episode is very accurate to what happens in the book. It mentally broke me when I read it. So much so that I was unable to read any more of the novels, after I finished the fourth one.

[Corvinus85]

Finished it, and I thought the final episode was okay. I would have continued watching the show if Cavill was still in it. But now, I doubt it.

Spoiler

But I agree it ended on too much of a cliffhanger with a lot of questions in the air, making Cavill's departure that much more of a disappointment.

What the hell happened to Vilgefortz's face? Is that his real face and he was just hiding it? Really weird.

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by Corvinus85

[karaddin]

42 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Finished it, and I thought the final episode was okay. I would have continued watching the show if Cavill was still in it. But now, I doubt it.

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But I agree it ended on too much of a cliffhanger with a lot of questions in the air, making Cavill's departure that much more of a disappointment.

What the hell happened to Vilgefortz's face? Is that his real face and he was just hiding it? Really weird.

 

I assumed

Spoiler

Whatever Ciri did which teleported her and destroyed the tower also did that to his face

 

[Corvinus85]

24 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I assumed

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Whatever Ciri did which teleported her and destroyed the tower also did that to his face

 

You're right.

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Too bad they didn't show him come out of the rubble or portal away like Ciri. I immediately assumed he was dead given the violence of the explosion. 

 

[IlyaP]

18 hours ago, sifth said:

The worst part is that second episode is very accurate to what happens in the book. It mentally broke me when I read it. So much so that I was unable to read any more of the novels, after I finished the fourth one.

So the third season is pretty faithful to the book? 

[sifth]

11 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

So the third season is pretty faithful to the book? 

The final 3 episodes are. The actual conclave as well, but events are told in linear order in the book.

[IlyaP]

4 minutes ago, sifth said:

The final 3 episodes are. The actual conclave as well, but events are told in linear order in the book.

How are you finding the season overall, in terms of its adaptation of the text? I'm seeing a lot of mixed sentiment, and having not yet read the book, I am wondering if the response we're seeing was inevitable due to underlying structural/narrative problems in the book? Or is it something else?

[sifth]

6 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

How are you finding the season overall, in terms of its adaptation of the text? I'm seeing a lot of mixed sentiment, and having not yet read the book, I am wondering if the response we're seeing was inevitable due to underlying structural/narrative problems in the book? Or is it something else?

Season 2 of the show is a complete mess, in terms of following the plot of book 3. Season 3 is much more faithful to book 4...............which is sort of the problem, because book 4 is horrible. One thing you have to take into account is, the novels don't have a whole lot of action in them. It's there, but a lot of these books are just people talking and sometimes training. So nearly all of the action scenes at the start of season 3, are not in the books; like the maze monster and the portal battle in the first episode.

The best thing they did is have Yen act more motherly to Ciri, something they royally screwed up in season 2, when they had Yen betray her, something book Yen would never do.

Edited July 29, 2023 by sifth

[IlyaP]

...huh.

As you can clearly speak to this from a place of knowledge that I cannot: why did season 2 make the changes you mentioned? Is there anything you've read/seen that accounts for that? 

[karaddin]

I also know nothing about the books but my guess is it all stemmed from the decision to make Yen lose access to her chaos which I'm assuming isn't in the books? It felt to me like they thought they'd made Yen too powerful at Sodden and had to do something to balance that out, but everything that stemmed from that didn't really work for me.

[sifth]

27 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

...huh.

As you can clearly speak to this from a place of knowledge that I cannot: why did season 2 make the changes you mentioned? Is there anything you've read/seen that accounts for that? 

It's been nearly 2 years since I watched season 2, so my memory isn't great. I can only make guesses and assumptions, from stuff I read. At one point I heard they were setting up the Wild Hunt to be the Thanos of the series..............and they're not even in the third book and are hardly in the fourth one. That brief scene where they try to capture Ciri in season 3, is actually in the novel; however in the novel Geralt saves Ciri with Yen's help and doesn't just show up out of nowhere, we actually see how Geralt and Yen track Ciri.

I heard they made Eskel into a completely different person, because they wanted to "subvert expectations" by killing a character who was still alive in the books and the games. The problem is Eskel is a very minor character in the third book and they completely changed his personality and made him into kind of a jerk.

Edited July 29, 2023 by sifth

[sifth]

1 minute ago, karaddin said:

I also know nothing about the books but my guess is it all stemmed from the decision to make Yen lose access to her chaos which I'm assuming isn't in the books? It felt to me like they thought they'd made Yen too powerful at Sodden and had to do something to balance that out, but everything that stemmed from that didn't really work for me.

You are indeed right, Yen does not lose her powers in the third novel. Truth be told, she doesn't even show up until the second half of the book, when she starts training Ciri.

[karaddin]

That's not going to be the only problem, but I'm pretty confident that's a big one then. Once they made her lose her powers they had to come up with a way to get them back, and that can't be too easy or the whole thing feels like jerking the audience around for nothing... So you wind up with Yen betraying them to get her powers back.