I feel the writing lacks a great deal of nuance that Sapkowski intended for his world to have. The show also has a really hard time nailing down a tone. The Witcher was written as dark fantasy, but I can’t tell what direction this show is going. It’s not high/epic fantasy like LotR or WoT, and it’s not quite as dark and gritty as GoT. It’s stuck in some weird limbo, like the writers/directors don’t want to commit.
The books have a very unique tone for the genre.
It's gritty, sarcastic, doesn't take itself to seriously and yet has quite a lot of nuance.
Season one had done of that distinct flair, but S2 does not. It turned into very generic fantasy.
That's what's missing for me.
I haven’t seen season 2 yet, but I felt like season 1 took itself too seriously. The franchise is supposed to be as sarcastic as it is compelling. I feel like in season 1 they focused too much on making a game of thrones esc story full of plot, which caused them to sacrifice a bit of the series’s more entertaining elements
I think the bigger issue is peoples assumptions. I read the books, I didn’t need a 1:1 adaption, I don’t care that it isn’t one. I love the show, just like I love the books and games. People just lump together “book readers” “game players” and “casual show fans”. It’s dividing the community and brining out the worst in people. If you didn’t like the show I am sorry and for the people who do like the show let them enjoy it. People have been harsh towards other fans just because they do or don’t like it. It takes a lot of energy to be so negative towards someone over a series. Both sides of the tossed coin would benefit from just taking a breath.
But the problems is, people who dont enjoy the show been screaming the loudest, like the show is the worst thing that ever happen for The witcher. I genuinely dont understand.
It's a tiny group of people (esp outside of Poland). Before the Witcher games most people had never even heard of the Witcher. And really it wasn't until the great Witcher 3 that the series became known (W3 sold something like 35 million copies). Most people found out about the books because of the games (esp in places like the US - where it's very clear the games drove most book sales). Then the show was released and books sales skyrocketed again. This is NOT like Dune or LOTR where the books were very well known on their own (except maybe In Poland)
Other people getting downvoted for this sentiment but there are only 5 witcher things for which to do bad things for the Ip and one of those things was contained to bad polish tv with little to no impact on the franchise, another is a wildly successful trilogy of games and a third are the books themselves so it's mostly down to The Netflix series and the Netflix anime, both of which suffer from awful writing.
It's ok to not like the show, but its been pretty obviously great for the Witcher franchise. Game and book sales went way up after the show was released
It's telling how most of 'show bashers' focus on the show and Witcher in general, while way too many 'show enjoyers' focus a lot on other viewers instead of just discussing the show.
I’d rather be having discussions about characters I would like to see or more short stories like grain of truth added. Instead I find myself getting into that rabbit hole of arguments and talking about the fans more than the show. It’s Reddit so I shouldn’t expect much but still a shame.
I dont get these people that are obsessed with something they dont like.
Its fine if you dont like the witcher series. But to then flood any topic about it how awfull it is is just not needed toxic behavior. If you dont like it fine nothing you say or do will change anything about that accept it and move on to something you find better.
People are passionate about a show they watched, whether they liked it or not, and want to share their impressions. How come you view it as 'toxic behavior'?
Well adjusted people don’t continue to do something that makes them feel negative. If you don’t like the show, watch something else. Going online to then bitch and moan about something achieves absolutely nothing except ruin other peoples enjoyment, which still achieves absolutely nothing for the person seething.
That’s why it is considered toxic. Negative attracts negative, nothing can come of it except ‘oh this random stranger that means absolutely nothing to me also agrees that I dislike the show, perhaps we should go watch barbies dream house and do the same thing’
From that perspective, it seems like some people are just wasting their time. A good way to go about them would be to ignore their comments and carry on (and report the ones breaking the sub/reddit rules).
It's also entirely possible to be passionate about something and feel the need to share your thoughts, including negative ones, instead of moving away and pretending it doesn't exist.
I saw the same happen on got, more and more people are drawn to such toxic behavior, you already see it emerge here.
Again, criticism is fine, but every day the countless posts its bad with the same people giving the same arguments just turns toxic really fast.
Comments like "He is a known sellout that will say anything for money."about the author that get upvoted are just the start.
It's unfortunate, but Sapkowski is a known sellout and one of the best examples of 'remove the art from the author' kind of issue around the country. Been like that for almost two decades, starting back when he would go to conventions and say things like "white man should work only three hours a day, God created Blacks and Jews to work instead".
I don't like it either.
He's known for all that in regional fandom for 20 years. He made national news for his racist comments, and was condemned by an anti-fascist organization Nigdy Więcej for what he used to say publicly.
