They should have just canned this series after Cavill left… Who likes watching series where the MAIN cast is replaced??
They changed their strategic direction for the show.
Go back and re-watch the first season, then try to watch the next two.
The first season is trying to compete with what HBO used to be known for: high-budget spectacles. It’s like a blockbuster movie stretched out into a series. The lighting, the costumes the editing, the special effects, the casting, the writing, the sound design. It’s comparable to Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, Band of Brothers, Wanda Vision, The Last of Us, Breaking Bad, the Walking Dead, the Mandalorian, American Horror Story, Westworld, etc. Of course, those shows aren’t all perfect but they have high production values (or at least started that way) and were meant to be premium technical showcases. Back before the days of streaming, this was the quality of show where you’d have to pay your cable company extra to get that channel.
Immediately with season 2 of the Witcher, everything feels worse. The most obvious to me is how Yennifer went from her ridiculous outfits to dresses that look like they’re on sale at Kohl’s today. The lighting, the makeup, everything. It’s the quality of basic daytime cable TV, the kind that is still broadcast over the air for free.
So they basically had a must smaller budget for season two and the following seasons it sounds like.
Doctor Who fans, too. Eventually.
It worked well for The Office.
Fans of House of the Dragon, for starters.
Haven’t seen the whole show but thry did that for season 2?
They replaced a couple of the dragons with different dragons
Netflix: “He won’t know how bad we’re fucking this up!”
I gave up on the show after the second season. Which is weird because I loved the first one. It’s Altered Carbon all over again. May it rest in piss.
I damn loved the first season of Altered Carbon
First season was mostly fine, but those penis armored nilfgardians…
Second season completely undermined established characters’ morals. Yen acting like a 60s “irrational female character” archetype because “I want a baby”, Vesemir just being OK with the prospect of creating more witchers, the way they made Eskel out to be an asshole and then just killed him…
Yen wanting a child was a plot point with the djinn in the book, so at least that was accurate
Not at the cost of betraying Ciri though.
There were even bigger structural issues than that. A good production team could make the “I want a baby” motivation work. A good production team could make changes to characters work. The show did not have a good production team.
I can’t remember which season, but there was one scene where Jen takes Ciri to a bank (I think). They wanted to have the man they met with deliver a few lines of exposition explaining how he had run into Jen in the past, she had helped him, and now he was in her debt. Nothing wrong with that. It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s perfectly functional storytelling.
The problem was that they had Ciri being moody and bored, walking around the set and poking at props. Meanwhile Jen was sitting across the desk from the guy delivering the lines. That meant that this dude was sitting there telling Jen her own backstory.
That means that either the writers were idiots who fucked up their own blocking and nobody on set questioned the script, or somebody on set insisted on the blocking despite it making no sense. My wife is a fan of the books and games, but I’m not. Even with no knowledge of the story being adapted I could tell something was deeply wrong with how that show was being made.
Same, the first season was pretty faithful and really good. The second went off the rails.
I understood the novels needed to be changed, if you stick to the novels, you would get 4 out of 5 seasons where Geralt/yen/Ciri aren’t even in the same room or ever meet up. It’s a constant chase that never has a resolution and they never find her. But they changed not just the format of the story but the characters. Yen betraying Ciri was insane and goes against her character and how she feels about Ciri
Sadly the only good thing that came out of it was a catchy song.
Not surprising. The issues they had with Cavill were directly related to the fact that he knew the source material and how they were fucking it up.
Especially egregious since they were extremely vocal about staying true to the source material in the books, then immediately throwing that out the window after they got the names of places, characters, and general occupations.
Why they would ignore a primary source like Cavil, I dunno. Dumb move.
Because they didn’t want a primary source. Especially not one that would try to correct them instead of letting them make their own shitty story in the universe and destroying existing characters in the process.
Because he is not a fan of the series doesn’t mean that he will do a bad job or skip on source material study. I guess I will reserve my judgment until I see a couple of episodes.
So he did play the games?
I saw in another interview that he was a fan of “the game”. I am assuming he played Witcher 3 and that’s it. Better than nothing though.
I mean, hopefully he’s since read the books to learn about the character. But yes, the games alone are better than nothing aha.
Why? They’d just have to get rid of him like Cavill then.
The books have nothing to do with the story the show runners want to make, regardless of what they may say in public. If the books were something they cared about, Cavill would still be there and those first seasons wouldn’t have fundamentally destroyed characters and their relationships.
You aren’t wrong.
There is no Geralt of Rivia on-screen without Henry Cavill (exc the games, yes)
I don’t think an actor needs to be a fan before taking a role. It can provide a fresh perspective.
But it definitely helps.
I don’t think the actor does, but the director and/or production has to. If it’s not similar to the source material just call it something else, but I do get saying “based on XYZ” makes for easier marketing.
The atrocity that is Amazon’s Wheel of Time is evidence of this.
Oh absolutely. Production needs to know and understand it. 100%
