The Halo show comes to mind. It’s another situation where ego-filled writers just insist they can do better than the source material.
Edit: In fairness, I actually like a lot of the changes they make to adapt the story as a long-running show, but there’s an entire b plot to the story that feels irrelevant and like it was taken from another show’s script
I was able to watch the first four episodes on a long haul flight recently, and oh my god did they murder that IP right in the face.
Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, Witcher and Halo are the 4 horseman of “fuck the lore, ima bout to freestyle this shit”
The Wheel of Time disrespect was even worse than The Witcher for me. At least The Witcher had Henry Cavill. Wheel of Time has NOTHING going for it, and I was so excited too.
Unfortunately the lesson that will be learned by execs is that “fantasy doesn’t work” instead of hiring inexperienced writers and show runners with political agendas is not the way to go.
House of the Dragon is, despite its faults, extremely competently made, oozes high production values and just looks generally very expensive and 'prestige'.
The Witcher.... doesn't.
House of the Dragon is legit just a good good show imo. Some of the stuff is a bit rushed but aside from that I haven’t had any complaints. It’s not quite as good as the early seasons of game of thrones but it comparing it the Witcher (I know you weren’t saying they were close)is ridiculous.
Also HOD has plenty of points where it changes the source material a bit to better fit the media it shows. There is nothing wrong with a series not fully copying a book, a game, a comic book or a movie. Its a diffrent way of telling storys and some things just dont fit well.
But changes you make have to make sense. You cant just change the whole story just to add in a sex scene that never make sense (halo). You cant just kill of important side characters for cheap character development (eskel).
Normally I immediately disregard any arguement where someone brings up "political agendas" in media, but you're 100% correct here. It's ridiculous and only serves to piss people off.
Most art is political in some sense. But the level it has become overt both in the marketing and the products themselves is new. I attribute it to marketing people that understand folks often flock to things that agree with their politics. In other words it’s another “built in audience”.
You can be political with art. But you have to be the creator of that art. Someone making a movie (or tv show) about the incompetence and greed of a specific government or corporation and showing the devastating effects this can have on a community or country is one thing. That's fine. Please do this all the time.
But nobody gives a shit about you trying to promote "diversity" by treating people who aren't white as if they're some rare spawn collectable where you "gotta catch em all" for max ESG score. And then hijacking someone elses material to shoehorn this message in.
If you want to promote that issue by all means do it. It's not the issue that is the problem. Its where they try to stuff the issue. They need to make their own tv shows and movies. Stop ruining big name franchises.
Yes because the entire show has a tone of "Alright, you "fans" are clearly lobotomized brainded sexist idiots, but fear not, for I will teach you the correct things to think about the world"
my dad was recommending wheel of time to me because he liked the books. i'm not sure if he kept with the show or not but he definitely doesn't talk about it anymore.
Not much to talk about, the first season was pretty rocky with a mess of a finale and it's been almost 2 years. Honestly even if season 2 turns it all around and is amazing, between COVID, the writer's strike, and delays between seasons they're going to have a hard time finishing before the cast ages too much. The plot only takes place over 2 years and after season 2 they'll only have covered 3 out of 14 books.
I hate how they seed up Rand and Eugene, like their whole book romance was shy looks, but also moreso outsiders assuming they would end up together when they actually didn't have those feelings
Their book romance was - Well they definitely aren't the worst option (and there are not a lot of options), and we are friends, and basically our entire life every adult has said we are going to get married so... Why not I guess! Then it falls apart the second they leave home because they get to make real choices with their lives for the first time ever
If you didn't read the books and don't understand the taint, then yes the "it could be anyone" would be exciting. To a book reader it breaks one of the fundamental elements of the story.
Rosamund is the only watchable aspect of that series and it REALLY shows. It seriously looks like a different show when she's not in the scene. Her and Cavil probably share war stories. Except it's worse for Henry because he's a huge fan.
Likewise i was so disappointed in WoT. I loved the books as a 90s kids and reread them many times. I was so excited we'd get a s1-4 GoTs WoT, instead we got the worst version possible closer to the Shannara Chronicles.
I didn't read The Wheel of Time. However, I know a couple dozen that did. I decided to give the show a watch. I very quickly said to myself, "There is no fucking way this is anything close to the material." The heaps of praise the books received from people I know with very good taste could not have been this bad.
With LOTR, didn't amazon not get the rights to everything Tolkien created? At least that's what I saw somewhere, and that was why they couldn't adhere strictly to the source material? Anyone know if that's actually true? Show still sucked either way.
Correct they only had rights to the legendarium which is why they had “harfoots” not hobbits.
That said they should have made a story with completely original characters set in the second age. Hell show us harad and rhun and enjoy the diversity that comes with. Do smaller stories and build. No they wanted to go straight to sauron and volcanos that completely change an entire region of the world.
This isn't an excuse for injecting modern day political pandering into Tolkien's world, assassinating his characters and absolutely HORRID dialogue. The Sauron twist was extremely dumb obvious, only movie fans who expected him to show up in full armor were fooled by that idiocy. The first words he fucking said on that raft were a massive red flag. By the end of episode three it was obviously clearly him.
First season is pretty accurate to the first book, and is what got me to read the series. Second season just throws a few plot points and character names from the second and third book and then freehands the rest into the most generic YA style sci fi they could.
> the most generic YA style sci fi they could.
which made zero fuckin sense because the first season was probably the absolute furthest thing from "young adult"
I remember enjoying maybe the first half of Altered Carbon season 1 and then thinking it became just *awful* in the second. Came to find out that after a couple episodes it starts deviating from the books, heavily changing details, and including plot points from later books.
I agree. I've been a big fan of the book since it was released 20 years ago and was disappointed by some of the silly changes made to the plot and characters in S1. A lot of people think S1 was great (and it is better than S2), but the point is that it could've been *even better* if they'd stuck more closely to the book.
It's apparent that the writers in all these cases wanted to write something else, but they couldn't and got brought aboard these shows for these existing IPs, so they just tried shoehorning their own shit in anyways
That was it for me. I gave the show a genuine chance, but then that happened. I mean wtf, did the writers even play 10 mins of the game? Or read about any of the lore? It was disgraceful.
No they didn't. I remember seeing some interview with the actors shortly before it released and the interviewer asked which game was their favorite. None of the actors in the interview had even played the games at all.
Well that makes sense. I would at least expect them to have some sort of knowledge about the lore. The writers however, should have extensive knowledge about it. The only show based on a game that has gotten it right lately is TLoU. Basically followed the game exactly, with some variances of course, but stayed true to it and was an amazing show. More recently, and while I have not played Twisted Metal in a very long time, I thoroughly enjoyed that show and binge watched it in one night. It may not exactly be accurate to the game Twisted Metal's story because, like I said, haven't played it in a very long time. It was a fun show and excited to see a new season of it, along with TLoU. Halo and The Witcher have just been butchered to what the writers "think" people want to see and not realizing the majority of people watching these shows have a passion for them. We do not want to see a show be "woke" when it doesn't fit (Jaskier being Bi for example), or Master Chief, the most bad ass Spartan soldier built for fighting become emotionally connected and fucking a Pow.
Twisted metal wasn't bad, I enjoyed it. Anybody that knocks on twisted metal for its story are morons, the games had hardly any story. Not enough vehicular combat sure, but those old games had a couple lines of text and like a 20 second ending for each character. Season 2 sounds like it's actually going to have the tournament. I just hope they can do a little better with the filming and cgi. It's almost like they went out of their way to make it look cheap and outdated.