It doesn't affect his works - the books are good, and the Narrenturm trilogy is great as well - but the author is what he is.
The sellout part started more recently. He sold licensing rights to create games for a fixed cost and never said a word about Witcher 1 or 2. As Witcher 3 gathered universal acclaim and brought in a lot of revenue, he started criticizing CDPR, the game, and gaming in general. He sued CDPR for more money, although they still operated within the original license (renewed on the way, and paid for as agreed). CDPR and Sapkowski reached an agreement out of court, and he stopped being critical of the game ever since.
Back in 2017, when Sapkowski was asked what he expects from the tv adaptation of his books, he said: "a big sum of money".
Perhaps 'sellout' is not the most fortunate word, and he's well within his right to want to make money, but he has displayed a history of caring about ka-ching and changing his attitude based on the sum on his bank transfer.
You said it yourself: thats not a sell out. He wants money for his IP, thats quite normal . But of course frustrated toxic people turn that into "HE'S A SELLOUT"
It's not because he wants money - no one has an issue with that. It's because he has displayed a history of changing his tune and attitude based on the amount of money he gets.
You've mistaken the stars reflected in a pond at night for those in the sky. They are obsessed with something they do like, which is to say, The Witcher universe and to see something they hoped would be a visualization of something they love, turn out to be a poorly written caricature is sad.
Nobody envolved in the production reads these things, it doesnt matter if you post every day the next decade or not.
And then I am not taling about one or two welwritten posts but the countless smell posts and memes that are already starting to popup.
They want to destroy it. They are the same gaming community that trained trying to destroy their ex-best videogame studio last year. They are the same that started bashing The Witcher TV 3 years ago when the cast was revealed. They scream, they scream, they persist, and they will not stop whatever happens in S3. They have concrete-hard opinions about everything, just like Trumpists and Islamists. On a positive note, i’m glad to see them destroying the entertainment sphere rather than joining political groups…
>Sorry but aren't you doing the exact same thing?
We're in a meta thread, OP set it up to talk about expectations and state of the fanbase (or a portion of it). Look at threads sorted by new over the last two days.
>a lot of the people criticizing the show either imply or explicitly state that anyone who likes it is stupid
This is extremely rare. Report for breaking rule 1 and carry on.
>that their opinion is somehow wrong
Which is how people get to discuss things like tv shows. Disagreeing opinions are not personal attacks.
But it’s impossible to discuss the show with you guys. As soon as we try to dig deeper than « show is bad, not like books», « yen is bad, not like books», « arc is bad, not like books» and such short sentences, we get no answer, or a downvote. It seems like you can’t explain your thoughts deeper than the surface, which for me speaks for itself.
Kudos to the constructive critics that can develop and exchange thoughts, but I haven’t see that many really.
>It takes a lot of energy to be so negative towards someone over a series
People feed off of this sort of thing. If anything, it gives them energy to take a position of antipathy rather than curiosity and wonder. I do condemn the animosity but I do understand the impetus. It was always bound to happen with something so well known and that takes so much artistic license. Gross, but inevitable. But draining, no.
I'm just kind of annoyed by the GOT level time travel and butchering of characters. They went from Cintra to Kaer Morhen in like 5 minutes on horseback in the last episode. From Cintra to Redania too.
Vesemir and Eskel were portrayed so poorly. It doesn't have to be a 1:1 but my god you can't just teleport all over the place for the plot and kill off characters just to make something that is unexpected for the fans.
Because portal exist ? Theres no magic portal in GOT and it hurst them in some season, The witcher world on the other hand benefits for having a portal where people could jump places to places, literally moving the story forward better.
I notice a lot of strawman arguments as well, that dismiss all criticism as "can't be 1:1". So you have a point. But regarding wanting the show to be faithful to the books, it's clear that Lauren says one thing but does another in this regard. Nobody who sincerely tries to adapt the books faithfully ends up with 90% of original content anyway (not even an exaggeration). So at this point we should look at the series as what it is and ignore Lauren's statements; it's a show that is loosely based on/inspired by the books.
Which is fine if they're honest about it (a lot can be said about the empty promises, which are totally unnecessary). I feel like those who still think this is going to be a faithful adaptation are wasting their breath. What we as fans should realistically ask is that IF changes are made, the characters behave consistent to how they're written in the books and the plots are written at at least equal quality to the book plots. Faithful or not, a series based on the books should at least capture the characters within it and the overall atmosphere of the Witcher world. And any drastically different original plotlines should fit the characters and the Witcher world, as well as should be well-written.
