The Witcher - Netflix Spoilers

Gbear · 01-07-2019 4:02pm

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 · 01-07-2019 6:08pm

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 · 01-07-2019 6:53pm

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 · 01-07-2019 8:59pm

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 · 01-07-2019 9:14pm

A clearer frontal pick from Cavill's instagram:

He does look the part alright.

J. Marston · 01-07-2019 9:22pm

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

01-07-2019 9:29pm

Gbear wrote: »

A clearer frontal pick from Cavill's instagram:

He does look the part alright.

Yeah alright, that looks smash

martyos121 · 01-07-2019 9:32pm

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 · 01-07-2019 9:52pm

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 · 01-07-2019 11:15pm

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.

Skerries · 02-07-2019 11:13am

yeah a lot of times in the books problems are solved bloodlessly

Slydice · 16-07-2019 9:06pm

https://twitter.com/NXOnNetflix/status/1151125243487850497

This seems funny .. though I don't know the witcher universe..
https://twitter.com/NXOnNetflix/status/1151170819227209729

So without knowing the the witcher universe, Cavill looks a bit like a Targaryen from Game of Thrones.

ixoy · 19-07-2019 11:16pm

Trailer just released at Comic con :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSqi-8kAMmM

Looks like a fair bit of money pumped into this. Cavill looks good as a younger Geralt than the games.

pixelburp · 19-07-2019 11:36pm

I like the look of it, as I said in the Netflix thread it feels different enough to separate it from the inevitable GoT comparisons. Know nothing of the source material - what do fans of the books / games think?

With the recent news about lower subscriber uptakes, this will want to do well; I could see Netflix becoming suddenly even more Draconian with their output

Slydice · 19-07-2019 11:38pm

Looks like a maybe. It's got effect and world building and Cavill sooo

does it have story..

Main Writer seems to be Lauren Schmidt:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1274355/

experience with:

The Umbrella Academy
The Defenders
Daredevil
The West Wing

ixoy · 19-07-2019 11:51pm

pixelburp wrote: »

what do fans of the books / games think?

There's a large chunk of game fans almost foaming at the mouth in fury because he's not like the games, despite this being based on the books.. Hopefully they give it a chance.

The issue of falling numbers.. Well it had to peak eventually. This isn't something that can keep growing.

Skerries · 20-07-2019 4:02am

I always thought that going down the book route purely will not work
it needs to be a mix of the game and book as it can be too reliant on classic fairy tales in the books whereas the game was more serious and created its own (better) mythology

Sudden Valley · 20-07-2019 1:21pm

not sure why they cast actresses that looked quite different form thir game versions for Triss and Yennefer but the action looks good. Hopefully they don't introducce the concept of black and white skin colour racism because that was not in the books/games. Don't think it has the depth of characters to be a new Game of Thrones but excited to see how it turns out.

Potential-Monke · 20-07-2019 1:51pm

Having not read the books and going entirely on the game, I like the look of it. It seems dark and serious enough for the Witcher World, and i'm interested in this 'No bad guy' angle, as literally every other show I've seen has a big build up to the main bad battle. Plus the comment that characters you like/dislike at the start could have massively changed by the end.

I'll echo Sudden Valley, really don't know why they changed Triss and Yennifer. Yennifer I can forgive, because i'm #TeamTriss and she's not woefully different (just darker skinned than the game Yen), but Triss is a massive change. In the game she's pale with fiery red hair. In this she's not (didn't even realise she was in the trailer tbh, someone else pointed it out). As a fellow ginger, and a member of #TeamTriss, it is disappointing, but hey! I'm not the person with the bank roll or writing abilities, so I'll go with it and see how it pans out.

Ciri seems to be fairly close to the books, maybe the hair isn't silver/white enough, but again she's young in this so who knows. I'm excited and the trailer has done more than enough justice for me, even Cavill doesn't look too bad! All about the story now.