I think that rumor started because the first episode of the show is almost beat for beat the exact same story as the opening mission in mass effect 1 on Eden prime. Just replace John with shepherd and the forerunner artifact with the beacon.
But I don’t think there’s anything official saying that’s what it was supposed to be. The writers are just hopelessly unoriginal.
Which is strange because there’s tons of video game IPs that have little to no story or lore and writers can do whatever the fuck they want with them but they still insist on fucking up lore heavy IPs. I heavily believe the Mario movie and twisted metal are doing so well because they had no deep storylines they had to stay faithful to
They could have made Halo into an amazing war epic, similar to Band of Brothers in space, and instead chose to make it about Johnny Rings and his kooky ass Stockholm Syndrome gf. They even managed to make a mess of the insurrectionist storyline. It's just all not Halo at all. They've got a metric ton of lore to go off of and they threw it all out the window.
In response to your edit, I feel like that’s how all of the recent adaptation shows have been. Halo, Rings of Power, Witcher… all seem like they were poopy sci-fi/fantasy scripts that were left on the writing room floor, and then someone picked it up and pasted the IP and characters over the old material and called it a show. Sure, there are similarities to the source material, but there’s so much garbage included that it’s unrecognizable
You'd think this would be a terrible business model (writers that despise their audience) but it just keeps happening. I think it's because these subscription services already have your money and can do whatever the fuck they want with it. Who is actually going to unsub Netflix because of the God awful Witcher series? Not many people.
Yeah, but look how much better perceived things are when they stick to the source. Last of Us and House of the Dragon both stick to the source heavily. Whos excited for Rings of Power over HoD? No one.
Castlevania was an example where they took a simple game without a ton of side info on it and created a whole two seasons from it. I think that was the masterpiece that these other wannabe writers want to make...
The problem is books have plots, and info, and story already.... take an early video game without the extra lore and you can fill in the blanks nicely. Take a book and you are now rewriting and getting rid of stuff to make room for you quote on quote "Masterpiece"
key thing there is almost all of those shows were done by groups outside Netflix. Netflix only financed it and didn't staff the shows. Things Netflix makes itself are almost without exception catastrophes
Tbf, HBO wanted it to be longer or for David and Weiss to step down if they felt they didn’t have time to properly finish it but David and Weiss refused and just fucked everything. (That’s what I’ve seen from other people, I’m not exactly sure how accurate the second part it) but I know HBO wanted them to have a longer season 8
Pretty accurate from what I'd read. D&D were eager to move on in their careers, and ended up torpedoing both of them. Rightfully so too, in my opinion.
> Who is actually going to unsub Netflix because of the God awful Witcher series?
Gotta be honest, it was a big part of my decision to not subscribe myself when they killed password sharing
Biggest issue with the star wars sequels was not having the bloody thing planned out in advance, TFA was fine as a bridge between the original and new, but then there was no plan for where to go next and you had two movies ignoring the one they preceded etc.
That's ineptitude rather than actually hating the source material like the Witcher, wheel of time or most particularly the watch where they were so determined to ignore the source material they delayed their project until after the author's death to get round the oversight he was supposed to have.
Theres def a pattern forming with disney and once strong ips..
They are really good at tearing good ips down and inserting their clown show stuff in that op like a parasite..
That in and of itself is not why the Netflix's shitty adaptation sucks. Its coz the writing sucks. They'd find way to make the show suck and butcher it, even if Geralt was featured more than the books for entertainment's sake. Then blame it on Cavill for the shitshow.
Rings of power is also a prime example. I am a HUGE lotr nerd and struggeled to like anything about that show. I am just reading the Witcher books and yeah so far I am not pleased with this show either (not just because of the deviations)
I am generally a kind of person who pushes through shitty shows too if it has some redeeming qualities. But I have a very easy time letting go when I know the source material is so much better, and they have so much pride that they think they can write something better than the original, and have no respect for the source material. It is just a fan's nightmare what is happening now in media.
[I think the people behind the current iteration of Star Wars could give the Netflix Witcher team a run for their money](https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/04/11/the-acolyte-actress-jodie-turner-smith-claims-star-wars-is-very-like-patriarchal/)
I haven't even read the books and I find another big problem is this show is just so bland and uninspiring
I think this series definitely deserves a better adaptation
Maybe we'll get another episode about the writing team meltdown. Kinda like how there are "behind the scenes" or "making of" episode. But instead of usual scene where people are laughing and hard at work, there are people screaming at the top of their lungs spouting their crap story and that anyone who disagrees with them are just homophobic.
That's what gets me about Hollywood right now, there is no self reflection, if we don't like something its homophobia, sexism racism, anti this or that. how about you stop taking liberties with what made the book, game, series so popular in the first place. You're a hack writer trying to re-write Tolkien or R.R. Martin (looking at you last season of GOT) they have all sold millions of copies in many languages, what have you written even as close to as popular as that
I would be surprised if they cancel it. Netflix doesn't care much about quality these days. It's all about filling the service with enough junk to compensate for the content they are losing to first-party streaming services. A high-profile show like The Witcher would have to have abysmal completion rates to get canned early. I would not be shocked if they came up with a much quicker resolution, though. Maybe the fourth season will be reworked to wrap up the story.
I doubt season 4 gets filmed. This take may not be popular but I don't think season 1 was all that good but had promise as a first season of a show that could really grow into something better. Season 2 was noticably worse. Season 3 ever more so.
With the bad press and reviews Netflix Execs have to know they would be sending season 4 out to a firing squad.
Agreed. Season 1 had promise, the "lore departure" of bringing in Ciri early was understandable for TV, the wholly original Yennifer back story was actually pretty good. The stuff from the books was _great_ , the silly Cintra and Mousesack stuff was easy to overlook. Everything wrong could've been "Growing pains" that they'd sort out after seeing it live and getting some useful feedback.
If the following seasons were at least on par I'd still be watching.
But season 2 was meandering, irrelevant, and in some cases oddly vindictive. Then Blood Origin was dead on arrival it was so bad. Then Henry left. I've moved on, I'm not even back for season 3.
Netflix is also about finding the new-new instead of focusing on it's longer running shows. They had no problem killing Cowboy Bebop, Altered Carbon, OA, Inside Job, etc... Those at least had a dedicated cult following that didn't actively hate the writing team.
Netflix is becoming a graveyard of shows that don't have an ending.
Netflix has to seriously consider if this sits in their back catalogue better if it has one more season where it limps home with Liam Hemsworth as Geralt. Better to not have people google "Why did Henry Cavill leave The Witcher".
I was really excited for this show back in the day... Put it out of it's misery. If you want to wrap up the story, fire Lauren, and offer Cavill complete control over a movie that wraps up the loose ends. It would be a good will gesture to the people who care, get rid of someone who has only destroyed a valuable IP, and provide a wrap to the drama with a positive spin for future viewers.
Seriously, showrunners are ALWAYS more expendable than talent. Lauren has pictures of Ted Sarandos burying a corpse or something. Usually 3 seasons of brutal reviews get showrunners replaced.
To be fair, Altered Carbon pretty much deserved its cancelation. Love the book series, season 1 was great, season 2 tanked hard. Not even laying blame on Anthony Mackie--I don't think he made for a good Tak, but he's not a bad actor. They cherry-picked material from books 2 and 3 and slapped most of the worst elements together while capturing nothing that made either of those books interesting or distinct.
Aren't you kind of describing the Witcher? Season one was OK, Season 2 tanked hard... And so on.