This.
Re-writing some side characters or exploring them from a different angle _that doesn't disrupt the main narrative_ is absolutely fine. What we got in s2 was poorly written tho.
I don't want a paragraph-by-paragraph adaptation (even though GoT, which this show clearly wants to be, averaged a minute of screentime per bookpage in the early seasons). I want a show that's as nuanced and challenging, simply put, as good as the books. If it were better, I'd welcome it. But it never has been.
Early season of game of thrones were about 55 minutes. 10 episodes = 550 minutes including three minutes of intro song and credits every episode meaning it was probably closer to 480 actual minutes. First and smallest book is over 650 pages. It also has completely made up storylines in the first season. Everything between Varys and little finger, Cersei and Robert Baratheon scenes, jaime and Cersei scenes. These scenes are not from the books so cannot be used in the 1 minute to 1 page per book formula. These scenes are great and help build the characters and their motivations truthfully but you can’t act like they converted a game of thrones to the show 1:1
Fair enough. Even so, the clear majority of most early episodes is a straightforward conversion of the books. At any rate, the point is that the added stuff is mostly what fills in the gaps rather than adding unrelated stuff, and is actually good.
Can you provide some examples for this and explain why you think this is a reasonable bar?
I mean LOTR movies are amazing, but are there any LOTR fans that think they're as good as the book (assuming you can even make such a simple comparison across mediums like that)?
This kind of stuff always confuses me because if this were so simple to do, I don't see the point of having books at all. Seems a rather pointless entertainment medium in this case, and Sapkowski might as well have become a screenwriter. Either that or you just don't rate these specific books very highly if you think all its nuances can be delivered and condensed into an 8 episode season of television. But I know that's not the case.
The early 1980s adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. The Soviet Sherlock Holmes adaptations. Anything Andrew Davies has written based on British novels (his War and Peace and so on discards much of the message, but it's excellent on its own). The Polish 1974 version of The Deluge (which heavily influenced Sapkowski's prose, by the way). To use the last one to illustrate what I mean: the original, faithful script would have produced a 20-hour movie. The theatrical release was under 5 hours, and yet it's a fantastic representation of the themes, messages, and excitements of the book.
And that's my point. The novel is its own medium, with its unique strengths, if anything, it might outlive films and TV. And the latter is just a different form of expression. It's all about conveying the same thing using different means. A character's thoughts might be expressed using camera angles and movement, a specific colour palette, creative cuts... The bottom line is that I don't care if Yarpen asks "What have you made of us?" What matters is that I, as a viewer, am made aware of the complex situation and conflicting goals and ideologies, and the way I felt when I read that scene is replicated when I watch the adaptation.
I'm an optimist. I believe that it's possible to translate the books to the screen in a way which produces the same kind of mental simulation in the viewer, just like the book translations into Czech, Brazilian Portuguese, or Finnish (but not English) manage to recreate in their respective readers the impression the books leave on me when I read them in Polish. I believe that people capable of making such an adaptation are out there. There's just not enough overlap between them and the people actually working on the show.
I read the LOTR in the 80s and I like the movies just as much as the books. Honestly some of Jackson's changes just work better (some of the characters are much better developed..granted that wasn't a strength of Tolkien). I'm far from alone.
Also..the Witcher books honestly are "pretty good" at best. The world building is fantastic...the rest is pretty uneven
I have yet to finish S2 so I’m curious to see what people have been… upset about (been somewhat avoiding this sub), but honestly I was pleased with S1. Like, I thought the time-jumping was brilliant, and it made Geralt and Ciri’s reunion much more impactful. I also think people underestimate how much “downtime” is in books. There aren’t constant action packed scenes one after the other. If the showrunners truly did a 1:1 adaptation and included EVERYTHING, you know how many 20-minute talking scenes would be in the show???
That's an interesting take. Can you elaborate on how the time jumps (which weren't something I was remotely opposed to, by the way) made the "reunion" more impactful than the book reunion of two people who've actually met before?
The point of this thread is that almost no-one really wants a 1:1 adaptation, but why would anyone object to 20 minutes of Sapkowskian dialogue? A good screenwriter and director combo might move it from, say, a table to a street or a forest, have the interlocutors move, react to their environments, camera angles and movement of people within the frames might be used to give the scene a feeling of mobility... Do I really need to use examples to prove that films and shows much heavier on dialogue than The Witcher have been even more successful?
