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The Witcher - Netflix Spoilers

Mickeroo

Netflix have announced they'll be doing a TV show of The Witcher series: http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/05/17/netflix-to-produce-the-witcher-tv-series

For those not in the know it's a popular series of Polish fantasy books that gained fame off the back of their very popular and brilliantly realised video game adaptations.

I love the games so have very high hopes for this.

Here's a trailer from the third game to give you an idea of what it's like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0i88t0Kacs

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Gbear

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.

JP Liz V1

ixoy wrote: »

While I was gunning for Zach McGowan for it, it is good to get not only a big name star but one who seems genuinely interested in the source material. In fact Cavill is quite a bit of a gaming geek and I believe comic book geek too.

For the role he's a bit too pretty but they can work with that and we know that he can pull off the facial hair. He's physically strong so he can likely do a lot of his own stunt work. I think the novel is also going to focus on his earlier days so perhaps him being younger won't actually be a problem.

I thought Josh Holloway (Lost) would be good too

Skerries

Geralt and Ciri posted

J. Marston

Think they're trying to differentiate themselves from Game of Thrones. Medieval fantasy setting with a young, beautiful, white/silver-haired Princess of Destiny trope.

I don't agree with it just because I associate Ciri with the game's character design and it's an awesome design.

EoinMcLovin

Ciri and Yennefer have been cast

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

Sudden Valley

yennefer actress looks very young but I don't know how old she is supposed to be in the books. No mention of triss??

Gbear

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.

pixelburp

Official footage of Cavill as the titular Witcher:

https://twitter.com/netflix/status/1057640842201055232

Gbear

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.

nix

All fairly unknown and meh except for Lars Mikkelsen, he was great in Sherlock and house of cards.

Triss casting is terrible, they pretty much casted the total opposite to what she looks like, at least shes not a man i guess?

:pac:

J. Marston

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

nix

J. Marston wrote: »

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

Well Cavill is pale filling a Pale character, Shaffer is mixed race filling a pale ginger role. I'm all for diversity, they changed Yennefers look to tick that box, but tis a bit silly to be doing it on Triss also

FreudianSlippers

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

I thought Josh Holloway (Lost) would be good too

I think he's just an awful actor.

Gbear

Triss is only ginger in the games. Not sure the books mention her skin, but her hair is described as chestnut.

nix

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

Agent Coulson

Production has wrapped on the season.

Netflix is aiming to release the eight-episode first season sometime in 2020.

https://www.comingsoon.net/tv/news/1071811-witcher-series-wraps-production?fbclid=IwAR2xjPr5FhlHXmYICulVU8mvDUBnlwstpZ2HPoHbdo_Y4jXhShRW0-SxCUc

Mr E

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

J. Marston

Cavill looks the part. The armour looks great. Although my Geralt always had a beard in-game!

[Deleted User]

I don't know. Cavill looks like a Jackson/Tolkein buff elf. He does not look weary enough.

Saying that I like Cavill so appearance won't put me off TBH

ixoy

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't know. Cavill looks like a Jackson/Tolkein buff elf. He does not look weary enough.

Isn't this a younger Geralt though? So he wouldn't yet be weary. Looks good with that in mind.

Gbear

Geralt doesn't have a beard in the books. They're quite explicit about that. He's probably in his 50's or 60's sort of thing early doors, before Ciri is born. He's pushing 100 in the W3, but it doesn't really matter because Witchers can be 300+ (as I think Vesemir is).

I'm sure Cavill will look better on screen than in a test wig for casting. Im more interested to see how they act than how they look in stills. I suppose it's good that they don't look totally ridiculous with pink hair and wings, but I wouldn't have expected to learn much from them at this point.

Slydice

I don't know the game or if he looks the part.. but that looks like they've got the budget.

So who's the directors and writer?

pixelburp

With Netflix, if it isn't an immediate viral sensation it'll get canned after 2 seasons. That goes double if there's any budget attached - and given this is a genre piece theres a good chance.

No knowledge of the source material, games or books; played about half the first Witcher game, gave up after so much backtracking.

justinbellford

The panel for this at SDCC will be July 19th. I expect a trailer shortly after.

That will be the real sign to see if this has any promise.

Gbear

A clearer frontal pick from Cavill's instagram:

He does look the part alright.

J. Marston

Yeah, I think they've nailed it. Appearance, armour, sword. Looks great.

[Deleted User]

Gbear wrote: »

A clearer frontal pick from Cavill's instagram:

He does look the part alright.

Yeah alright, that looks smash

martyos121

It’ll be interesting to see how he plays the part, will he share the same non-written mannerisms as the game character (low raspy voice, deadpan delivery etc)? Cavill is a decent actor, but it isn’t an easy character to portray given the amount of source content to draw from. He’s very sarcastic in the books with a clever sense of humour (from what I’ve read so far), but the delivery of Cavill will be crucial.

pixelburp

What'll also be interesting is how this is marketed. We're now officially in a post Game of Thrones world; As I said above I've thin understanding of the property but seems like a mature setting and has themes of politics, power, racism (or would that be speciesism?), so the reflex might be to promote this in a "need a new fantasy fix?" fashion.

Gbear

In some ways it's a lot like GOT - gritty, dark political thriller with cynical characters battling through an uncaring world and all the sex and violence you'd expect from that niche, but then it has a sort of whimsical side to it that incorporates a lot of fairytale elements, often in the format of meta-commentary about the genre and the archetypes and tropes you find within it.

It's a little like the works of Terry Pratchett in some ways, except intsead of using a comedic twist on fantasy clichés to tell a story, the Witcher examines them by taking them to their logical conclusions, sometimes with brutal consequences, but sometimes with a bit more uplifting ones as well.

I'm very pleased to see that according to IMDB they've cast the role of Sir Eyck of Denesle, which would strongly indicate one of my favourite short stories is making the cut - The Bounds of Reason.