The Witcher - Netflix **Spoilers**

notahappycamper

Blood Origins - the Witcher Oirish style “pain in me hole” to quote the lead Irish actor.

Varik

So by the opening premise this was meant to be a story to be retold to give hope to the elves.

That story being elves were pretty much just pointy ear humans and also assholes to the point you'd forget they were meant to be ealves( costumer didn't give everyone fake ears)

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They took dwarves land and about to lose it after trying to conquer other worlds, and I'm pretty sure they just reinvented the wild hunt origin maybe so no tir na lia.

Slydice

My very first thought!.. Hey Jaskiers in this! 🙂

Blood Origins. 1.1: Oh this is great! Michelle Yeoh absolutely handing it to a pair who thought they could bring it! Loved it! 🙂

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Story feels a right jump back even further than Nightmare of the Wolf. Maybe with one part short-cutting the House of the Dragon issue.

Wipe everybody out in one go.. problem solved

but even still more issues.

Goodies and Baddies in play and .. is this building up a Magnificent Seven storyline? The opening story bit felt like it hinted at it.

I'd be guessing then that the ..

Spoiler Warning

seven warriors will join up and maybe have a Magnificent Seven / Seven Samurai style ending

the monoliths will turn out bad news like the monoliths from the Witcher.. a legion to come to the world sounds like an invasion

someone will become a type of proto-witcher.. so like maybe an amped up Elf.. maybe Fjall or maybe Éile.. but maybe they are holding someone or a kid in reserve for that

Had a quick check of the reviews and can see I'll have to watch the series to get an actual impression of the show.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12785720/ratings/

theseFuckersAgain.jpg

Slydice

Blood Origins. 1.2: 😲 Yep, definitely time to run. It almost feels like..

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there's been only the one monster introduced to this world.

Also no humans about.

Maybe they're due to arrive from this two moon place.

For the rest of the bigger story, definite vibes of a Magnificent Seven showdown coming up. Guessing the dwarf is number seven. Thought her intro story was done well.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120038436#Comment_120038436

I found the series a bit boring, but the writng and dialogue was not terrible and definitely doesnt deserve to be be downvoted the way it is, not a lot of grownups voting in imdb. Cant see the Witcher universe surviving too long after Cavill leaves.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120038436#Comment_120038436

Haven't watched the series yet (not even sure that I will cos feeling a bit down on High Fantasy ATM TBH) ...

... but I want to take a moment to appreciate the filename of Slydice's image: theseFúckersAgain.jpg

I know exactly how you feel. It's Pavlovian at this stage from some.

silverharp

the critics hate it too so by any measure its a below average show that wont go anywhere

Cordell

Seeing the reviews I had low expectations but holly crap this is bad. Why did they do this?

Slydice

Blood Origins. 1.3: Well. That sure took a few twists and turns but setup for the finale well enough. Felt like some shortcuts were taken in the story to get there a bit.

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Still feeling a bit magnificent seven. Guessing not everyone is going to come out alive.

Also, look who turned up! 🙂 One nut! 😁

johnnyskeleton

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120039816#Comment_120039816

Just to be clear, are you suggesting that some people will give 1 star reviews to every fantasy series these days without even thinking about it, or am I missing the point?

Because if so, 2021/22 was a very bad time for fantasy shows. Shadow and Bone and the House of the Dragon were two professionally produced and immersive shows (irrespective of whether you ultimately like them or not) but the Wheel of Time, Rings of Power, Willow and Blood Origins have all been absolutely shocking in terms of their low quality. TROP had good cgi landscapes, but overall these shows suffered from bad dialogue, plot holes, one dimensional characters, poor acting, cheap costumes props and sets and overall give the impression of fantasy shows created by people who dont like, or even actively hate, the source material / genre.