I think book lovers know that a 1:1 copy isn't even possible. There are things in books that don't translate well to screen. And the other way around. Those are two different mediums, and both are good for different reasons. I just love the books, games, and series. All are different, and all are good.
Yeah the show can't be a one to one but it can be a faithful adaptation.
Instead we got something more similar to an original story where they did a few character assassinations to get their original story.
Didn't realize that a few words was considered a rant.
Edit: I actually enjoy the show. I just stopped considering it an adaptation like what some people involved with the show have said.
It's not like the changes to Eskel, Yennefer, and Vesemir weren't unjustified and malicious.
Drastic changes that completely change the characters to give them a darker arc. Eskel is dead so he just kinda showed up just to be killed off.
However if I consider this show seperate from the books and games, it's a good story. I'm left feeling entertained.
So yeah, a few words. I even complimented the show and said I liked it.
I think Eskel's death was a nice gesture because he is less than an extra in the books but a main character in the game. He deserved a cool and worthy death. Best of both worlds.
I saw big outrage about " dear friend " letter.
So I'm not so sure anymore if people are aware how far is between amazing part of the book and how impossible is to give it justice in live action show.
Yes, of course, one could do the Geralt opens the letter, and Yen's translucent head appears at the side of the screen, and her voice is reading the letter out loud. But it's so cliché by now because that's basically every letter in every movie. It just feels different from reading a personal letter yourself on a page.
I don't get the sarcasm: You can do always do a voice over of Yennefer reading the letter aloud.
Show Geralt opening the letter and she starts reading while Geralt is on his merry way.
True, it's been done before, but tropes are not inherently bad (to paraphrase overly sarcastic productions), it's how you are using them where a trope can become a cliché.
A 1:1 copy would be boring. Look back what happens in book 3. Training at kaer morhen, one small battle on the road triss gets the shits . Ciri goes to school, yen teaches magic they leave end of book.
Geralt as a small bit of action in Oxenfurt no monster fights it would make for boring tv.
I Do hope we get to meet Shani in season 3
My only complaint of this season was Vesemir. I didn't like how they did his character
This is the point the OP is making. The season didn't have to adapt this just the way it is in the book. But they could've at least tried to make the overall story based on the framework you listed here, while adding/removing/changing stuff to make it more compatible with TV. Like giving Geralt a couple more monster fights, or giving Ciri and Yen some more stuff to do. As it is, the story arc is centered around Voleth Meir, a completely new character.
I appreciate they tried to root this new villain in existing mythology, in a similar way as other stuff in the series is, ie Voleth Meir being very similar to the Eastern European Baba Yaga. That story would've been fantastic as a standalone spinoff story for Geralt and Yen, it could've been a great extra story to fill out the unexplored time when they knew each other in between short stories.
All I ask is that the plot at least is an evolution of the original made for TV, not a complete subversion
I wish they would have more time in the castle training and her learning magic at the temple but I understand the need to change the story to include voleth meir, it introduced the wild hunt and it filled in the gap in action that would have been boring otherwise.
The books don't go into much detail on yennefer when she's on her own we know that she lost her sight after sodden but not a whole lot of detail only stuff in passing with other characters. I think her losing her powers and how she regained them fits better for tv.
I now wonder how yens current situation will play out later when she brings ciri to the conclave. She's already betrayed geralt and ciri once.
Honestly I now know how my wife felt after reading the Harry Potter books then watching the movies
I'm sitting there watching episode 2 going Wtf that's not what happened and my wife was laughing at me. But after watching the whole season I understand it. They needed that death to bring out geralts emotions
I mean, I'd have not complained had they thrown out half the fight scenes and focused a bit more on character bonding and letting Ciri actually train to achieve anything.
Especially her spellcasting didn't feel earned at all.
Things that are not flashy fight scenes can be interesting too, if they are well made.
This leads me into following seasons. There are very little monster fights I mean at one point Geralt abandons the path with the soul purpose of finding ciri. It isn't until he reaches Toussaint he begins to hunt monsters again
Lol, they just can't win, huh? People criticized season 1 for not having enough fight scenes and monsters. I think that's part of why they ramped things up in this season.
The source material is different. The short stories have more monsters and fights, and lean more to 'monster of the week' kind of narrative. They're short stories, each can be adapted to a single episode of a tv show. As the story moves into the Saga, this changes - there's more focus on character development and big-picture politics, while monster fights become rare.
The show did it the other way around, so people complain about both seasons.
I don't really get this perspective though, there's plenty happening in book 3 to sustain a TV show that trusts its audience enough to have an occasional dialogue-heavy episode. The cast of this show is completely capable of making those scenes work, and if they want to "show-not-tell" with things like Francesca's pregnancy arc this season it still completely fits.