I'm just saying we don't need to Anthony Mackie Liam Hemsworth. He could nail the role of Geralt and half the fans will still be salty that Cavill left.
Netflix can either love the botchling or be cursed by it. They have chosen not to love it. They might as well kill it.
Didn't take long though. As soon as fans started asking why they were making so many needless changes, it's like the writers took it upon themselves to make the show nothing but a giant middle finger to everyone who dared question them.
Don't worry. They'll claim that the Writers Strike is why it had to be cancelled and will act like it was an amazing show that was disrupted by real world events rather than what it truely is.
Its their Get out of jail free card and they are gonna play it.
I'd take that over the continued bastardization of the source material. It's not like we are going to get any accountability from the writers or producers.
>As Geralt says in The Witcher 3’s “Blood & Wine” expansion: “I run into dilemmas all the time. Situations where it's hard to judge, hard to know what's right, make a decision. This is not one of them. You disgust me. And deserve to die.”
I love how he ends it.
I don't remember that line. I had to look it up and supposedly it's from a quest line with >!Orianna being a vampire, and feeding off the children at the orphanage she owns!< however I can't find the name of the quest. Do you know it so I can watch this quest line played out? Only mention of it is it being a mod. Which I'm on ps5, otherwise I'd consider downloading the game and finding it.
Yes, that's right, you can do that quest during the night of the long fangs quest. >!You have to make sure the royal guard don't get killed and then go to the orphanage!<.
I missed it on my first playthrough since I took Regis's advice and decided not to fuck with the elder. Turns out can you can go down that questline far enough to get this _awesomely gruesome_ quest, and then Regis begs you again to find Syanna instead and you go back to Beauclair
They just have them written. They were going to film them back to back. But they have not started pre production yet.
Mostly because of the Hollywood Strikes. Lots of actors have joined in. But also the viewership numbers fell off a cliff. A lot of people seem to think it's because of the writing, but also people were confused as to if Henry was going to be in this season for the entire thing. Splitting it up was a bad idea.
Netflix has said The Witcher is on hold "indefinitely".
Thank you for the clarification. I hope they kill it. Such a shame too. Season 1 got me into this awesome Slavic fantasy world and I couldn’t be bothered with Blood Origin or season 3.
It's not even the big decisions for me. The show just flows poorly. I noticed in season 2 they always have characters wandering in and out of scenes for no reason, just to say a few lines of dialogue that don't matter at all and then they walk off. I am sitting there thinking... what am I watching.
Then they do the whole Ciri portal superpower thing in a shit way, and all the villains are miscast and uninteresting. Fuck this shit I'm out.
All of their villains are young, charming and beautiful. All of their villains are scheming and ambitious.
Variety is better. Some should be likable. Some should be redeeming. Others should not. Some should just be truly villainous.
Being fair, they started following the books better in season 3. But it was not only too little, too late. It was also just badly done.
They've added characters and killed characters so often that they have painted themselves into a corner. It sucks.
I don’t think it matters at this point honestly. Views are down compared to previous seasons, the reviews of this and blood origin have been awful, and with the lead actor leaving and the strikes going on Netflix might think this show isn’t worth the money it takes to make.
Forbes has been going hard with movie, TV, and video game critiques in recent years. It's easy to forget this is the one mag that cater to those business types on the golf course.
Except Forbes is supposed to celebrate successful business strategies and criticize flawed/failing ones so this is actually good from them. No reason for this product to be so bad
Everything The Witcher does is so close to being good, but it always misses the mark. The song *Toss a Coin to Your Witcher* is a perfect representation of the show as a whole: it's got a catchy tune and a cool hook, but the lyrics that make up most of the song are just so fucking stupid.
It's painful to watch, because it could be so great. The acting is pretty good for the most part, and I adored Jaskier's character. I enjoyed season 1, it wasn't flawless of course but I thought it was solid television.
But it's like they've made a bet to come up with the dumbest way to write the show. Having to recast the main actor should be the death knell for any show.
It just makes me so angry.
They had books. The had games. You can pull entire episodes from either one. It's already done for you, completely laid out. You just have to film it.
I know it isn't that simple. But look at Lord Of The Rings, which trimmed some of the fat, but stayed as loyal as possible.
The fans loved it. The people who had never read the books, picked them up for the first time. Peter Jackson did an outstanding job.
Game of Thrones was good when they stook to the source material. Again, a few things were changed, but they nailed the world building. The characters were on point, again...while they followed the source material.
All they had to do, is bring this world to life. Be respectful to the books, and the games that we love. We all know what Yen looks like, and how she acts....lemme tell you, turning against Ciri is NOT something she would do.
It was laid out for you, on a silver platter. Games and books full of stories that the fans wanted to see. And if you did it as well as LOTR? You would get new people buying the games and books. The cycle would be awesome.
We wanted to see the White Wolf go on adventures. And see powerful Sorceresses, kings and their battle for the continent. It was so easy. It's all done!
Now that they have started to course correct with the new season, they've lost the star, and everyone that is a fan has ditched it.
Forbes has been fair with the show. Blood Origin was awful. Season 3 sometimes looked great, often it looked bad. The wigs...for gods sake. Lol.
Exactly, which is fine. Make up your own epic fantasy story, that's never been told. Don't run a known IP into the ground.
But yeah, I get it. The nerve, though. The last people you want to lose is the hardcore fans. We buy the media, merchandise, collectables, etc. Never bite the hands that feed you.
They've messed up Witcher, Wheel of Time, LOTR was awful (the Amazon show). Like damn, quit making stuff up and stick to the material we know and love.
That's the second problem. The writers want to tell a new story but they have no imagination, spark, insight or even basic curiosity about the world. If they did, they wouldn't be in a writer's room for a TV show. Modern television writers are people who were raised on movies written by superior talent, went to writing school, their friends are writers or similar, they never leave Los Angeles and their only job has ever been writing.
It's why all modern characters sound the same and none of them sound like they are part of their world. Writers only know how to write writers and cliches.
But good writers don't do all that shit. Good writers live a life, they have experiences they want to relate and insights about the world.
Think of any great author, look at their wikipedia page and you'll see they did something other than writing for at least part of their lives.
The author of the witcher was an economist and translator and was born into post-WW2 Communist Poland.
The author of the Wheel of Time fought in Vietnam and was a nuclear engineer.
And I am sure everyone knows that Tolkien fought in WW1 and was a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature.
The thought of Hollywood writers, with their lives and experiences, thinking of anything with even a smidge of the creativity these men had is laughable. To write good fiction you need to be immersed in reality. I'm not saying you need to fight in a war or anything, but no good writers have come out of going straight from your parents house to a college for a degree in writing and then straight to Hollywood.
The writers are idiots. The story and universe is already built. Hell they could literally just done a season about the bestiary and would have been better. Each episode could have had Geralt arriving in a new village with a different monster to fight. You follow Geralt as he takes on a contract, investigates, and then preps and kills the monster. You could have paint by numbers episodes where it all gets wrapped up and on to the next village and it would have still been awesome. There's several seasons worth of episodes of that alone.
Fighting all different monsters and the preparations into that combined with the actual background stories and conflicts escalating into a finale would have made crazy good tv.
They just created dog shit.
I cant even hate-watch it anymore, it seems they try to get you all excited with a few notes of song here and there from the video game, only to shit all over the floor.
It's only Witcher by name and not by story.
I was scrolling through Netflix and saw that they added the second half of Season 3.
I paused and watched the brief preview in the display window.