Blood Origins suffers from the same problems. Take the Irish guy SPOILERS: They put in the scene where he is banished because that happens in fantasy shows where someone honourable feels shame or is mistreated and starts them on a redemption arc. He ends up in a prison with his nemesis. He is then released by his father bribing the guards (how they knew he was there or why they would so easily be bribed is unclear). In any event, when offered redemption from his father he says "no thanks, pub instead". He has no money for the pub but wants to give them a valuable (and possibly sentimentally important) necklace, which turns out to have been stolen by his nemesis. He risks his life to save his nemesis from baddies (unspecified) and gets injured so that he can get this necklace back. The necklace that he was going to sell to buy hooch. But then has no further interest in the pub because he wants to go a questing with his nemesis. Then they find out all their families are killed, by his ex girlfriend, and he wants revenge (even though his family banished him, not her).

This character is full of contradictions, like they put several generic fantasy tropes into a blender and hoped a character would pop out

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120052240#Comment_120052240

I think you are only going to leave a 1 out of ten star vote on a show/movie in the numbers seen for this show as part of vote brigading exercise. I have watched Willow, wheel of time and this show and all have high production values, middling scripts and middling dialogue but nothing is terrible. Scifi, fantasy and superhero fans have shown quite a number of times now that they will downvote a show to high heaven in imdb, RT and metacritic if a show/movie in their genre displays a theme or relationship they are not comfortable with.

sydthebeat

Willow shouldn't be thrown into the same conversation as TROP and Wheel of time.

At least willow knows it's all ridiculous, and has fun with it

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053013#Comment_120053013

True not unlike the original film where the trolll was just a man dressed in a obvious monkey costume. TROP was boringly serious as was wheel of time, though some episodes of wheel of time were better than others

Slydice

Finished! Overall that was ok for what it looked to be setup to do. Michelle Yeoh and her performance stood apart from the show by miles in all her scenes.

Though a big step down in investment from netflix or cd projekt it felt. Some effects and scenes looked like the had minimal money or effect from directors put in. On the other side, some scenes looked like they had a lot of money splashed onto them. At a guess, they'll be used as flashbacks in the next Witcher season.

Blood Origins. 1.4: Definitely with the credits scene and the end song, it felt like this was setup for the coming Witcher season.

I did like the ending which setup a lot of the future for the world of the Witcher. This show did get across how it came to be.. especially taking Nightmare of the Wolf into account.

Also season two of the witcher.. those elves

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just really seemed to set themselves down a path

The one thing I'm not sure on is

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Eredin. Feels like maybe I should know who he is from earlier but no. Not a clue. Maybe they're just setting him up as the next baddie here what with the mask and all. A few hundred years in that chaos place and I'm guessing he'll come out with more that just that chaos power.

Jackiebt

Absolutely loved the Witcher so was excited to watch the spin off Blood Origins. I lasted two episodes, jaysus it's terrible.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053005#Comment_120053005

you are mind reading the people leaving reviews and giving a cop out to the people behind these shows. A 1star review to me just means they expected more, wanted the show to be good and were disappointed. If a show is any good it should be getting lots of > 7s . if someone leaves a 1/10 against a 4/10, both are saying the show is basically crap

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120054111#Comment_120054111

It is a guess for sure but if a show gets an average 6 on imdb you are more likely to give it a chance then if it gets an average 3 ( a diifference of 3) so i wouldnt lump in individual scores of 4 with a 1. For me to give a score of 1 i would really have to despise it.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120054148#Comment_120054148

I was thinking using a scale of 10 is too specific, basically there is, an abomination, not worth watching, average, above average and top tier. Indeed despise/abomination means something, along the line of its disrespecting source material and doing it badly. Take for instance Amazon's lotr , if I was to leave a review , i'd give it the lowest score because I have something to compare it too, if on the other hand I knew nothing about the show or pretend there is no history it might straddle the not worth watching/average. That's the show maker's problem though not the viewers, if the makers keep going back to the well with their re-imaginings, they will hit the same problems.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120054440#Comment_120054440

it is not that specific though, I think scores 1-3 terrible 4-6 average 7-10 good/great. Stephen king always thought the Shining disrespected the original novel but it definitely shouldnt be given a 1 for that! It is not hard to recognise that when a show gets a lot of 1 scores and its not of Sharknado level of crapness that there is some organised voting based on some political woke/anti woke agenda of the voters. it is a pet peeve of mine that such voting may drive away viewers who has less attachment to the material and may enjoy the show.