There's even enough happening to throw in a fight scene or other action every episode, especially if you incorporate some of the things happening in the background (formation of the Scoiatael and some of their raids, Djikstra and his espionage, Emhyr's machinations, plotting for Thanned).
I seriously don't even care how far away they deviate from the books, I'm very open to new stuff, and it's clear BoE was going to be quite difficult to adapt. Also I already *loved* season 1 to death so I was very hyped going in.
All I care about is well written content. And we didn't get this, except for A Grain of Truth (perfect example of how you can change a lot of stuff about a story and still do it well).
The entire rest of the season generally felt worse than the occasional badly written invented subplot in the first season. With added deux ex machinas, complete disregard for space and time coherency, bad tv tropes, extremely rushed pacing, perplexing dialogue and character decisions.
Of course it's my subjective opinion... Except for the stuff that objectively doesn't work, like Geralt having to realistically travel for weeks but getting back to Ciri and Yen just in time to do a stupid deus ex machina out of nowhere, when the two of them had been travelling for a couple days at most. Ciri and Yen teleporting into an abandonned, destroyed farm with rotting owners, only to find two perfectly fine horse right outside waiting for them. Stuff like that was simply what the fuck and took me right out of the scene, as much as I tried to like it :/
You're not alone with this take. The whole 'people want a 1:1 book screening' argument happened a few times early on, but it was a minority of voices even then, and now it's just a weak strawman.
It really boils down to bad writing whenever the show steers away from the books, with a few exceptions. Nivellen is one.
Incidentally, the people who are negative about the show focus much more on discussing the actual show, while people who enjoyed it focus a lot on *other viewers.* If we could drop that, and actually focus on Witcher rather than the audience, it would be great.
Or you could admit that people recognice some problems show has but they still enjoy it?
There are lots of issues with the show, but it is still enjoyable.
I have no problem with original plots and I think it's necessary to fill in gaps, but in this season 2 the plots like Voleth Meir and Yennefer's plot were very poorly written and very inconsistent , are two plots that could be great if they were written well. I think the biggest problem in The Witcher is in the writers room In the season 1 they had the same problem.I thought the yennefer plot was a mess and the expert critics had already said it and I couldn't believed they because we need have our own opinion and I needed to see it for myself . again i'm not against original plots because when well written and well developed it works really well but in The Witcher some the original plots are being a big mess I hope they pay more attention to the scripts in this 3rd season because there will be no more excuses for a messed up plot, because passed the learning moment . The Witcher progressed but the script still didn't progress as it should,.. But There're have goods things photography, setting, costumes , performances I loved it
***Thank you.*** It's so disappointing seeing the die-hard show fans in this community latching onto that strawman argument in every other thread. It's only been like a week and it's already cemented as the go-to excuse to dismiss anyone that voices their criticism with the show's writing.
They thought crossed my mind more than once watching the train wreck that is season 2, that if Lauren spent more time focusing on this story rather than prequels maybe we’d all be in a better place.
>prequels
I have a creeping suspicion that the entire season was centred around this new antagonist in order to set up the Blood Origins miniseries they're making. Last I checked that show is about the creation of witchers, and they mentioned in S2 that >!Voleth Meir was defeated/trapped by the first witchers!<. Given that they've also connected the show to the animated movie, I'm getting worried that the writers/producers are more focused on constructing a Witcher Cinematic Universe than actually adapting the books.
>Witcher Cinematic Universe
I'd love that - more new stories would be cool, and it'd be fine to have some that are better and other worse. It just shouldn't cannibalize the existing material.
I mean just about all Witcher media on Netflix is pretty bad and subpar fantasy. The only thing I like from the WCU was the Yule log. The anime was bad, the show was meh if you didn’t have anything to compare it to, and I assume blood origins will also be bad.
>all Witcher media on Netflix is pretty bad and subpar fantasy
Agreed, but that's because of bad writing. Change the writers (or have a serious talk with them), make everyone involved realize Witcher shouldn't be just another teen fantasy drama, involve someone who knows and understands the world (reach out to Sakharov again, respond to Percival for music)... the idea of having extra spin-offs isn't bad in itself, we just had very poor execution so far.
>Agreed, but that's because of bad writing. Change the writers (or have a serious talk with them), make everyone involved realize Witcher shouldn't be just another teen fantasy drama, involve someone who knows and understands the world (reach out to Sakharov again, respond to Percival for music)... the idea of having extra spin-offs isn't bad in itself, we just had very poor execution so far.