Brief_Lives · 20-07-2019 4:29pm

From San Diego Comic Con..

Skerries · 21-07-2019 7:21pm

21-07-2019 9:00pm

triss was chestnut in the books iirc, not ginger. so i don't really care about the casting in relation to the game. she also didn't wear those necklines

i like that they're getting into yen's background/origin.
i am not sure it looks kinda... gritty enough or something. it looks a little bit hollywoodish to me by comparison with the books. but i am excited about it for sure.

Brief_Lives · 22-07-2019 9:59am

Found this from Comic Con, too...

Sudden Valley · 24-07-2019 8:52am

Im sure netflix is pretty happy with the controversies surroinding this show. More hype for a netflix show then I've seen in a while.

pixelburp · 24-07-2019 9:25am

Are "fans" still screaming outrage about this; I got the impression many shut their mouthes when the saw the trailer looked quite good (always helps)

24-07-2019 9:49am

pixelburp wrote: »

Are "fans" still screaming outrage about this; I got the impression many shut their mouthes when the saw the trailer looked quite good (always helps)

They need to be reminded (told for the first time) that the game is the adaption, which was not overly faithful to the source material...

Potential-Monke · 24-07-2019 11:57am

While there are fans out there who are probably screaming outrage, I'm sure there's plenty like myself who had preconceived notions of what characters would look like, and are disappointed. But, like me, are willing to give it a chance. As I said earlier, I'll miss the red hair of Triss as I was #TeamTriss, but that's about it. I'm still looking forward to this, and the trailer was good imo. It will take some adjustment to change though, as if anyone was like me they've played through all of the Witcher games, or at least the most recent one multiple times, so it's ingrained into our minds what these characters should look/act like.

24-07-2019 12:41pm

Potential-Monke wrote: »

While there are fans out there who are probably screaming outrage, I'm sure there's plenty like myself who had preconceived notions of what characters would look like, and are disappointed. But, like me, are willing to give it a chance. As I said earlier, I'll miss the red hair of Triss as I was #TeamTriss, but that's about it. I'm still looking forward to this, and the trailer was good imo. It will take some adjustment to change though, as if anyone was like me they've played through all of the Witcher games, or at least the most recent one multiple times, so it's ingrained into our minds what these characters should look/act like.

As a redhead it is something I have noticed, fairly recently.

Jimmy Olsen in BvS and Supergirl
Iris West (and then having to use the alternate Wally) in the Flash TV
Hawkgirl in Legends
MJ (technically a new character) in Spiderman
Black Widow got progressively lighter in hair colour as the series went on to full blonde.

Do I care? Not really but as a kid who was singled out and beaten in school, for being red headed (completely different colour now and love it but I was a real carrot top), I used to retreat into comic books which had red heads everywhere and not a "soulless" joke to be seen.
So I can appreciate how having powerful characters can help kids of minorities but also appreciate that it would have hurt kid me to see all the gingers being replaced.

Sudden Valley · 24-07-2019 1:20pm

Probably harder to find red headed actors now if all their roles are being taken by non red heads. Ciri and Geralt at least look like their video game counterparts. 2 out of 4 aint bad

Potential-Monke · 24-07-2019 5:50pm

And but Cork_exile, we red-heads don't get to be upset about it. It's only hair colour after all!

Maybe like yourself I'm more attuned to seeing the red-heads and subconsciously creating a bond, that could be part of the reason I was #TeamTriss (more likely due to Yenn actually being a bit of a bitch). I've kept my ginger though, but instead of it being on my head I have a fine big bushy beard instead. And I've noticed all these changes too, but again, shur it's only hair colour, it's not like it's a feature you can't change that subjects the owner to years of constant bullying...

Anyhoo, I look forward to this adaptation of it.

24-07-2019 5:57pm

Potential-Monke wrote: »

And but Cork_exile, we red-heads don't get to be upset about it. It's only hair colour after all!

