The Witcher (Netflix)

[Jason Aiken]

It looks like the TV series is good news upon good news for the original author, his books are now best sellers, not just in the fantasy category, but period:

www.orbitbooks.net/2015/06/08/the-last-wish-is-a-new-york-times-bestseller/

gamerant.com/witcher-books-sales-netflix/


And, although the author has spoken out about how he isn't into the games, the Witcher 3 now has more players than ever on Steam:

www.techspot.com/news/83362-witcher-3-has-more-steam-players-now-than.html

I've been saying it for years, but it is becoming more and more obvious that in order to have a run away hit book series, you need to get it made into a TV show first.

I started both reading the books and playing the Witcher 3 and I'm enjoying myself. The short stories in "The Last Wish" have a very heavy European fairy-tale influence that isn't seen in the TV show. For instance, Renfri from the first episode is Snow White, and there is a Beauty & the Beast short story, as well as some references to Cinderella, Rapunzel (I think), and a few others. Due to Disney co-opting these, it's a good thing they were left out of the show, as I don't think the average viewer these days knows of their origins.

[Deleted]

Anyone read the Witcher comics by Dark Horse?

[bunty0barbarian]

House of Glass and Fox Children, are decent S&S adventures, as they are closer in tone to the books, and the art is scratchy but has enough detail (marshlands, bog lands, dark clouds etc) It's been a long time since I've read them but dialogue isn't great, I mean in the books, Geralt uses signs (casting spells by complex hand gestures) but in the comics, he says names of the spells aloud.

Killing Monsters is basically the prologue part of the Witcher 3 ("The Killing Monsters" trailer), its OK as far as short comics go.

Haven't read the other two but I like the suggested above, since I'm a fan, but for a newcomer, get it on sale. It's better to read the books frankly if you haven't read them, the first two short story collections (The Last Wish & Sword of Destiny) are fantastic.

[Von K]

Jan 4, 2020 22:34:41 GMT -5 Jason Aiken said:

It looks like the TV series is good news upon good news for the original author, his books are now best sellers, not just in the fantasy category, but period:

www.orbitbooks.net/2015/06/08/the-last-wish-is-a-new-york-times-bestseller/

gamerant.com/witcher-books-sales-netflix/


And, although the author has spoken out about how he isn't into the games, the Witcher 3 now has more players than ever on Steam:

www.techspot.com/news/83362-witcher-3-has-more-steam-players-now-than.html

I've been saying it for years, but it is becoming more and more obvious that in order to have a run away hit book series, you need to get it made into a TV show first.

I started both reading the books and playing the Witcher 3 and I'm enjoying myself. The short stories in "The Last Wish" have a very heavy European fairy-tale influence that isn't seen in the TV show. For instance, Renfri from the first episode is Snow White, and there is a Beauty & the Beast short story, as well as some references to Cinderella, Rapunzel (I think), and a few others. Due to Disney co-opting these, it's a good thing they were left out of the show, as I don't think the average viewer these days knows of their origins.

Thanks for the articles Jason. I've not read any Witcher nor played any of the games but I can get why they'd be popular.
The author was maybe riffing on Michael Moorcock's Elric for certain elements of the character design, perhaps influenced by Whelan's more muscular version on some of the older book covers?

[Deleted]

Jan 5, 2020 10:54:18 GMT -5 bunty0barbarian said:

House of Glass and Fox Children, are decent S&S adventures, as they are closer in tone to the books, and the art is scratchy but has enough detail (marshlands, bog lands, dark clouds etc) It's been a long time since I've read them but dialogue isn't great, I mean in the books, Geralt uses signs (casting spells by complex hand gestures) but in the comics, he says names of the spells aloud.

Killing Monsters is basically the prologue part of the Witcher 3 ("The Killing Monsters" trailer), its OK as far as short comics go.

