Netflix's The Witcher

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/05/...netflix-series

"This morning, Netflix announced that it's in the process of developing a new series based on The Witcher Saga, the wildly-popular eight-novel series from Andrzej Sapkowski which previously served as the inspiration for CD Projekt Red's game series.

According to IGN, Sapkowski will serve as a consultant on the series, and he sounds pretty pumped to be involved:

“I’m thrilled that Netflix will be doing an adaptation of my stories, staying true to the source material and the themes that I have spent over thirty years writing.""

Here's the full list of characters...

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/08/...of-the-witcher

"Henry Cavill has told IGN that he'd be interested in the role of Geralt in Netflix's forthcoming adaptation of The Witcher.

Cavill has been pretty open in the past about his love of Skyrim and World of Warcraft. (Famously he ignored a call from Zach Snyder to tell him he'd won the role of Superman in 2013's Man of Steel because he was playing WoW.)

So at a recent junket for Mission: Impossible – Fallout, IGN asked Cavill what he was busy playing these days.

"The Witcher 3. I just replayed all the way through," said Cavill. "Love that game. Really good game."

With that in mind, we asked if he'd be interested in the role of Geralt in Netflix's adaptation. "Absolutely. Yeah, that would be an amazing role."

Cavill also went on to reveal his love of the source material, Andrzej Sapkowski's series of fantasy novels. "The books are amazing," Cavill tells us. "The books are really, really good... The books I started reading, and they are well worth a read.""

W...T...F? How the hell does he have time to not only play, but replay the Witcher III?

Ta da!

https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/hen...es-1202925521/

Hmm, and for a while now it’s been rumored he’d be replaced as Superman...

Wow, any doubt I had before is completely gone. This looks amazing.

This makes me wanna pick up Witcher 3 again. Looks great.

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A few early reviews from some websites have emerged on Twitter, although I am not sure how legit they are. Most of them seem pretty positive, and some are straight up raving about the show...

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Three episodes in. It's definitely...sub-great? There's some interesting timeline stuff going on but I'm not sure they're getting a lot out of it other than unnecessary complication so far. Maybe that'll change. It's a pretty mixed bag but definitely good enough to keep watching.

Yennefer's storyline is already twice as interesting as all the others combined. It's straightforward, clear, compelling, and her performance so far has been the best in the show.

To clarify, by "sub-great" I don't mean "just short of great." I just mean that it's clearly not a great show. How good or bad it is, exactly, I'm not sure, but that's the one classification it seems can probably be ruled out right away. I guess it could shock me down the stretch but it's just hard to imagine a show this muddled having that kind of turnaround.

Simplest example I can think of is that there are, in the first episode, some fairly dramatic events we're clearly meant to have a reaction to...but they happen to characters we basically don't know, in a place we don't know, for reasons we don't really understand. It's the kind of thing you'd expect four or five episodes in, at minimum, if it's to have any kind of impact. And if it's not to have any impact--if it's just setup--then there's zero reason for them to linger on it as long as they do. Very odd choices.

I'm enjoying it, 5 episodes in. They've really stayed true to the game which probably makes it better. Henry Cavill is nailing it.

Not sure how much depth there is, and it's hard to get a sense of where Geralt is or what the general map looks like? Politics etc.

Geralt, Yennifer and Siri storyline are all holding my interest, especially Yennifer. Geralt is more of a lone wanderer/clint Eastwood character so far though.

Looking forward to finishing it.

8/10 so far I'd say.

I guess we'll see!

My wife and I were talking about this, and this is one thing I kinda hope keeps happening. If they try to do the Game of Thrones thing it's gonna be reallllyyy hard for it not to feel like a cheaper imitation of it. On the other hand, it would really fit the character (at least, would seem to) if it's kind of a running joke how people throw all these country and character names at him and he just sort of deflects it, does the job, and moves on. There's all this intrigue going on, but that's not his concern, and it might be a refreshing change of pace from all the clumsy thicket of fantasy world-building so many of these shows try to do, which is either stellar (and even then, only if you're willing to really pay attention to it) or terrible and boring with almost no in-between.

I'd kinda like to see him just blazing into new places and letting all the background geopolitical stuff wash over him as a sort of meta-commentary on the genre. At least for awhile. Could even mirror a character arc insofar as he starts giving a crap.

Either way, though, I think shows like this really need to ease into that stuff. Too many of them just throw a ton of silly names at you right away.

I don't think they are trying to be Game of Thrones but comparisons are going to be inevitable at this stage. The Witcher reminds me of show formats like Star Trek where we have a main storyline, ie Geralt finding Siri combined with Yennifer, but also each episode is it's own little monster hunt story with a conclusion. Game of Thrones was one continuous story. This in itself is refreshing. In the opening scene I was getting bad Van Helsing vibes thinking Geralt is going to be facing some big CGI monster and deus ex his way out of it but all of his opponents have been interesting since then.

The time hop stuff is quite interesting, it's like we're getting the long Geralt and Yennifer version and the short Siri story with those storylines merging, a bit like Dunkirk in a way I guess.

It's easily the best video game adaptation out there, but that isn't a difficult or impressive feat.

Edit: seems there are books too, so not sure if it is a direct video game adaptation, Ill have to look into that.