Maybe like yourself I'm more attuned to seeing the red-heads and subconsciously creating a bond, that could be part of the reason I was #TeamTriss (more likely due to Yenn actually being a bit of a bitch). I've kept my ginger though, but instead of it being on my head I have a fine big bushy beard instead. And I've noticed all these changes too, but again, shur it's only hair colour, it's not like it's a feature you can't change that subjects the owner to years of constant bullying...

Anyhoo, I look forward to this adaptation of it.

Oh I've not dyed it, just gotten old

and less vibrant looking (which I ironically miss)
So, whereas now, I don't give a sh1t, 7-10 year old me would have.

I was unsure of this but the trailer is making me interested

Agent Coulson · 12-09-2019 6:20pm

Netflix named December 17th as the drop date then deleted it.

CastorTroy · 12-09-2019 6:46pm

Link here about it

https://redanianintelligence.com/2019/09/11/official-the-witcher-release-date-revealed/

pixelburp · 31-10-2019 5:08pm

Release date confirmed as December 20, via a new trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndl1W4ltcmg

Zero-Cool · 31-10-2019 5:10pm

Actually like the look of that!

Mr Crispy · 31-10-2019 5:17pm

Yeah. Still not sure about Cavill, but it looks okay.

Tazzimus · 31-10-2019 5:36pm

That looks tasty, Cavill loves the material as well so I can see him doing it justice, if he wasn't handed a turkey of a script.

Something to watch over the Chrimbo anyway.

31-10-2019 5:40pm

Will it be released all at once yeah?

pixelburp · 31-10-2019 5:58pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Will it be released all at once yeah?

Presumably; most Netflix Originals tend to release in one go, those that don't tend to be shows from other studios, rebadged as Originals (eg, The Good Place, Star Trek Discovery).

31-10-2019 6:27pm

I still get such a CW/SyFy vibe from the cinematography

GottaGetGatt · 31-10-2019 8:25pm

Looks good.

Slydice · 31-10-2019 11:00pm

I dunno.. this feels like the audience could drop off like The Shannara Chronicles

Maybe there's more to the story than the trailers are letting on

Potential-Monke · 31-10-2019 11:03pm

Yeah, I'm impressed with the trailer. Still having an issue with Triss not being immediately obvious, what having changed her hair, eye and skin colour, but still looking forward to it. Tub scene FTW!

EoinMcLovin · 13-11-2019 6:16pm

Netflix have renewed The Witcher for a second season even before the first one has aired.
https://tvline.com/2019/11/13/the-witcher-season-2-renewed-netflix-henry-cavill-adaptation/

pixelburp · 13-11-2019 6:18pm

Well that's confidence. I do wonder on what basis these decisions are made, especially as I'm not aware Netflix do any test screenings (or do they? It's so hard to know). Certainly the buzz online has been universally favourable.

c.p.w.g.w · 13-11-2019 11:18pm

When is this due out?

Slydice · 13-11-2019 11:23pm

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5180504/releaseinfo

20 December 2019

ixoy · 13-11-2019 11:28pm

pixelburp wrote: »

Well that's confidence. I do wonder on what basis these decisions are made, especially as I'm not aware Netflix do any test screenings (or do they? It's so hard to know). Certainly the buzz online has been universally favourable.

It's not entirely uncommon these days though, especially if they sink a load of money into things like sets and/or if there's a deal at a particular filming location. Offhand, 'Warrior', 'Snowpiercer' and 'Jack Ryan' are recent shows that had a second season ordered before the first aired.

Mr Crispy · 13-11-2019 11:48pm

Ditto for The Boys. And it can go the other way too... Swamp Thing was cancelled before season 1 aired!

14-11-2019 12:18am

Game of Thrones (kicking it off) and its spin offs, His Dark Materials, Lord of the Rings, this

Is fantasy looking to take over from super heroes? I'm bored of Marvel now, so kinda hoping so

The Witcher - Netflix **Spoilers**

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The Witcher - Netflix Spoilers