Haven't read the other two but I like the suggested above, since I'm a fan, but for a newcomer, get it on sale. It's better to read the books frankly if you haven't read them, the first two short story collections (The Last Wish & Sword of Destiny) are fantastic.

Thanks Bunty0barbarian.

I was tempted by the Dark Horse library edition at the comic book store. I've just seen the 8th episode of the Witcher - it's pretty good. I'll probably watch the rest of the series, for now. I'm more likely to pick up the books if I like the character and the world in the TV series. 

Thanks again.

[ascalante]

I'm pretty disappointed in The Witcher for Netflix. Henry Cavill is awesome and the set/costume design is great, but after 4 episodes I find the show boring and confusing. The story, other characters, plot and pacing feels disconnected.

Not sure if it how it can get better at this point. Hopefully a Conan series could take a much fresher approach.

[Lonewolf]

I don't know how the Netflix series compares to the books (I have only played a little of the video game, which seemed to be based on killing monsters, drinking, gambling, and womanizing)?, but I feel the show would be better if it actually focused on "The Witcher". The episodes/segments that had Geralt hunting monsters were the best, I would use that format ("Geralt hunting the monster of week") and slowly introduce the world building and supporting characters around that. IMO Cavill/Geralt almost took a "backseat", so the show could promote the female charters (Yennifer, Ciri, the Warrior Queen, Triss, the Head Mage, etc.).

And for some those same reasons producers will not touch a Conan series, an "Alpha Male" as your main character is a thing of the past.

[moonlightshadow]

After three episodes I'm getting out. The series is putting me to sleep. The Witcher strand is mildly entertaining but the other stuff about the princess and the witch (or whatever she is) are completely boring and uninteresting.
I have no interest to find out how the three stories are connected.

[terryallenuk]

Try one more , E4 that got me into it.

[Jason Aiken]

Yeah episode 4 brings it all together and might be the best episode over all.

It's got a great s&s feel, watch that and then cut. If it doesn't win you over, nothing will.

[Deleted]

I gave it 2 episodes and decided it wasn't for me. I normally love this sort of stuff but the show was so slow and the characters so boring that I was better off just moving on. There are too many good shows out there to waste time on a show that doesn't grab you from the get go.

[kemp]

Some cool fight scenes and weapons. If anyone knows of some youtube or dailymotion fight compilations of The Witcher series please drop them on one of the appropriate threads. Just don't want to watch the whole shitefest. 

[Grim Wanderer]

Jan 26, 2020 0:57:18 GMT -5 kemp said:

shitefest. 

Profoundly accurate.

[Von K]

I've not seen it yet but have been interested in the critical reception of the show. They have probably taken a few too many risks for a first season.

1) Front loaded the first season with too many characters and too much set-up for the second season, leaving them not enough space to develop the actual first season characters and material sufficiently.

2) Chosen an awkward structure format for a first season. They are using what I'm familiar with as the fate structure (open with the climax, flip back to the backstory and build up then flip back to the denouement at the end). It can be a good structure for a single episode or film (REH uses it in People of the Dark and Joss Whedon uses it in the Firefly episode Out of Gas, it's a common structure in TV episodes) but it is asking the general audience to track too much using it over a whole season. This compounds the problems caused by 1) above.

3) Edited too much out of some of the yarns to squeeze them into the 1 hr runtime. In one case they removed the entire build up and context for Geralt's reasons for making a certain critical decision, leaving the viewers in the dark as to why he was doing what he was doing and also changing the entire point the original yarn was making.

4) Possibly gone in a bit heavy with political correctness in a less organic way than GoT, though not as heavily as they were planning to before the fan backlash.

This is not to discount that there’s a lot of good stuff in there, the best of which is the casting of Henry Cavil as the Witcher. Hopefully they'll get more of a handle on it with the second season when they get to the novels and learn how to pace the material better. The one thing I keep encountering is how well written the original books seem to be. I'm getting more and more inclined to checking them out.

[Deleted]

THE WITCHER Season 2 Trailer (2021)