The Witcher (Netflix)

[kutsuwamushi]

My introduction to The Witcher and its universe was the third video game - you know, the one that makes it onto near every list of the best video games of the decade. I started to read the books just a couple of days ago.

I binged the Netflix series last night and have some thoughts:

It really, really wants to be Game of Thrones. It has the same style and tone. The problem is that the story doesn't really support it. The pacing of the show is all wrong. They're trying to fit in too much, so when something big happens, it doesn't have very much impact.

There's also a strange tension between the monster-of-the-week elements of the source and the larger plot. The show moves so fast that they don't have time to do both, but they try. It doesn't really work.

I've heard from a couple of friends who haven't played the game or read the books that the show is confusing. It really is. Hell, the way it jumps around the timeline confused me sometimes.

Then there is the gratuitous T&A. The game had this too, of course. But the way they do it in the show, it just seems like more "we really want to be Game of Thrones." Sorry, you can't. You need more than the two seasons Netflix is going to give you for that.

There are some things I liked about it though. The focus isn't on just Geralt; Ciri and Yennefer get as much screen time. Ciri is boring, but Yennefer's actress (Anya Chalotra) is great as Yennefer. Henry Cavill as Geralt... I'm not sure what I think, but I don't know who I'd want in that role instead. He did alright.

(Though there is an aspect to Yennefer's character that I REALLY WISH men would stop writing, and wish wasn't so heavily emphasized on the show. It basically is treated as her sole motivation and arrrrrrrrgh.)

Comments

[silverflight8]

What did you think of the book? I tried to read the first but was so put off by the prose (the translation I suppose) I gave up.

[kutsuwamushi]

Honestly, I thought it a bit hard to get into. I'm not sure that I would have kept reading if I wasn't already interested in the world through the game.

It's the short-story like format that bothered me the most rather than how it's written at the sentence level, though. It just feels very disjointed and out of order.

[silverflight8]

Glad I'm not the only one. It doesn't seem like a long novel (have it in ebook, dunno). Are all the chapters sorta their own? I didn't even read far enough to get to structural problems.

[kutsuwamushi]

I haven't made it that far, but the storytelling seems kind of episodic. A story might take a chapter or two to finish. I haven't made it far enough to really understand how the longer plot threads are handled.

It's kind of convenient for popcorn reading, since the main plot gets wrapped up so quickly. But I do kind of get the sense that it wasn't written (or conceived) in the order it was ultimately published in. You have to infer a lot in the first chapters to make sense of what's going on.

[shadowkat]

Thanks for the review -- this is what I expected from what I'd read. (It's a series based on books written in the 1980s...and didn't age well, apparently. Although to be fair, this is pretty much true of everything written and done in the 1980s.) I'm planning on trying it out for Yennefer - that character looked interesting. But in no rush. (Currently visiting family, so not possible to check it out.)

[kutsuwamushi]

Someone on MetaFilter commented that it would have been much better if they aimed for Xena rather than Game of Thrones. I agree wholeheartedly. Even though it has some dark themes, it's still popcorn fantasy, and you're just not going to turn it into some deep commentary on the nature of man just with moody music, grim lighting, and gore. (Or T&A.)

I'd still recommend it, but I wouldn't expect anything revolutionary.

And Yennefer... I don't want to spoil it. I liked her a lot except for this ONE THING that they really overemphasized, in a "I bet a man wrote this" sort of way...

[shadowkat]

Thanks. Having not read the books, or caring much about them -- I was wondering how well it worked.

They really shouldn't aim for GoT. I hate how they always want to copy the latest success. Oh, loads of people loved GoT, let's give them another one. When loads of people loved it -- because it was different. They aren't interested in the same thing again.

They tried the same thing with Harry Potter and the Hunger Games, it did not work. They never learn.