Give us yer Witcher reviews. You Netflixpeople, you.
It was... surprisingly good. I expected far, far worse. Note this is from a point of view who came into this with pre-existing knowledge of books, games, the original Polish TV series and even a comic or two.
The plot was... weird. In terms of Geralt, it adapts most of the short stories (which I always considered a high point in terms of Witcher) in a chronological way. It actually keeps... really accurate to source material, which was my first surprise. There are some changes, but I generally understand why they have been made and agree with them*. Then there's Yennefer, which plot I find a bit medicore, but it does give her character background that, if you were reading the books, it would probably take a while to figure out her story after reading about her for first time. Her character though really shines when with Geralt though, but more on that later. The third main plot follows Ciri, and is shoved some few hundred (Yennefer) to about fifteen years forward from the rest, which I can see being a real source of confusion for everyone, especially since the show opens with it. You have to either know what is going on beforehand or watch the entire show (or at least most of it, which is not a given for modern critics) to actually properly grasp what's going on, and I personally found her plotline to be the weakest of them all, and kinda boring really.
As far as actors go - I admit when I heard about the choices, I found them weird, and there was quite a lot of jokes about Geralt looking like a Hercules, but I must say that for what is worth, Cavill didn't lie and he really seems to know a thing or two about Witcher. I wouldn't say he nails it, but it's clear he has a grasp on what he's doing, and comes as close to nailing it as I could admit he could. He's very much the strong part of the show, and all his muscles are probably from having to carry the show on his back. Don't get me wrong, Yennefer might be compelling, but it's only with her banter with Geralt she shows a side she doesn't otherwise. She's also not how I would imagine Yennefer, but I guess she's good enough and I'm just biased due to game's portrayal that is now ingrained in my brain as "The Yennefer". Knowing that though, I can't say that I feel fine with Triss actress. She simply doesn't look compelling, and while she doesn't really get a lot of time to shine, I feel like she's a complete mistake right now. I don't even really want to blame it on casting, because I could see her being a better Triss with some cinema magic, but we'll have to see about that. Dandelion looks kinda bland for his character, but I don't really have much to say against him, mainly because he spends most of his time with Geralt, which makes his character about hundred times more entertaining than he'd be on his own. Ciri is eh. I think she is easily within "adaptation" of her character in terms of looks, but she also haven't had time to shine yet. Other characters are generally okay, and while the diversity hires did raise a brow in me, they aren't VERY in-your-eyes, but I could see people getting angry about it (especially with Istredd**). I don't mind it very much, and in two cases I think they make perfect sense*** and I applaud them for that, but they really could have used without shoving some random European-dressed peasants into the mix. I don't think it's very immersive to put, for example, black people in clothes that are culturally consistent with middle-ages white people, having that black person apparently share the culture with those white people and never acknowledge any of it. I know people will try to defend it because "it's fantasy it can be anything" but there's a reason why people of Westeros are white, while people of Summer Isles are black. I'd rather if people stopped colorizing forcefully and put thought into what they're doing - I think having some of main characters be of different race, but black statists is just to meet obvious diversity quotas. A big question to me is the skin color of elves - seeing the first two being black, I was VERY afraid they went for "the race everyone is racist towards in universe is black", but they haven't, and some elves are just black while others aren't. Right now I'm not sure anymore if that would have been a bad thing, even if it would be very obviously forced. Either way, it's more of a nitpick and addressing an issue that seems to pop up a bit, but it didn't really make my time with the series less enjoyable.
