The Witcher - Netflix **Spoilers**

duffman13

duffman13 wrote: »

Watched the first four episodes and it took 3 before the different timeline piece dawned on me!

They do not make it obvious I guess - but having only watched one episode so far they do put in indications if you are paying close enough attention. There is one line about "You won your first battle when you were my age" in one time line which is referenced by something like "She just won her first battle" in the other time line.

Placing the time line of the two stories in episode one about - what - 50 or 60 years apart?

Renfri talking about Ciri is not in the books though - I think - not even born yet. So that is a curious deviation I am interested to see if the reasoning for it becomes apparent later.

MadYaker

I’ve payed all 3 games is it worth a watch?

MadYaker

MadYaker wrote: »

I’ve payed all 3 games is it worth a watch?

It is worth a watch but not off the back of the games. The show is closer to the books - and the games were never considered Canon. I'd say the acting of Geralt was heavily influenced by the games of course - henry cavill admitted he was _very_ late in the entire process of the show before he even heard of the books or their author - but I am not sure much else is being drawn from the games.

I would condition yourself to consider the show entirely stand alone and watch it on it's own merits - and not off the back of the games at all. YMMV.

fritzelly

Deleted User wrote: »

They do not make it obvious I guess - but having only watched one episode so far they do put in indications if you are paying close enough attention. There is one line about "You won your first battle when you were my age" in one time line which is referenced by something like "She just won her first battle" in the other time line.

Placing the time line of the two stories in episode one about - what - 50 or 60 years apart?

Who the hell deep analyzes every single sentence said by a character

fritzelly

fritzelly wrote: »

Who the hell deep analyzes every single sentence said by a character

Not me but that one stood out for me - I just happened to notice it - but I do pay attention to the dialog a little closer than most too.

That said though - the show does appear to ask a little more attention from it's audience than much Netflix fare. Which is not a bad thing I guess.

I would say - just from the first episode - that my feeling is the series will stand for a second watch through - a lot of "aha" moments where you notice things the second time around you missed the first.

Whether that is intentional from the writers or not - I get the feeling that is the end effect they will get.

The "single take" sword fight alone will be worth the re-watch. Probably the second best "single take" battle scene Netflix have achieved - second only to that prison sequence in Daredevil. Which - in fairness - will take some work to beat.

Ave Sodalis

Deleted User wrote: »

I would say - just from the first episode - that my feeling is the series will stand for a second watch through - a lot of "aha" moments where you notice things the second time around you missed the first.

Yup, I watched the first episode when it was released, and then watched it again with the rest of my house in the evening. I had missed quite a bit during my first watch!

Ave Sodalis

Ave Sodalis wrote: »

Yup, I watched the first episode when it was released, and then watched it again with the rest of my house in the evening. I had missed quite a bit during my first watch!

Sure! But I meant having watched all the remaining episodes - there'll be things that come through on a second watch because of that. But you are right - even individual episodes will have that effect if they are all like the first.

Geralt's issue with man on woman violence comes across much much stronger than in the games and much stronger even than the books I think. Just from one episode I think they are setting it up to almost be his kryptonite - (see what I did there) - honed to the point of it being a real character flaw or weakness.

Renf using a story about her own rape - possibly fabricated after hearing him talk to his horse about a rape - to manipulate him

strandroad

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Just from one episode I think they are setting it up to almost be his kryptonite - (see what I did there) - honed to the point of it being a real character flaw or weakness.

Renf using a story about her own rape - possibly fabricated after hearing him talk to his horse about a rape - to manipulate him

No, it's straight from the books where her story is grounded better,

it's supposed to be a retelling of Snow White where they try to poison her first and banish her to the woods, only as Sapkowski likes to do he turns it into murder and rape rather than having her live happily ever after. Geralt kills many women and female monsters in the books too.

.

Skerries

Skerries

Sir Oxman

Watched first two eps last night.
Had not a clue about books or games

Found it extremely confusing but reading some of the comments above, I'll probably watch whole lot but over some weeks rather than binging.
They definitely could have approached the first couple of episodes with an explainer of some sorts for the majority casual viewer - they missed a bounce there.

fin12

Finished the Witcher last night. Enjoyed it, really like Yennifer’s character.

Acquiescence

Is anybody else having trouble understanding what they're saying?

We had to turn on the subtitles.

strandroad

Sir Oxman wrote: »

Watched first two eps last night.
Had not a clue about books or games

Found it extremely confusing but reading some of the comments above, I'll probably watch whole lot but over some weeks rather than binging.
They definitely could have approached the first couple of episodes with an explainer of some sorts for the majority casual viewer - they missed a bounce there.

I'd recommend to rewatch the two episodes paying close attention to what they are saying. Everything you need is there but unlike in other fantasy shows the dialogue is really meaningful, what feels like a throwaway line is actually describing another key event or player yet to be shown etc. I actually enjoyed piecing it together.

ERG89

Stayed watching it. The Yennifer story arc is pretty good, the Geralt stuff is hit and miss but the Ciri story is dull.
Some of the designs of the monsters look a bit cheap for something on a big Netflix series.
I'm now 6 episodes in; I'm pretty underwhelmed by the series. I expected it to be pretty good when it was announced but it's just ok.
When you look at stuff like The Boys or Watchmen over-delivering on expectations this year it looks worse.

fritzelly

Acquiescence wrote: »

Is anybody else having trouble understanding what they're saying?

We had to turn on the subtitles.

Found Yennefer tough with the cotton ball in her mouth

irishguitarlad

Poor enough series, the last episode was torture.

