The Witcher

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Campbell1oo4

Campbell1oo4

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I'm binging it. Here are my thoughts on the first three episodes...

Episode 1

  • The actor who plays Geralt is great
  • The actress who plays Ciri is great
  • Overall individual performances are pretty good!
  • Dialogue in Blaviken tavern feels forced.
  • Dialogue between Geralt and the Blaviken peasant-girl feels forced.
  • Battles where two sides just run at each other look stupid.
  • Did they really make it so Cahir is a bowman? And he kills Eist?
  • Princess Ciri really asking why she has been protected her whole life? I don’t know, maybe because you’re a princess?
  • Holy moly when Geralt lays into the bandits. What a swordfight!
  • And when he fights against Renfri.
Final takeaway: Not as nuanced as the books in terms of dialogue, setting or style. But the strength of a television series is that the fight scenes are captivating. Geralt and Ciri are great characters. Can’t wait to see them together.

Episode 2

  • The black wizard that Yennifer meets is a bad actor.
  • Did Yennifer really need a story arc? Did they do this to fill time? I guess it’s okay.
  • Kid with elf ears around his neck is a bad actor.
  • What is this nonsense with an elf king?
  • Geralt and Dandilion together are a great duo.
  • I love how Dandilion breaks the fourth wall.
  • Goat Man was well done. I enjoyed when Geralt meets him.
  • I find myself wanting to skip past the Ciri and Yennifer bits and get back to the Geralt bits.
  • Black elf?
  • Elf cave scene looks like something from the sci-fi channel.
  • Yennifer is part elf now? What in the fuck.
Final takeaway: Henry Cavell is going to carry this series. If he leaves it’s done for. Also this episode didn’t have as much awkward dialogue as the first one. I think the writers were just shit at introducing a setting. Shit is going off the rails in terms of loyalty to the books.

Episode 3

  • Dialogue is so on-the-nose.
  • Not digging the relationship between Yennifer and Black Wizard.
  • Why doesn’t King Foltest want Geralt to help him? He wanted his help in the short story. And why is Geralt persisting in helping him if he refuses to take on his help? It seems like needless conflict for conflict’s sake.
  • Also, why is Triss Merigold dark-skinned? She has chestnut hair and blue eyes in the book.
  • Not digging the magic school either, and the whole “witches get placed by the council” thing. It makes it feel like Harry Potter. Not like in the books, where they seemed like freelance contractors instead.
  • Why the heck is Triss Merigold working with Geralt to get rid of the Striga? Why do they feel the need to fuck with the original story so much?
  • Geralt and Triss have zero chemistry.
  • Sweet mother of god the Striga fight… Makes the whole episode worth it.
  • Yennifer getting plastic surgery with the dust of her charred womb was pretty metal.
  • So the dryads shot an elf? All they did in the books was help the elves!
Final takeaway: Seventy-five percent of this episode was boring shit. But that last quarter made it all worth it. I’m kind of angry, kind of sad, and kind of happy. I feel like something I love got perverted by Hollywood, but at least I get to see it? Not sure.

By the way, I should mention I love these books. Honestly my favorite fantasy after Lord of the Rings. I also lived in Poland for two years just because I loved them so much.
 
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Jorren

Jorren

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Binging as well. Seems I should check out the books. Only played act one of W3 so far. Really digging this so far.
 
Campbell1oo4

Campbell1oo4

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Oh, man. You should 100% read the books. The first two are short story collections that follow Geralt (and most of the time Dandilion, who they have renamed Jasker in the tv series) on his adventures.

The saga is more focused on Geralt and Ciri.

EDIT: Made it through 3 more episodes.

Episode 4

  • Dryads look like they belong on the sci-fi channel.
  • Geralt and Dandilion together have great chemistry. Lot of fun to hang out with these dudes.
  • The Banquet scene is a lot of fun. I think this is how the series should have started. Not with the siege of Cintra, but with us following Geralt around. Season 1 should have been him hunting monsters, hanging out with Jaskier.
  • This Ciri storyline is mad boring. Feels like filler.
  • That whole thing with Yennifer, I thought we were going to see a genuine Witcher moment. One were someone doesn’t do the right thing, but saves their own skin. But nope, she just had to come back and try to save the baby. All this shit felt like filler. Everything with Yennifer does.
  • Duny CGI looks like shit, but whatever. It’s a nice little story, and the last scene where Geralt walks out is funny.
  • I didn’t like the final scenes. Nilfgaard has been demoted from foreign empire hungry for territory to cliché bad guys who do bad things because they are bad. It’s shoddy writing.