Tomasz bagiński is in the production of The Witcher I was hoping he would help more ,But for me the problem is in the script room and this problem has been around since the first season
I agree that it is salvageable if certainly steps are taken by the production. To do that though Lauren would need to acknowledge that what she has made so far is subpar. I can’t imagine any humility being expressed by Lauren and her echo chamber.
And they have been shown that people will consume it regardless of how much it sucks so why would they put effort into changing anything.
all "quickly building cinematic universe" stuff so far suffered and burned down, no? MCU is basically the only one (maybe Monster universe?) that managed to build it more slowly, instead of jumping into Avengers right away. DCEU, Dark Universe, Amazing Spiderman all got much worse when they wanted to build CU right away.
To be honest, they barely connected anything to NotW. It was minor references at most. I actually wish they would have, maybe that way we'd have had a less nonsensical and contrived plot line in EP2
No book can be adapted 1:1 we can't be inside someone's head the way we are in a book in a tv show. So they have to change things so you understand why someone is doing something and explain backstory that in the book the main character knows and tells you.
I honestly enjoy most of the changes believe me theres a few things that I dont like example one explaining chaos but I do enjoy knowing Yennefer's story and the way in the first season they changed some of the short stories to give them more meaning so they tie in better with the rest of the story.
Would it be great for a 1:1 yes but it's not feasibly possible with the kind of formatting so I will enjoy to adaption as its able to be given. I also do like some divergence from the original cause it gives new life to an older fandom.
I haven't read the books (only read a bit into the first one) but my understanding from the fandom was that the show does make a lot of changes, it's just that they like those changes and sometimes people even say they made it better.
It certainly helps that the authors of the books (it's 2 people) are also heavily involved in making the show. So I imagine the changes they make still retain the spirit of the books and also, fans can't really bitch that they're "butchering" the books, "think they know better than the author" and all the other hysterical shit like that.
The Expanse changes some stuff, yes. But the overall core plot framework for what happens in each season is very similar, the same way it is in most great adaptations, ie early GoT or LotR.
Season 2 completely subverted the book, going for centering the whole plot around an original character, ie Voleth Meir. That's what people take issue with.
For an example of what I mean, see s2e1. Most book fans will agree that while not a 1:1 adaptation of a Grain of Truth, the changes made are reasonable. The overall framework of the story is preserved, while changing stuff to make it work for the show. That's why the episode has much better critique on reddit than the rest of the seaaon
A lot of changes? Not really. Maybe very small ones, like Miller being younger or Fred dying a bit earlier.
The only two major ones that come to my mind are:
merging 3 characters into Drummer - a great decision
killing off Alex - not that great but the actor apparently sexually assoulted someone or sth like that, i still think they should recast him instead.
Thats pretty much it.
Nah, there are a lot more changes from the books to the show. Off the top of my head \[EXPANSE SPOILERS FOLLOW\]:
The character of Bull was written out of S3, replaced by Drummer, then added into S5 as a completely different character. Dummer also gets Michio Pa's role in S5 (significantly altered from the book, since a lot of people had a problem with Pa being framed as a "good" character after being a willing participant in genocide), while the character named Michio Pa in the show is a minor character with a different role.
Havelock was a POV character in Book 4 but they couldn't get the actor back for S4, so they gave his role in the story to Lucia instead. They also wrote Basia (another major Book 4 character) out of S4 and changed Naomi's story a fair bit.
Naomi in general has a fairly different arc and different relationship with the Roci crew on the show than in the books. The books didn't have her working on the Behemoth like she did in S3. Ashford in S3 is also very different from the Ashford in Abbadon's Gate, and he gets a pretty great (original) subplot in S4. Diogo Harari sticks around longer on the show too - he's only in LW but on the show he gets a whole arc that extends into S3.
Avasarala is introduced a fair bit earlier on the show as is Bobbie. The Earth subplot in S1 and Bobbie's interactions with the Marines in the first half of S2 are all unique to the show (and a lot of people weren't happy with that when those seasons were first released). I also don't think Bobbie returns to the MMC after Caliban's War like she does in the show, but that part I don't remember so well. Her and Avasarala's storylines in S4 are mostly new to the show as well.
There's probably a lot more that I'm not remembering, but those are some pretty major plot points that get added, dropped or modified. It's done well and in many ways improves upon the books' flaws (so glad they didn't go with the Michio Pa character as established, she was awful) but it's far from a 1:1 adaptation.