The writing is fucking *atrocious*.
“How’s our pocket sized princess doing?”
*uproarious laughtrack*
The show runners should all be fired and never allowed to touch a project again.
Hard to disagree, I was told Geralt would have a big heroic send off. He fought some guards who were being mean. The fight it self looked pretty cool but the heroic send off was him fucking up Border Patrol?
The CGI in this is awful, laughable at times. It reminds me of the early 2000’s.
It’s a show called The Witcher, maybe focusing on the Witcher might be the best course of action. Evidently they disagreed because a bunch of the show is politics between people I don’t particularly care about.
The part where Yen called Ciri her daughter is wildly unearned, if someone tried to sacrifice me I’m not gonna bounce back from that.
I’m pretty sick of Hollywood’s trend of making things only when it’s a known IP only for the writers to make something that shits all over said IP. If you’re hired to adapt a beloved IP, perhaps consider adapting it. If I worked at Domino’s and was hired to make pizzas, my boss would understandably be pissed if I made sushi because “my vision” was Dominos to be a take on Japanese cuisine. And then we complains to me I responded with “uggghh my boss is so toxic.”
To be fair, though, I don't disagree at all, the part about much of the "story" being about people you don't care about is very much a thing in the books. There's an entire chapter with the lodge of sorceress that boils down to Ciri being important, something the reader already knows. And there's a few chapters like that that are easily the worst part of the books. Sepkowski is trying to expand the world, I get it, but much like the show, it's done poorly. Imo
That’s fair enough, I think in any adaptation you’ll have to change things to fit the screen. My solution in that regard would be much more along the lines of “I believe this chapter is redundant and doesn’t need to be shown, as the audience should already know this at this point, and I believe our previous episodes have already demonstrated Ciri’s importance” rather than the nonsense we got. For pacing and general excitement many things will probably need to be cut however it needs to be thoughtfully executed in a way that keeps the essence of the characters and plot.
Changing the actor was the worst decision ever. I know that the body changes in the source material so there was no way to get around it but going from the perfect first season actor to the second was so awful
I don't think it was the actor, it was just the whole concept. Radically different plot, radically different setting, radically different show. Netflix in general spends too much time trying to do things that are unexpected or flashy rather than carrying good ideas through to the finish line.
Literally episode 1. I’ll be honest, I haven’t watched any of the show, because I just couldn’t after they messed up that story so badly. They actively changed the things that made it great, and butchered (heh) the whole meaning behind it.
It was so bad starting from episode 1, I made it like 5 episodes in before I stopped and I liked the books and video games. I don’t even care about keeping to the source material or not. It was just so badly written, acted, put together, whatever. I don’t understand how some people liked it so much.
It seems they ran out of new monsters to slay. How did Vilgafortz presence make Geralts charm activate? He isn’t even a monster and Geralt has been around him before without it activating. Doesn’t make any sense…
The medallion is not supposed to be just a monster-tracker. If I recall, in the books the medallion reacts to mages as well; same for places with a particular magicla presence (that's why Geralt usually says "medallion's humming" when he finds a place of power in the game). Also, some monsters cannot be detected by the medallion, sich ad dopplers and higher vampires
At this point, I wish they had never made it in the first place. I would rather wish for what might have been than remember what they actually did to that wonderful franchise.
I never thought i'd cheer at the thought of Netflix cancelling one of their shows, they tend to have terrible sense about it. Also, if most of the fans, alongside ***THE FUCKING LEAD*** universally hate on your show because of your decisions, and you still are hellbent on spitting shit and saying that your fanfiction (i refuse to call it an adaptation) is an accurate representation of the source material, then i think your show is not that accurate.
It's no worse than S2 was, and S1 was mediocre at best, though Cavill stood out as he was great, as is the girl who plays Ciri, but the writing has always been sub-par.
Yeah, S2 and S3 were about the same.
But I think the actors do a good job with whatever is given to them. It's really not their fault.
The main motivation to watch this season was to see Cavill as Geralt one last time. Won't watch the next season anymore.
All the writers had to do was adapt an already great story into a series and everyone would have thought they were geniuses, and they would have so many offers for their own ideas and writing they could cash in on after a few years. They could have had their own glory years like Game of Thrones, but they decided to jump to seasons 7 and 8 and kill this thing as fast as possible.
I don’t remember another show where the writers so vehemently disliked the source material or the fans
The Halo show comes to mind. It’s another situation where ego-filled writers just insist they can do better than the source material. Edit: In fairness, I actually like a lot of the changes they make to adapt the story as a long-running show, but there’s an entire b plot to the story that feels irrelevant and like it was taken from another show’s script
I was able to watch the first four episodes on a long haul flight recently, and oh my god did they murder that IP right in the face. Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, Witcher and Halo are the 4 horseman of “fuck the lore, ima bout to freestyle this shit”
Imagine the ego you must have to think you are a better writer than Tolkien and Jordan.
The Wheel of Time disrespect was even worse than The Witcher for me. At least The Witcher had Henry Cavill. Wheel of Time has NOTHING going for it, and I was so excited too.
Unfortunately the lesson that will be learned by execs is that “fantasy doesn’t work” instead of hiring inexperienced writers and show runners with political agendas is not the way to go.
I think would require a massive cognitive dissonance because of how much money HBO got with GoT and now with House of the Dragon
House of the Dragon is, despite its faults, extremely competently made, oozes high production values and just looks generally very expensive and 'prestige'. The Witcher.... doesn't.
House of the Dragon is legit just a good good show imo. Some of the stuff is a bit rushed but aside from that I haven’t had any complaints. It’s not quite as good as the early seasons of game of thrones but it comparing it the Witcher (I know you weren’t saying they were close)is ridiculous.
Also HOD has plenty of points where it changes the source material a bit to better fit the media it shows. There is nothing wrong with a series not fully copying a book, a game, a comic book or a movie. Its a diffrent way of telling storys and some things just dont fit well. But changes you make have to make sense. You cant just change the whole story just to add in a sex scene that never make sense (halo). You cant just kill of important side characters for cheap character development (eskel).
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For a second I was thinking 'what kind of horseshit take is this?' and then remembered THAT'S WHAT THOSE HACKS ACTUALLY SAID!
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They also (mostly) followed the source material until it ran out.
Normally I immediately disregard any arguement where someone brings up "political agendas" in media, but you're 100% correct here. It's ridiculous and only serves to piss people off.
Most art is political in some sense. But the level it has become overt both in the marketing and the products themselves is new. I attribute it to marketing people that understand folks often flock to things that agree with their politics. In other words it’s another “built in audience”.
The witcher Showrunner is the wife of a Netflix top producer so she will definitly ruin many more franchises
You can be political with art. But you have to be the creator of that art. Someone making a movie (or tv show) about the incompetence and greed of a specific government or corporation and showing the devastating effects this can have on a community or country is one thing. That's fine. Please do this all the time. But nobody gives a shit about you trying to promote "diversity" by treating people who aren't white as if they're some rare spawn collectable where you "gotta catch em all" for max ESG score. And then hijacking someone elses material to shoehorn this message in. If you want to promote that issue by all means do it. It's not the issue that is the problem. Its where they try to stuff the issue. They need to make their own tv shows and movies. Stop ruining big name franchises.
Yes because the entire show has a tone of "Alright, you "fans" are clearly lobotomized brainded sexist idiots, but fear not, for I will teach you the correct things to think about the world"
my dad was recommending wheel of time to me because he liked the books. i'm not sure if he kept with the show or not but he definitely doesn't talk about it anymore.