I do like the witcher but I presumed it will be murdered in rating once the lesser Hemsworth comes on board. Always preferred the games though to be honest than the books.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120054508#Comment_120054508

I dont think a review score affects viewership when the show is on necessarily , people will have heard about a show some other way that has got their interest. Also I dont think you could find an example of a show that is a genuine ~7 or 8 that has been dragged down by RT scores? it didnt happen to shows like House of the dragon.- Honestly I think people just have a good sense of what makes a good show, a logical plot, likable characters etc. The fact that show makers arent getting these basics right is on them, and they should have their feet held to the fire.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120054879#Comment_120054879

I still havent watched the power of the rings because it has been sh!t on so much online, just not that bothered now and I know the House of the Dragon was panned by a lot of these so called fans initially after first few episodes until it was clear to nearly everyone it was a good show. You are probably right that voting on imdb corrects itself after a while but I see wheel of time tv show that was is extremely ordinary is rated 7.1 on imdb because 22% of votes are 10 out of 10- so voting manipulated in the other direction! Its annoying that you cant really rely on critic or user votes on many sites as the score may not reflective of the actual quality of the show but some reaction to an unknow controversy or social issue, if you are not in the loop, or a purity test against the source material.

I imagine that if the rebooted Battlestar Galactica and 1960's Batman Tv series were made now they would be vote brigaded as the former replaced a main male character with a female and the other replaced the serious tone of the comic with a comedy version of Batman.

Cordell

While there are indeed shows which are review bombed by fans or for political reasons, this ain't one of those. This one is panned by both critics and audiences, which is the clear measure of being pure crap.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120056052#Comment_120056052

That is true if panned by both they are usually bad- which Blood origins is.

mewso

Finally watched Blood Origin. First 2 episodes I was thinking meh not great but not terrible but oh boy episode 3 and 4 took one hell of a nose dive. Embarrassingly bad writing. You could play a drinking game based on the moments of pure cringe. Unfortunately proof for me that The Witcher is not in safe hands if they continue to deviate from the material.

Pawwed Rig

I was looking forward to this and put on episode 1 last night. I don't see why they made the characters elves. They just seem to be humans with pointy ears. No "Elvin attributes" as I would have known them.

Also similar to WOT the diversity thing constantly takes me out of the story. No issue with the main characters being diverse as the different tribes being different races is fine but when you have a mix of races in a village that is remote and pre industrial it makes no sense.

FunLover18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080789#Comment_120080789

Amazing when it comes to fantasy stories about elves and monsters, it's the introduction of non-white people wherr people struggle to suspend their disbelief.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081005#Comment_120081005

That's absolutely not at all what was said, and pretty disgusting of you to suggest there's a racist card being played here.

Sudden Valley

Skin colour diversity in fantasy always does seem a bit strange like they must be representative of the real world where the races didnt mix for centuries. I guess in terms of the Witcher, the games had pretty much all humans being white and the flagship fantasy series for many Lord of the Rings also was mostly white.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081005#Comment_120081005

Fair point 🤣

But the elves and monsters don't take me out of the story as they are part of the premise. 2 different races living in a small village for generations without breeding each other stretches even fictional credibility unless we are to assume the village operates a strict apartheid that would put Mississippi to shame 😉

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120056022#Comment_120056022

Reboots and continuations shows were grand up until 2012 or so, Star Trek and Battlestar had great female and diverse characters, but if Battlestar had been remade in 2018, it probably would have been a sht show , essentially a Battlestar version of Discovery...shudders! lol