The Witcher - Netflix **Spoilers**

They've finished the, I dunno, first draft, or whatever, of the pilot.

“The Witcher pilot is out for notes, and I’m out for the weekend to spend some time with my kids,” Hissirch wrote. “See you bright and early on Monday!”

http://morningstocknews.com/netflixs-witcher-tv-show-hits-another-milestone/

The likes of Sapkowski are apparently going to have a look through it before it gets finalised.

It's probably ages away yet but there's always a worry with these things about them getting stuck in limbo for years and it's good to see that that's not the case.

The one failing in the Witcher books is the dialogue (although I still find it charmingly weird). This won't have to be dodgily translated from Polish so hopefully they can capture the tone of the books but using better actual words to convey it.

I think Geralt is a hard casting job. It'll be tricky trying to get a guy to convey a sense of personality that's that dry, and can also be an action hero.

I do wonder about accents. It's always jarred a little that a few of the accents were American in the games. I wonder will they go straight down the usual route of all British and Irish.

I've a feeling Zach McGowan might be in for the lead role. Some of his twitter activity might suggest it but then again he more likely having the craic with followers. He was excellent in Black Sails

https://twitter.com/zach_mcgowan/status/954875780634300416

I was thinking Kelly Reilly as Triss but she’s possibly a little too old for it to happen. Jack O’Connell as Dandelion would be a really interesting choice though IMO, he has the charm to pull it off perfectly and I’ve not seen anyone rumoured for that role yet.

duridian wrote: »

Kelly carries her years well though. I was surprised to learn she is 40. Thought she looked younger in Britannia.

What about Rachel LeFevre as Triss?

There were some on reddit saying David Tennant might be good as Dandelion.

Of course, if she's 40 now, it'll be more like 46 by the end of the series.
A bit more mature could well work for Yennefer I think, but there needs to be a girlish quality to Triss.

Looks wish I think Karen Gillan would have the impish sort of beauty I'd be thinking of. You just need to find someone less well known. Probably not the kind of name that could be attracted.

Tennant would be good alright, and he's shown he's happy to try his hand at all sorts of stuff.

There's a batch of genre mainstays like Ian McShane, Ciaran Hinds, James Purefoy and loads of other of the likes that pop up in these things that you'd imagine will crop up at some stage.

I’d be shocked if Sean Bean doesn’t have some sort of part in this too. It’s a running joke that he’s in (and also killed off in) pretty much everything along these lines. He should play :pac:

There will be 8 episodes filmed in Poland covering the first 2 books and will air in 2020

The writers have begun work on the scripts

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/8ht0ro/the_witcher_netflix_series_opened_its_writers/?st=jgxtmmzk&sh=583605b0

someone has done a mock up of what he would look like

I'm absolutely fine with that.

The Witcher's funny: it has a sort of Shakepearean quality to it at times with somewhat pretentious monologues and some of the characters are a bit supercilious, so if they keep to that and have slightly stilted dialogue then I think the writing will be a bigger factor than the performance.

I don't know what a breathtaking Geralt performance looks like, or a Yennefer one. I feel like a lot of the colour will be added by the supporting cast, and by Ciri - kid Ciri will perhaps be the most crucial, because if you don't give a **** about her, then what's the point?

Hmm. I'm getting the itch. I might read it again.

Well, things were all going a bit too smoothly...

https://www.pcgamesn.com/the-witcher-netflix-cast-ciri

The casting for Crilla, the ‘The Lion Cub of Cintra’ reads “looking for a 16 or 15 year old BAME” – that’s ‘black, Asian, and minority ethnic’ if you’re not from the UK – “girl who can play down to 13/14. Must not be older than 18 years old.” Certain corners of the internet are preemptively upset about the possibility of Ciri not being white, though there’s little justifiable reason for it – unless you’re married to the idea that Polish fantasy requires Polish ethnicity across all its fictional nations.

Naturally, the internet has lost its ****.

If it's true, they really have shot themselves in the foot here.

They can probably get away with fiddling with the appearance of any secondary character, but Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri have pretty well defined looks at this point, and the core of the audience that will give it any staying power are probably going to be the ones already invested in them, either from the books or the games.

You can argue that none of it matters, but if you start making arbitrary changes to the story, at what point do you just have to ask, why not make your own story instead of changing this one to be what you want?

I've seen some suggest that BAME might include Eastern European, which doesn't really strike me as likely, but who knows. I'll assume it's all bollocks until they confirm otherwise because it sounds too daft and too lacking in self awareness to be likely.

Geralt and Ciri posted

Ciri and Yennefer have been cast

https://tvline.com/2018/10/10/the-witcher-series-casts-ciri-freya-allan/

The casting of the other sorceresses, but not Triss is a little puzzling. Other than Yennefer, she's the first to appear, and other than Yennefer, none appear until Blood of Elves.

I wonder does that mean they're going to do some extra background story for Yennefer, showing their time together under Tissaia at Aretuza. I think she speaks of it a bit in the books, but you never see it first hand.

If Ndiweni is Fringilla, then perhaps they'll build up a rivalry there.

Chalotra maybe looks a bit girlish for Yennefer, but she's supposed to look early 20s, so it's not a big deal.
I also wonder is Freya Allan a bit old? She's supposed be ten when she first turns up.
I suppose she's quite a young 17, and if they fudge it so that she's 15 to begin with or whatever, it's grand, really. The particulars of the timeline aren't that important for her.

Presumably we'll get Duny, Dandelion, Pavetta and so on at a later date.

I do wonder, will they include all the short stories, will they stick to the Yennefer and Ciri-centric ones, or are they writing mostly new material.

They're clearly including "A Lesser Evil" with Renfri being cast, as well as "A Question of Price" introducing Calanthe and Ciri's plotline, and presumably "The Last Wish". From the second collection, they're almost certainly including "The Sword of Destiny" and "Something More". I wonder will they throw in the battle of Sodden Hill or other battles with Nilfgaard for the climax of the first season.

I wonder how they're going to handle pronunciation in the show. It'd be nice if they got some Gaeilgeoirs in to handle some of the Elder speech on which it's based. It grated a bit to hear Clan Tuirseach pronounced "Tweersek".
Edit: Also, sometimes it's Welsh. Get some Cymrus in as well.

Some more casting.

I don't think I recognise any of them, but Lars is Mads brother and Anna Shaffer was Romilda Vane in one of the Harry Potter films. She doesn't look much like the pale ginger Triss, but that doesn't really matter terribly.

Cavill looks alright. Probably more tweaking and post production to go yet.

Don't see what's wrong with Triss. Cavill is wearing a wig, she can too.

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

I thought Josh Holloway (Lost) would be good too

I think he's just an awful actor.

The colour of "roasted chestnuts" it was, which can be anything from light brown to kinda how her hair looks in the game depending on the light

But yeah, id rather they went mildly accurate instead of altering a lot just to tick off the racial diversity box

https://twitter.com/seewhatsnext/status/1145693837676797952