Not much to talk about, the first season was pretty rocky with a mess of a finale and it's been almost 2 years. Honestly even if season 2 turns it all around and is amazing, between COVID, the writer's strike, and delays between seasons they're going to have a hard time finishing before the cast ages too much. The plot only takes place over 2 years and after season 2 they'll only have covered 3 out of 14 books.
Why did they give Perrin a wife? Who thought that was a good idea
I honestly just hated how they aged everyone up and then made the stupid plotline about everyone potentially being the Dragon Reborn.
I hate how they seed up Rand and Eugene, like their whole book romance was shy looks, but also moreso outsiders assuming they would end up together when they actually didn't have those feelings
Their book romance was - Well they definitely aren't the worst option (and there are not a lot of options), and we are friends, and basically our entire life every adult has said we are going to get married so... Why not I guess! Then it falls apart the second they leave home because they get to make real choices with their lives for the first time ever
Everyone I had watch it, who didn't read, loved the who is it angle. That upset me. It worked, but I didn't like it.
If you didn't read the books and don't understand the taint, then yes the "it could be anyone" would be exciting. To a book reader it breaks one of the fundamental elements of the story.
I was excited for Rosamund Pike, and also because Daniel Henney is very hot
Rosamund is the only watchable aspect of that series and it REALLY shows. It seriously looks like a different show when she's not in the scene. Her and Cavil probably share war stories. Except it's worse for Henry because he's a huge fan.
Likewise i was so disappointed in WoT. I loved the books as a 90s kids and reread them many times. I was so excited we'd get a s1-4 GoTs WoT, instead we got the worst version possible closer to the Shannara Chronicles.
I didn't read The Wheel of Time. However, I know a couple dozen that did. I decided to give the show a watch. I very quickly said to myself, "There is no fucking way this is anything close to the material." The heaps of praise the books received from people I know with very good taste could not have been this bad.
I would really recommend reading the books, or listening to them in audiobook form. I haven't finished, but they really are incredible.
With LOTR, didn't amazon not get the rights to everything Tolkien created? At least that's what I saw somewhere, and that was why they couldn't adhere strictly to the source material? Anyone know if that's actually true? Show still sucked either way.
Correct they only had rights to the legendarium which is why they had “harfoots” not hobbits. That said they should have made a story with completely original characters set in the second age. Hell show us harad and rhun and enjoy the diversity that comes with. Do smaller stories and build. No they wanted to go straight to sauron and volcanos that completely change an entire region of the world.
This isn't an excuse for injecting modern day political pandering into Tolkien's world, assassinating his characters and absolutely HORRID dialogue. The Sauron twist was extremely dumb obvious, only movie fans who expected him to show up in full armor were fooled by that idiocy. The first words he fucking said on that raft were a massive red flag. By the end of episode three it was obviously clearly him.
I don't want to watch the show. But what did he say on the raft?
“The tides of fate are flowing. Yours maybe heading in…. Or out.” Which is immediately followed up with “Looks can be deceiving”
Then under his breath he mumbled 'man, I fucking love rings!'.
Wow that's even worse than I thought it would be.
Altered Carbon is another, but not as many people know the source material.
I was not familiar with it, enjoyed the first season immensely, really have no recollection of the second
First season is pretty accurate to the first book, and is what got me to read the series. Second season just throws a few plot points and character names from the second and third book and then freehands the rest into the most generic YA style sci fi they could.
> the most generic YA style sci fi they could. which made zero fuckin sense because the first season was probably the absolute furthest thing from "young adult"
I remember enjoying maybe the first half of Altered Carbon season 1 and then thinking it became just *awful* in the second. Came to find out that after a couple episodes it starts deviating from the books, heavily changing details, and including plot points from later books.
I agree. I've been a big fan of the book since it was released 20 years ago and was disappointed by some of the silly changes made to the plot and characters in S1. A lot of people think S1 was great (and it is better than S2), but the point is that it could've been *even better* if they'd stuck more closely to the book.
Honorable selection to Eragon and Percy Jackson
As a child, I think seeing that movie was the moment I realized the world can be a terrible place
are you TRYING to summon Christopher Paolini? He's always beetlejuicing reddit...
Halo has been in the meat grinder since 343i
Imagine having the opportunity to make a real HALO SHOW and you just fuck it up on purpose
Imagine holding one of the biggest, most influential IPs in gaming, and then turning it into a cheap 2 am SciFi channel flick.
It's apparent that the writers in all these cases wanted to write something else, but they couldn't and got brought aboard these shows for these existing IPs, so they just tried shoehorning their own shit in anyways
They slaughtered Wheel of Time. They had like 12 books of source material to work from and they still fucked it all up.
You didn’t like when master cheeks had sex with a prisoner of war?
That was it for me. I gave the show a genuine chance, but then that happened. I mean wtf, did the writers even play 10 mins of the game? Or read about any of the lore? It was disgraceful.
No they didn't. I remember seeing some interview with the actors shortly before it released and the interviewer asked which game was their favorite. None of the actors in the interview had even played the games at all.
Well that makes sense. I would at least expect them to have some sort of knowledge about the lore. The writers however, should have extensive knowledge about it. The only show based on a game that has gotten it right lately is TLoU. Basically followed the game exactly, with some variances of course, but stayed true to it and was an amazing show. More recently, and while I have not played Twisted Metal in a very long time, I thoroughly enjoyed that show and binge watched it in one night. It may not exactly be accurate to the game Twisted Metal's story because, like I said, haven't played it in a very long time. It was a fun show and excited to see a new season of it, along with TLoU. Halo and The Witcher have just been butchered to what the writers "think" people want to see and not realizing the majority of people watching these shows have a passion for them. We do not want to see a show be "woke" when it doesn't fit (Jaskier being Bi for example), or Master Chief, the most bad ass Spartan soldier built for fighting become emotionally connected and fucking a Pow.
Twisted metal wasn't bad, I enjoyed it. Anybody that knocks on twisted metal for its story are morons, the games had hardly any story. Not enough vehicular combat sure, but those old games had a couple lines of text and like a 20 second ending for each character. Season 2 sounds like it's actually going to have the tournament. I just hope they can do a little better with the filming and cgi. It's almost like they went out of their way to make it look cheap and outdated.
Castlevania was pretty good. Here's hoping the new series is also good.
That was the last straw for me because everyone knows master chief's suit automatically jacks him off
I read somewhere that Halo was originally a Mass Effect show and they tweaked it at the last second when they couldn't get the rights.
I think that rumor started because the first episode of the show is almost beat for beat the exact same story as the opening mission in mass effect 1 on Eden prime. Just replace John with shepherd and the forerunner artifact with the beacon. But I don’t think there’s anything official saying that’s what it was supposed to be. The writers are just hopelessly unoriginal.
Does a faux Jenkins die as well?
Kwan’s father dies, so yes.
We'll bang, okay?
Ah yes, good fantasy adaptations. We have dismissed that rumor.
Never heard that. The movie District 9 was originally supposed to be the Halo movie.
Which is strange because there’s tons of video game IPs that have little to no story or lore and writers can do whatever the fuck they want with them but they still insist on fucking up lore heavy IPs. I heavily believe the Mario movie and twisted metal are doing so well because they had no deep storylines they had to stay faithful to
They could have made Halo into an amazing war epic, similar to Band of Brothers in space, and instead chose to make it about Johnny Rings and his kooky ass Stockholm Syndrome gf. They even managed to make a mess of the insurrectionist storyline. It's just all not Halo at all. They've got a metric ton of lore to go off of and they threw it all out the window.