What I however consider a giant problem is some of the costumes. They are generally okay, but holy fuck shit balls are Nilfgaard absolutely horrendous. I'm not even asking for them to wear game-style late period plate armor, but the absolutely disgusting ballsack armor (it does, in fact, make them look like actual dickheads) is just so out of place, especially when compared to pretty neat armors that show up in Cintra. Not to mention that in one or two closeups you can very plainly see the thing soldiers wear under their helmets is modern-made balaclavas. I really hope they get rid of it, because it is literally my biggest gripe with the show. It's trash, it's out of place, I cannot imagine how anyone could think it's a good idea seeing it. There is also a very obvious "evil empire" trope at play with Nilfgaard, with trashy Ork-like weapons to complete the ballsack armor. Just retcon this thing out and we can all forget this was ever a thing. Out of smaller nitpicks, Vilgefortz wears an interesting (it's not really accurate, but a bit more beliveable) setup of clothes with a gorget over them, suggesting armor underneath, and a sash to create a look of XVIIth century cavalier, which he swaps out in next episode for a horrible fantasy-like coat of rusted plates that are all mis-matched and misaligned and sewn together seemingly at random. Why they did this is beyond me, but oh well.
Now, I feel it's already pretty long and doesn't cover everything, but I'd like to throw in few words about the "feel" coming from a person who literally grew up on Witcher - it's... pretty good actually. My heart did warm up seeing the scenes from books brought to life, or even some scenes that felt like they're cut-for-cut similar to the old series, but done with way bigger budget. It's kinda like seeing a childhood story you and your friends used to tell each other when you were young made into a movie. While the origins of Geralt might be disputed (there's this whole thing about Sapkowski being "inspired" by Elric of Melniboné), I feel like that Witcher was very important for fantasy not only in Poland, but Eastern Europe in general, so while the adaptation doesn't really feel like something that's made unique by it's country of origin, I can't be helped but think of it as something that's somehow part of local culture. There might be a missed opportunity in lack of
Slavic folk which would make the soundtrack stand out from the generic fantasy music, and while I am pretty sure no media other than games actually used this, and it only appeared in the third game (Maybe it would have made it too similar to the games, which is something that show has a weird relationship with, since they're both seemingly inspired by it, but also sometimes forcefully trying to be unique. What was wrong with the game medallion is beyond me, as the new one looks cheaper, and the game one was based on the old series one, which IIRC was personally approved by Sapkowski and was one of few things that series got spot-on. But that's just nitpicks now.), I think the choice was so well-fitting that it has became part of the Witcher brand for me. It's not a per-se negative of the show, as I cannot really judge it on not having something that doesn't have to be there, but something that I felt could have made the action scenes just that much more.
TL;DR In the end I was EXTREMELY positively surprised by the show. I was prepared for it to be a steaming pile of shit taken on something I grew up with, but... it's not that bad. It's not perfect of course, but I was prepared for the worst, and I've gotten something that's actually good. Main gripe is something I cannot vouch for myself, which is that the plot might be complete mess impossible to understand to people that aren't familiar with the setting or aren't willing to give the show benefit of the doubt and watch it whole, rather than expect to have everything explained early on. There's a lot of seemingly red herrings and the pacing isn't great, but, with the knowledge that I can lose my Polish Person Identification Card if the community as a whole disagrees, I declare that the show is worthy. Just fix the Nilfgaard armor for second season.
*Geralt doesn't tell the Djinn to "go fuck himself" (which was the reason the Djinn was so angry in first place) but to "give him some peace", which is a giant shame to me, but the setup was pretty complicated even in the books. It's Foltest rather than Vizimir that commands the combined Northern Armies, but it makes sense since we're already familiarized with Foltest. There are quite a few other changes, but nothing that made me go "BUT IT WASN'T LIKE THAT".
**He has an interracial sex scene with Yennefer while an illusory crowd watches. Memes about Yennefer are already getting out of hand.
***The two Zerrikanian guards of Borch. They're perfect for that, since they come from a desert land far away, and their culture is quite different. They make for something unusual and unique in world of Witcher, which impact I feel is lessened by that the black skin color seems so common. I'll also use this one to talk about the CGI dragon - it's way better than the Polish TV series one, believe me on that.
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Topic: what tv shows are you currently watching? (Read 136584 times)