Haven't read the books or played the games. Loved it, would love for it to go on for many seasons. My attention span is very short just now and I binged watched it. Unfortunately it seems the reviews are against it. Hopefully the Streams tell a different story.

Agree re the dialogue, very early on they used book/game terminology and only figured it out after I turned on the subtitles, so I just left them on.

I thought the acting was very good. And I felt for the characters. Top notch for me.

fin12

Gbear

Pretty happy on the whole.

When you're a fan of a property, I think that that is the kind of standard and adherence to the source material that you could hope to see.

Apparently there's some hubub about costume design, particularly for the Nilfgaardians, but I can't say I had a huge problem with it, and that aside, it's been pretty well produced. They largely managed to make magic seem subtle in it's "gaminess" clear with its implementation, and spectacular when it needs to be. If they can match that standard for Wheel of Time, which is even more magic heavy, I'll be pretty chuffed.

I think they missed a few tricks from the books for reasons I don't fully understand.
Non spoilery - the first two books are a series of short stories, and its largely for that reason they're presented out of order. Although I can see a degree of logic to it here and there, it was probably overdone here and needlessly confusing for no real payoff.

This is most pronounced with the interaction in Brokilon with the Dryads, which was totally superfluous in the show but critical in the books, and if it had been more faithfully reproduced, it would've given the finale a lot more weight.

The episode is called "Much More".
When he finds Ciri after the war at the farm, she tells him he's her destiny, and he replies, she's "much more than that". But in this, she isn't. They have no prior relationship. Long term, it won't be the end of the world, but it's genuinely a magnificent passage after what had preceded it in the books, and it's a shame they skipped it, for apparently no reason.

Casting all good. Mostly you can only go on the physical stuff or prior work beforehand, and there were question marks about them all, but I don't think I had any real issues in the end. Mostly well written. One or two little foibles, but given how jarring and stilted the dialogue is in the books, probably owing to translation issues, I'm not fussed.

Looking forward to next season. It's only a pity they work on 18 month season cycles and we'll have to wait til 2021. :(

Drumpot

duridian wrote: »

Yes, they will.

I don't think I am spoiling anything by explaining the following detail/clarification which may help to settle you in and make sense of it a bit better from the get go:

The three major characters of the story Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri, Their storylines are not introduced, nor do they run in a parallel timeline for the most part. There is a lot of back and forth in this way throughout the season. Some events are decades apart despite appearing one after the other on the show.

So when you see Geralt doing something, and the story then switches to Yennefer or Ciri, don't assume that these depicted events are necessarily happening at roughly the same time.

I feel that understanding this from the beginning should help to reduce the confusion of which many have complained.

I actually feel quite pissed off that there were timeline hints online. If I enjoy something and don’t fully understand what’s going on I stick with it and/or explore maybe reviews of the episode if I’m really struggling. I don’t mind being a bit lost in a show, feels like it upsets others.

fin12 wrote: »

I think this was when the show really started getting interesting from watching to see if it’s any good to I’m liking where this is going.

I really enjoyed the show and glad it’s been renewed for another series or two.

Grassey

Drumpot wrote:

I really enjoyed the show and glad it’s been renewed for another series or two.

7 seasons planned, and 3rd has got the go ahead I saw online last night.

Paddy Cow

Grassey wrote: »

7 seasons planned, and 3rd has got the go ahead I saw online last night.

They'd want to up their filming schedule so. Leaving 18 months between each season means it will go on for over ten years.

pixelburp

Caught episode 2 and damn, I can see why that song went a little viral. Incredibly catchy stuff and still finding myself humming it.

Not sure about the yennifer stuff, again suffered from a lot of blathering about people and concepts we're just meant to take on face value.

As I'm watching it concurrently with The Expanse, the Witcher kinda reminds me of season 1 of that latter show; it also just dropped you into the world and expected the viewer to catch up over time. Exposition can be a crutch but having none at all can be a poor move too; we'll see, as I've heard enough it takes a few episodes for The Witcher to get going.

Pixelburp's post reminded me of something I was curious about... what is the significance of the 'collision of the spheres?' I'm not going to read the books, so spoiler away (in spoilers obvs.

strandroad

Gbear wrote: »

When he finds Ciri after the war at the farm, she tells him he's her destiny, and he replies, she's "much more than that". But in this, she isn't. They have no prior relationship. Long term, it won't be the end of the world, but it's genuinely a magnificent passage after what had preceded it in the books, and it's a shame they skipped it, for apparently no reason.

I think they did it to keep the three timelines cleanly apart until they all meet within a mile from one another in the last minutes of the season rather than have Geralt and Ciri meet and split and meet again; they can all converge from now on.

Also in the books Ciri escaped twice: once into Brokilon to avoid being married off (met Geralt for the first time), and then to Sodden after Cintra was sacked (met Geralt again). I thought it was actually a good idea to merge them for a more focused story rather than to feature both escapes, quite repetitive when you actually need to show them.

strandroad

Deleted User wrote: »

Pixelburp's post reminded me of something I was curious about... what is the significance of the 'collision of the spheres?' I'm not going to read the books, so spoiler away (in spoilers obvs.

https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/The_Conjunction_of_the_Spheres

In a nutshell,

their world was ruled by the elves, until the conjunction event happened and threw humans and monsters into it (from another dimension?). Humans then claimed elven magic and started exterminating both elves and monsters.

Relikk

With regard to The Expanse, I found that very easy to get into without ever having read the books. I was never confused. The Witcher on the other hand... Even having played the games, known most of these characters and the lore, I was very confused in the early episodes, and along with the clunky dialogue and time jumping, I'm at a loss as to how anyone without any prior knowledge of The Witcher could follow what was going on. It does get much better in the second half, though.