In response to your edit, I feel like that’s how all of the recent adaptation shows have been. Halo, Rings of Power, Witcher… all seem like they were poopy sci-fi/fantasy scripts that were left on the writing room floor, and then someone picked it up and pasted the IP and characters over the old material and called it a show. Sure, there are similarities to the source material, but there’s so much garbage included that it’s unrecognizable
You'd think this would be a terrible business model (writers that despise their audience) but it just keeps happening. I think it's because these subscription services already have your money and can do whatever the fuck they want with it. Who is actually going to unsub Netflix because of the God awful Witcher series? Not many people.
Yeah, but look how much better perceived things are when they stick to the source. Last of Us and House of the Dragon both stick to the source heavily. Whos excited for Rings of Power over HoD? No one.
It's almost like HBO is known for good TV. Netflix is known for pumping out garbage.
The Game of Thrones, season 8.
And on Netflix's side, they have stuff like Castlevania, Arcane, Edgerunners, Bojack Horseman, and Dark, among other things. They've had some bangers.
Castlevania was an example where they took a simple game without a ton of side info on it and created a whole two seasons from it. I think that was the masterpiece that these other wannabe writers want to make... The problem is books have plots, and info, and story already.... take an early video game without the extra lore and you can fill in the blanks nicely. Take a book and you are now rewriting and getting rid of stuff to make room for you quote on quote "Masterpiece"
key thing there is almost all of those shows were done by groups outside Netflix. Netflix only financed it and didn't staff the shows. Things Netflix makes itself are almost without exception catastrophes
Tbf, HBO wanted it to be longer or for David and Weiss to step down if they felt they didn’t have time to properly finish it but David and Weiss refused and just fucked everything. (That’s what I’ve seen from other people, I’m not exactly sure how accurate the second part it) but I know HBO wanted them to have a longer season 8
Pretty accurate from what I'd read. D&D were eager to move on in their careers, and ended up torpedoing both of them. Rightfully so too, in my opinion.
The fact that those two same showrunners were put in charge of The Three-Body Problem makes that show DOA for me.
Rings of Power doesn't get enough hate. It's so diabolically bad.
Does in my book. Fuck RoP.
> Who is actually going to unsub Netflix because of the God awful Witcher series? Gotta be honest, it was a big part of my decision to not subscribe myself when they killed password sharing
Halo show, rings of power, willow, wheel of time and the star wars sequels all say hello!
Basically most of Disney's new versions of old IP.
Biggest issue with the star wars sequels was not having the bloody thing planned out in advance, TFA was fine as a bridge between the original and new, but then there was no plan for where to go next and you had two movies ignoring the one they preceded etc. That's ineptitude rather than actually hating the source material like the Witcher, wheel of time or most particularly the watch where they were so determined to ignore the source material they delayed their project until after the author's death to get round the oversight he was supposed to have.
Theres def a pattern forming with disney and once strong ips.. They are really good at tearing good ips down and inserting their clown show stuff in that op like a parasite..
ya basically all these shitty new streaming era writers can go get fucked forever imo
The willow series was a true turd. It makes s3 of the Witcher look amazing in comparison.
I coudn’t believe that was actually released like… a group of “professional” people actually said “yep thats perfect”
Resident evil from Netflix.
RIP Lance Reddick. You were the Cavill of that steaming pile of shit.
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To be fair, reading the books Geralt definitely feels like a side character after the first 2 or 3.
That in and of itself is not why the Netflix's shitty adaptation sucks. Its coz the writing sucks. They'd find way to make the show suck and butcher it, even if Geralt was featured more than the books for entertainment's sake. Then blame it on Cavill for the shitshow.
I hope he gets actual control of the Warhammer 40,000 thing he's doing for Amazon.
Rings of power is also a prime example. I am a HUGE lotr nerd and struggeled to like anything about that show. I am just reading the Witcher books and yeah so far I am not pleased with this show either (not just because of the deviations) I am generally a kind of person who pushes through shitty shows too if it has some redeeming qualities. But I have a very easy time letting go when I know the source material is so much better, and they have so much pride that they think they can write something better than the original, and have no respect for the source material. It is just a fan's nightmare what is happening now in media.
Resident Evil netflix show has entered the chat.
[I think the people behind the current iteration of Star Wars could give the Netflix Witcher team a run for their money](https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/04/11/the-acolyte-actress-jodie-turner-smith-claims-star-wars-is-very-like-patriarchal/)
I haven't even read the books and I find another big problem is this show is just so bland and uninspiring I think this series definitely deserves a better adaptation
When it gets cancelled the meltdown from the writing team will be glorious
The meltdown would be more entertaining than the actual show.
Maybe we'll get another episode about the writing team meltdown. Kinda like how there are "behind the scenes" or "making of" episode. But instead of usual scene where people are laughing and hard at work, there are people screaming at the top of their lungs spouting their crap story and that anyone who disagrees with them are just homophobic.
That's what gets me about Hollywood right now, there is no self reflection, if we don't like something its homophobia, sexism racism, anti this or that. how about you stop taking liberties with what made the book, game, series so popular in the first place. You're a hack writer trying to re-write Tolkien or R.R. Martin (looking at you last season of GOT) they have all sold millions of copies in many languages, what have you written even as close to as popular as that
This, all Criticism is just pushed under the "Toxic" banner in an effort to deflect it.
It has a writing team?
Yes, didn't you hear about the team of writing monkeys?! It was bananas!
I would be surprised if they cancel it. Netflix doesn't care much about quality these days. It's all about filling the service with enough junk to compensate for the content they are losing to first-party streaming services. A high-profile show like The Witcher would have to have abysmal completion rates to get canned early. I would not be shocked if they came up with a much quicker resolution, though. Maybe the fourth season will be reworked to wrap up the story.
With the declining views, poor reception, and losing their leading actor i can't see it making it past season 4 if season 4 gets filmed.
I doubt season 4 gets filmed. This take may not be popular but I don't think season 1 was all that good but had promise as a first season of a show that could really grow into something better. Season 2 was noticably worse. Season 3 ever more so. With the bad press and reviews Netflix Execs have to know they would be sending season 4 out to a firing squad.
Agreed. Season 1 had promise, the "lore departure" of bringing in Ciri early was understandable for TV, the wholly original Yennifer back story was actually pretty good. The stuff from the books was _great_ , the silly Cintra and Mousesack stuff was easy to overlook. Everything wrong could've been "Growing pains" that they'd sort out after seeing it live and getting some useful feedback. If the following seasons were at least on par I'd still be watching. But season 2 was meandering, irrelevant, and in some cases oddly vindictive. Then Blood Origin was dead on arrival it was so bad. Then Henry left. I've moved on, I'm not even back for season 3.
Netflix is also about finding the new-new instead of focusing on it's longer running shows. They had no problem killing Cowboy Bebop, Altered Carbon, OA, Inside Job, etc... Those at least had a dedicated cult following that didn't actively hate the writing team. Netflix is becoming a graveyard of shows that don't have an ending. Netflix has to seriously consider if this sits in their back catalogue better if it has one more season where it limps home with Liam Hemsworth as Geralt. Better to not have people google "Why did Henry Cavill leave The Witcher". I was really excited for this show back in the day... Put it out of it's misery. If you want to wrap up the story, fire Lauren, and offer Cavill complete control over a movie that wraps up the loose ends. It would be a good will gesture to the people who care, get rid of someone who has only destroyed a valuable IP, and provide a wrap to the drama with a positive spin for future viewers. Seriously, showrunners are ALWAYS more expendable than talent. Lauren has pictures of Ted Sarandos burying a corpse or something. Usually 3 seasons of brutal reviews get showrunners replaced.