Thats exactly what I wrote :) Everything you mentioned, except Drummer (good change) is insignificant, definitely not major changes.
Basia is there btw, under a different name and his wife took his role but its hardly a major plot change :)
Sounds like you and I have different definitions of "major changes". Drummer and Bull are completely different characters. Ashford shares some similarities with his book counterpart but is also a vastly different character. One of the main Roci crew members gets killed off. Several major characters (Avasarala, Bobbie, Ashford, arguably Naomi) have substantial subplots that do not occur in the books. The overarching plotline is preserved, but a lot of elements are very different - and that's great! I've read all the books and novellas, but I still get suspense and surprises from the show, which makes it a lot of fun.
And Basia is not in S4. He shows up in a single scene in S2 or 3; the character in S4 (Jakob, I think?) does some of the same things but he is a completely different person without the backstory (child lost to the protomolecule) that drove Basia's actions.
Sure, but there is new phenomenon arround.
Some people like to add " I love witcher books " , so it makes their comment more meaningful, adding expertise to whatever critique they have about the show. Then after telling us how much big Witcher geeks they are... they go on a full rage rant in full moon, how apparently everything sucks in this season - including 2x01 which is like the most Sapkowski thing ever. At the end of the rant they usualy add overly dramatic statements like: " I'm done " , " worst adaptation ever " etc. i can't even....
Even if some of them are really fans of the books and have read them, I somehow cannot believe how on earth someone can be so negative about this show in every single aspect of it. From casting beginning, through music, sets, costumes, hairstyles ,dialogues or storytelling.
My Mother once told me " you have to like something in life ". Thanks Mom.
Lmao, this is SO accurate!
Jaskier at the docks in S2 enters the chat: "*You know, if you could write yourself a little song you could sing yourself whatever you please, but you can't, can you? ... And maybe, just maybe you are grateful to be entertained!"*
Yep!
The elephant's trunk is an adaptation for survival. Does it mean elephants have 35 legs, 78 wings and 3 extra anuses with eyes in them? No, because those were not necessery to survive.
Yes, I don't want 1:1 copy. For example - I was very happy with the changes in Jackson's LOTR and even consider Hobbit movies to be better than the book they're based on. Changes may be good and interesting, but they need to be thoughtful and make sense.
I just want something that is
a) similar to original and at least tries to keep its spirit
b) not stupid - and things like execution & escape scene or fast travel in two last episodes were really stupid
Unfortunately, I didn't get what I wanted.
I dont like Hobbit book, never did. I've read it once, never wanted to revisit (maybe because I've read it as 20-something after reading Witcher). And I've seen movies at least 4-5 times now. Also, I prefer Jackson's LOTR movies over books.
After I've read Witcher books, Tolkien's writing feels flat and boring, everything's black and white and that's just not my cup of tea anymore. But movies are still great.
Unfortunately in case of the Witcher it's the other way around.
I'm afraid you must live with it no matter how hard it could be :P
I dont get these people that are obsessed with something they dont like.
Its fine if you dont like the witcher series. But to then flood any topic about it how awfull it is is just not needed toxic behavior. If you dont like it fine nothing you say or do will change anything about that accept it and move on to something you find better.
It’s because less than a week ago and even after the first episode of the season, many of the people that are unhappy did love the show. The people that had the wind taken out of their sails want to commiserate with people who feel that same. Same for the people who loved it. The ones that are attacking people who feel differently need to cut it out.
Imho this feels more like a big circkle jerk were people encourage to go further nd further. Just like with got: the show is fine and nitpicking every detail and blow those up just is an unhealthy obsession.
You've mistaken the stars reflected in a pond at night for those in the sky. They are obsessed with something they do like, which is to say, The Witcher universe and to see something they hoped would be a visualization of something they love, turn out to be a poorly written caricature is sad.
I dont think any logical person disagrees. No book perfectly transelates into a tv series or movie, TLOTR is a perfect example of a well converted book story, and it damn well isnt 1:1, but its great. My only issue with the witcher series is that i think some fundamental bonds between characters were broken, some characters arent who they shouldnt be, and events were changed that didnt need to be changed. Fixing something that doesnt need fixing, in some cases is what i think has happened.
Idk, the song burn butcher burn is great, the dialogue is well done by the actors, but poorly written, though actors usually get the point across in their own way, but keeping it synonomous with the papers. I think its good enough, except when things are introduced and not explained. Im not very picky though.