Episode 5

  • Who is this Doppler? And why is Cahir tolerating him? Non-humans were always treated like garbage in the books.
  • Why did Cahir ask Mousesack to run if the Doppler was just going to tackle him 15 feet later?
  • How are they going to get the audience to connect with Cahir if they’re making him out to be a member of the fucking Waffen-SS? He was never a villain in the books. He was a patriot who was doing what his Emperor ordered him to do.
  • Yennifer selling boner-pills is more interesting than anything else she has done so far.
  • Again, anytime Geralt and Dandilion are together is a riot, between the scene on the riverbank and the scene in the orgy, I believe this should have been the heart of the show. Yennifer should have been nothing more than a side character.
  • Geralt and Yennifer got some chemistry too. Why didn’t they lead with their best? Why did they throw the invasion of Cintra at us first? Why not go for a slow boil?
  • Ciri’s story is so much filler. Does she learn anything? Do we learn anything about the world? Nay.

Episode 6

  • They’ve hit their stride with this episode. I’m in it.
  • Dialogue flows better.
  • Interesting characters interacting (Geralt, Dandilion and Yennifer).
  • Only downside is the fact they keep weaving the Nilfgaard/Ciri plot into the episodic plots. It’s annoying, and I’m not sure why.
  • Then there is the Ciri Plot itself. What is with this Mousesack/Doppler business? It’s totally filler. Did we really need this?
  • CGI is kind of shit, but that can be excused.
  • Kiss magic is fucking stupid.
  • Yennifer using a sword is fucking stupid.
  • How the fuck are they going to get us on the side of Cahir after he slaughters all these innocent folk? Dude’s like a Gestapo trooper.
Take away from the last three episodes: They're just filling time with the Ciri bullshit. They should have started with the Witcher short stories and put all the Nilfgaard shit on Season 2.

Also as the episodes go on the production value seems to drop. I feel like I'm watching the original Polish witcher series now, rubber alligators and all.
 
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Breakdown

Breakdown

Gunnar Durden
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They didn’t rename dandelion to jasker for tv. Jasker is the name of the character in the polish stories. For some reason he is the only character changed in the English versions.
 
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Quineloe

Quineloe

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How long do we do spoiler tags for full series netflix releases?
in the book, Geralt murders all these idiots in the tavern, is Netflix holding back senseless violence here?
 
Maul

Maul

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Black Triss has me less interested in this.

Edit: And hunchback sex has me interested again.
 
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Gavinmad

Gavinmad

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A Polish acquaintance says the show is already pretty reviled in Poland, but that goes for most everything Netflix makes.
 
Breakdown

Breakdown

Gunnar Durden
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As someone who read the books and loved the games - I’m three episodes in and I think it’s good. They change a lot and don’t make clear the timeline so it might be hard to follow
Some. Defiantly not the sjw fest I thought it would be at first
 
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Campbell1oo4

Campbell1oo4

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Frenzied Wombat said:
I’m not checking the spoilers, but how about a subjective rating/opinion so far of some sort??
Click to expand...

I just finished episode 8.

As a fantasy show it is something you put on in the background while you do other stuff.

As an adaption it is a fucking catastrophe. Fuck.

Tabris said:
Waiting on the "is it SJW corrupted" reviews before I invest time.
Click to expand...

The only problem with the SJW stuff is that a white character was casted with a black actress. Nothing else really bothered me. Most of the dryads are black though, and they live in a forest so wild it looks like a jungle. Take that as you will.
 
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Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Campbell1oo4 said:
I just finished episode 8.

As a fantasy show it is something you put on in the background while you do other stuff.

As an adaption it is a fucking catastrophe. Fuck.



The only problem with the SJW stuff is that a white character was casted with a black actress. Nothing else really bothered me. Most of the dryads are black though, and they live in a forest so wild it looks like a jungle. Take that as you will.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess thankfully I know nothing of the books/lore, outside of playing Witcher III years ago so I'll just treat it as a high end Scyfy style production.
 
Greyform

Greyform

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So I never read the books and feel woefully lost as the story arcs so much I am not following it very well (3 episodes in). This feels like something that was made with the assumption the audience already has a familiarity with the storyline.
 
ronne

ronne

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First episode was great. Score is spot on, much of it just lifted from the Witcher 3. Swordplay is crazy good for a TV show. Penis armor looks fine in motion from what you got if it in the battles.

Themes are all on point with humans being the real monsters and such. Sorcerers are crafty dickbags, Geralt is mostly hated and just wants his money.

Only complaint is I feel like Cavill is trying to emulate the games voice actor just a bit too hard.
 
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Breakdown

Breakdown

Gunnar Durden
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I haven’t even noticed the penis armor

5 episodes in and not one SJW issue. Like others said just casting of Triss is the only thing that’s off for me. Yen hasn’t bothered me yet .

Cavill is about as good a Geralt as you could ever ask for
 
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