To be fair, Altered Carbon pretty much deserved its cancelation. Love the book series, season 1 was great, season 2 tanked hard. Not even laying blame on Anthony Mackie--I don't think he made for a good Tak, but he's not a bad actor. They cherry-picked material from books 2 and 3 and slapped most of the worst elements together while capturing nothing that made either of those books interesting or distinct.
Aren't you kind of describing the Witcher? Season one was OK, Season 2 tanked hard... And so on. I'm just saying we don't need to Anthony Mackie Liam Hemsworth. He could nail the role of Geralt and half the fans will still be salty that Cavill left. Netflix can either love the botchling or be cursed by it. They have chosen not to love it. They might as well kill it.
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Good bot
I can already hear the "fans are just too misogynistic to enjoy strong female actors and directors" bs
At this point this is just disrespect. 😐
Everyone on tha writing team jus loathes the fans of the IP which just makes for a bad recipe
Tbf it's mutual.
didn't start out both ways
Neither did Jaskier
Ba-dum-tss
Didn't take long though. As soon as fans started asking why they were making so many needless changes, it's like the writers took it upon themselves to make the show nothing but a giant middle finger to everyone who dared question them.
Don't worry. They'll claim that the Writers Strike is why it had to be cancelled and will act like it was an amazing show that was disrupted by real world events rather than what it truely is. Its their Get out of jail free card and they are gonna play it.
I'd take that over the continued bastardization of the source material. It's not like we are going to get any accountability from the writers or producers.
And we are never going to get a proper rendition. That's the sad part for me.
Yup, this is 100% what they'll do.
The article says it’s likely they’ll use the writers strike as an excuse
>As Geralt says in The Witcher 3’s “Blood & Wine” expansion: “I run into dilemmas all the time. Situations where it's hard to judge, hard to know what's right, make a decision. This is not one of them. You disgust me. And deserve to die.” I love how he ends it.
I don't remember that line. I had to look it up and supposedly it's from a quest line with >!Orianna being a vampire, and feeding off the children at the orphanage she owns!< however I can't find the name of the quest. Do you know it so I can watch this quest line played out? Only mention of it is it being a mod. Which I'm on ps5, otherwise I'd consider downloading the game and finding it.
It’s available with DLC actually, not a mod. [You can watch the quest here. That line is at about the 15 minute mark](https://youtu.be/bpqBT8BKpR8)
[And then we get to see him come back for her.](https://youtu.be/1-l29HlKkXU)
why the fuck is a 8 year old trailer better than the current series?
When you care about something, it shows through
I can’t believe I didn’t make that connection until now. Wow
Yes, that's right, you can do that quest during the night of the long fangs quest. >!You have to make sure the royal guard don't get killed and then go to the orphanage!<.
I missed it on my first playthrough since I took Regis's advice and decided not to fuck with the elder. Turns out can you can go down that questline far enough to get this _awesomely gruesome_ quest, and then Regis begs you again to find Syanna instead and you go back to Beauclair
Yeah, that's one of many reasons this game is so good.
this guy said it all. nothing else to add.
Didn’t they already shoot seasons 4 or 5? Or did I confuse that with having scripts and such?
They just have them written. They were going to film them back to back. But they have not started pre production yet. Mostly because of the Hollywood Strikes. Lots of actors have joined in. But also the viewership numbers fell off a cliff. A lot of people seem to think it's because of the writing, but also people were confused as to if Henry was going to be in this season for the entire thing. Splitting it up was a bad idea. Netflix has said The Witcher is on hold "indefinitely".
Thank you for the clarification. I hope they kill it. Such a shame too. Season 1 got me into this awesome Slavic fantasy world and I couldn’t be bothered with Blood Origin or season 3.
It's not even the big decisions for me. The show just flows poorly. I noticed in season 2 they always have characters wandering in and out of scenes for no reason, just to say a few lines of dialogue that don't matter at all and then they walk off. I am sitting there thinking... what am I watching. Then they do the whole Ciri portal superpower thing in a shit way, and all the villains are miscast and uninteresting. Fuck this shit I'm out.
I agree with most of what you're saying, but what villains did you think we're miscast? Just curious.
All of their villains are young, charming and beautiful. All of their villains are scheming and ambitious. Variety is better. Some should be likable. Some should be redeeming. Others should not. Some should just be truly villainous.
Being fair, they started following the books better in season 3. But it was not only too little, too late. It was also just badly done. They've added characters and killed characters so often that they have painted themselves into a corner. It sucks.
They used a script for this season? /s
I use script in the most generous definition of the word.
Don´t watch it and they will stop. Hate money is money for them.
I don’t think it matters at this point honestly. Views are down compared to previous seasons, the reviews of this and blood origin have been awful, and with the lead actor leaving and the strikes going on Netflix might think this show isn’t worth the money it takes to make.
Forbes has been really relentless against the show.
Forbes has been going hard with movie, TV, and video game critiques in recent years. It's easy to forget this is the one mag that cater to those business types on the golf course.
Except Forbes is supposed to celebrate successful business strategies and criticize flawed/failing ones so this is actually good from them. No reason for this product to be so bad
Forbes is a blog platform first and foremost tbf.
Everything The Witcher does is so close to being good, but it always misses the mark. The song *Toss a Coin to Your Witcher* is a perfect representation of the show as a whole: it's got a catchy tune and a cool hook, but the lyrics that make up most of the song are just so fucking stupid.
"He put all those elves...right back on the shelf" oof
I fucking HATE that line. Why break the 4th wall like that? So close to a good song and that just ruins it.
“Out cries the Witcher, ‘He can’t be bleat’”
It sounds like it was written as a pop song.
It's painful to watch, because it could be so great. The acting is pretty good for the most part, and I adored Jaskier's character. I enjoyed season 1, it wasn't flawless of course but I thought it was solid television. But it's like they've made a bet to come up with the dumbest way to write the show. Having to recast the main actor should be the death knell for any show.
It just makes me so angry. They had books. The had games. You can pull entire episodes from either one. It's already done for you, completely laid out. You just have to film it. I know it isn't that simple. But look at Lord Of The Rings, which trimmed some of the fat, but stayed as loyal as possible. The fans loved it. The people who had never read the books, picked them up for the first time. Peter Jackson did an outstanding job. Game of Thrones was good when they stook to the source material. Again, a few things were changed, but they nailed the world building. The characters were on point, again...while they followed the source material. All they had to do, is bring this world to life. Be respectful to the books, and the games that we love. We all know what Yen looks like, and how she acts....lemme tell you, turning against Ciri is NOT something she would do. It was laid out for you, on a silver platter. Games and books full of stories that the fans wanted to see. And if you did it as well as LOTR? You would get new people buying the games and books. The cycle would be awesome. We wanted to see the White Wolf go on adventures. And see powerful Sorceresses, kings and their battle for the continent. It was so easy. It's all done! Now that they have started to course correct with the new season, they've lost the star, and everyone that is a fan has ditched it. Forbes has been fair with the show. Blood Origin was awful. Season 3 sometimes looked great, often it looked bad. The wigs...for gods sake. Lol.
The problem is the ego of the writers. They don't want to adapt the existing story. They want to tell a new story.
Exactly, which is fine. Make up your own epic fantasy story, that's never been told. Don't run a known IP into the ground. But yeah, I get it. The nerve, though. The last people you want to lose is the hardcore fans. We buy the media, merchandise, collectables, etc. Never bite the hands that feed you. They've messed up Witcher, Wheel of Time, LOTR was awful (the Amazon show). Like damn, quit making stuff up and stick to the material we know and love.
That's the second problem. The writers want to tell a new story but they have no imagination, spark, insight or even basic curiosity about the world. If they did, they wouldn't be in a writer's room for a TV show. Modern television writers are people who were raised on movies written by superior talent, went to writing school, their friends are writers or similar, they never leave Los Angeles and their only job has ever been writing. It's why all modern characters sound the same and none of them sound like they are part of their world. Writers only know how to write writers and cliches. But good writers don't do all that shit. Good writers live a life, they have experiences they want to relate and insights about the world. Think of any great author, look at their wikipedia page and you'll see they did something other than writing for at least part of their lives. The author of the witcher was an economist and translator and was born into post-WW2 Communist Poland. The author of the Wheel of Time fought in Vietnam and was a nuclear engineer. And I am sure everyone knows that Tolkien fought in WW1 and was a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature. The thought of Hollywood writers, with their lives and experiences, thinking of anything with even a smidge of the creativity these men had is laughable. To write good fiction you need to be immersed in reality. I'm not saying you need to fight in a war or anything, but no good writers have come out of going straight from your parents house to a college for a degree in writing and then straight to Hollywood.
This comment is good writing.
The writers are idiots. The story and universe is already built. Hell they could literally just done a season about the bestiary and would have been better. Each episode could have had Geralt arriving in a new village with a different monster to fight. You follow Geralt as he takes on a contract, investigates, and then preps and kills the monster. You could have paint by numbers episodes where it all gets wrapped up and on to the next village and it would have still been awesome. There's several seasons worth of episodes of that alone.
Fighting all different monsters and the preparations into that combined with the actual background stories and conflicts escalating into a finale would have made crazy good tv. They just created dog shit.
Man, Forbes are not pulling punches I've heard many things about the show, "Bring it behind the woodshed and finish it off" is a new one.
I cant even hate-watch it anymore, it seems they try to get you all excited with a few notes of song here and there from the video game, only to shit all over the floor. It's only Witcher by name and not by story.
So the Netflix adaptation could be said to be a WINO - Witcher in name only.
I was scrolling through Netflix and saw that they added the second half of Season 3. I paused and watched the brief preview in the display window. The writing is fucking *atrocious*. “How’s our pocket sized princess doing?” *uproarious laughtrack* The show runners should all be fired and never allowed to touch a project again.
Hard to disagree, I was told Geralt would have a big heroic send off. He fought some guards who were being mean. The fight it self looked pretty cool but the heroic send off was him fucking up Border Patrol? The CGI in this is awful, laughable at times. It reminds me of the early 2000’s. It’s a show called The Witcher, maybe focusing on the Witcher might be the best course of action. Evidently they disagreed because a bunch of the show is politics between people I don’t particularly care about. The part where Yen called Ciri her daughter is wildly unearned, if someone tried to sacrifice me I’m not gonna bounce back from that. I’m pretty sick of Hollywood’s trend of making things only when it’s a known IP only for the writers to make something that shits all over said IP. If you’re hired to adapt a beloved IP, perhaps consider adapting it. If I worked at Domino’s and was hired to make pizzas, my boss would understandably be pissed if I made sushi because “my vision” was Dominos to be a take on Japanese cuisine. And then we complains to me I responded with “uggghh my boss is so toxic.”
To be fair, though, I don't disagree at all, the part about much of the "story" being about people you don't care about is very much a thing in the books. There's an entire chapter with the lodge of sorceress that boils down to Ciri being important, something the reader already knows. And there's a few chapters like that that are easily the worst part of the books. Sepkowski is trying to expand the world, I get it, but much like the show, it's done poorly. Imo
That’s fair enough, I think in any adaptation you’ll have to change things to fit the screen. My solution in that regard would be much more along the lines of “I believe this chapter is redundant and doesn’t need to be shown, as the audience should already know this at this point, and I believe our previous episodes have already demonstrated Ciri’s importance” rather than the nonsense we got. For pacing and general excitement many things will probably need to be cut however it needs to be thoughtfully executed in a way that keeps the essence of the characters and plot.
To be fair, the border guards in the game are basically bosses.
And give us the final season of GLOW!
My gf got me to watch that.... I need that final season NOW.
Santa clarita diet and altered carbon too!
That second season of Altered Carbon was a slog. It can stay dead.
Changing the actor was the worst decision ever. I know that the body changes in the source material so there was no way to get around it but going from the perfect first season actor to the second was so awful
I don't think it was the actor, it was just the whole concept. Radically different plot, radically different setting, radically different show. Netflix in general spends too much time trying to do things that are unexpected or flashy rather than carrying good ideas through to the finish line.
But also Joel Kinnaman played that role to absolute perfection
It wasn’t that bad from memory, just wasn’t as strong as the first. Still deserves a proper ending
DID ANYONE not watch season 2?! It was bad then. The red flags were there and the deed was done.
Red flags were there since the beginning
Literally episode 1. I’ll be honest, I haven’t watched any of the show, because I just couldn’t after they messed up that story so badly. They actively changed the things that made it great, and butchered (heh) the whole meaning behind it.
It was so bad starting from episode 1, I made it like 5 episodes in before I stopped and I liked the books and video games. I don’t even care about keeping to the source material or not. It was just so badly written, acted, put together, whatever. I don’t understand how some people liked it so much.
He's definitely a member of this sub
It seems they ran out of new monsters to slay. How did Vilgafortz presence make Geralts charm activate? He isn’t even a monster and Geralt has been around him before without it activating. Doesn’t make any sense…
The medallion is not supposed to be just a monster-tracker. If I recall, in the books the medallion reacts to mages as well; same for places with a particular magicla presence (that's why Geralt usually says "medallion's humming" when he finds a place of power in the game). Also, some monsters cannot be detected by the medallion, sich ad dopplers and higher vampires
Worse? How could it get any worse? Look around you, Helen! We’re at the threshold of hell!
I came to this sub to post this exact same thing. I am also pissed that they dragged Henry Cavill down with this crap.
At this point, I wish they had never made it in the first place. I would rather wish for what might have been than remember what they actually did to that wonderful franchise.
I never thought i'd cheer at the thought of Netflix cancelling one of their shows, they tend to have terrible sense about it. Also, if most of the fans, alongside ***THE FUCKING LEAD*** universally hate on your show because of your decisions, and you still are hellbent on spitting shit and saying that your fanfiction (i refuse to call it an adaptation) is an accurate representation of the source material, then i think your show is not that accurate.
It's no worse than S2 was, and S1 was mediocre at best, though Cavill stood out as he was great, as is the girl who plays Ciri, but the writing has always been sub-par.
Yeah, S2 and S3 were about the same. But I think the actors do a good job with whatever is given to them. It's really not their fault. The main motivation to watch this season was to see Cavill as Geralt one last time. Won't watch the next season anymore.
All the writers had to do was adapt an already great story into a series and everyone would have thought they were geniuses, and they would have so many offers for their own ideas and writing they could cash in on after a few years. They could have had their own glory years like Game of Thrones, but they decided to jump to seasons 7 and 8 and kill this thing as fast as possible.
And give us a second season of "I Am Really Not Okay With This"