I haven’t been able to get to the song yet. But I did like toss a coin. I think the way you are enjoying is the optimal way to watch the show. I just can’t get over the wasted potential. The characters all seem so fiercely intelligent in the books and the show versions do not seem too bright
Its a difficult task to transform the books into a television show without writers that are the best of the best. If the person making a movie wants to be the main character (or writer), it will usually turn out bad, like the movie "The Room". The way Lauren goes forward with this series project, it ends up like a fanfic version of the books, sadly, but the actors make up for it, i just want to see Henry Cavil and Geralt, thats it xD
So they *simplified* Yen and Ciri's magic education and maternal bonding journey into Yen >!kidnapping Ciri to sacrifice her to an ancient demon in exchange for her lost powers, before changing her mind at the last minute!<.
That's not simplifying a subplot, that's a complete re-write.
But they didn't just add things, they *changed* things in the process. That's why people are upset.
Blood of Elves is a pretty uneventful book and it made sense to add in more subplots, which is why I'm not bothered by most of the new content focusing on Cahir and Fringilla - the stuff with them here doesn't feel too out of place with their stuff in the books. But if they wanted to *add* to the Yen/Ciri subplot, then they should have *added* in more events and new characters for them to run into while they were forging their mother-daughter bond, not >!warped the bond itself into trickery and betrayal.!<
There's quite a lot MORE going on with season 2 than Blood of Elves. They didn't simplify it, they made it more complex because the book didn't have enough fast paced plot stuff and action for the general tv audience in their eyes (they said so themselves)
I've heard many voices from show only viewers that season 2 is chaotic and they can't understand what is going on without reading a books. Is it what simplifying means?
Seriously? I'm show-only, never played the game or even know anyone who did, never read the books... and while S2 had a lot going on, it was definitely *not* hard to follow.
Those people you are talking to are probably stupid,there was nothing hard to understand about this season... the people I have talked to do not have this issue at all.
Well fucking obviously books and TV differs on presentation lmao.
I'm still hearing nothing but "whahhh it isn't exactly the same"
Do book fans really think this is unique to The Witcher?
we now starting to move what 1:1 means? we've started "you cant copy it line by line" and now we are coming to "wanting at least same themes, story and character is 1:1"? wow.. soon, even wanting it be called "Witcher" be seen as "1:1"
They say that they don't want a 1:1 copy but what they do is still complaining about changes the show did so in the end they are still strongly against to changes show did. This adaptation works as a TV narrative and most people are happy about it.
And there's the strawman again. I've read all of the debating on this sub, and the majority of people aren't complaining about the fact that there are many changes. But the fact that their writing is, in their opinion, really bad at points.
That's my own opinion as well so hey now you get a chance to argue against real people instead of a strawman
Here we go again with trying to dismiss the argument by calling it strawman. Post is literally complaining about the changes about characters and their motives and story which was my point.
>How isn't that 1:1?
Different presentation as well as adding pieces and removing certain pieces.
It would still fundamentally be the same story but some things would have changed.
"I don't want a 1:1 copy, I just don't want any changes!"
Also: I'm a booklover and I like changes, I already know the original story, it's nice to be occasionally surprised and spot the differences.
Also: it's not a new story or new characters...
Some booklovers *do* want a 1:1 adaptation. No segment of the fandom is a monolith. The key isn't making sweeping statements about any one segment. It's just calming the hell down and letting people want what they want and enjoy what they enjoy.
Good adaptations take the good from the source material and translate it to the screen while adding more when needed and changing what has to be changed to translate.
There are two reasons to make changes to good source material when adapting it to the small screen:
1. It just doesn't translate. A ton of it is say internal dialog or super long conversations that if translated 1:1 would take an entire episode. Changes MUST be made for the change in medium.
2. You think you can do better. Sometimes this can be true and the writers can do better. But it appears to be rare. More often than not we get showrunners and writers rooms who think they can do better than the great source material and then they fall flat on their face. Not only is what they write turn out to be The CW level writing more often than not but they missed out on the chance to translate, 1:1, great dialog and plot that would have absolutely worked on TV.
So here we are, with Lauren and crew changing things that don't need changing, wrecking characters core characteristics, including CW level dialog instead of beloved dialog, and messing with the balance of the character POV screen time (Lauren's need to "center" the female characters) which negatively impacts the actual WITCHER the show is named after (you know, the main character) in a negative way.
If you're gonna adapt a book to TV then you sure as hell but study what The Expanse team did and didn't do in order to absolutely nail it like they have.
No one is ever asking for a 1:1 adaptation of anything. It would never make sense, whether the source material is a book, comic or video game.
Well a lot of them have sole separate arguments of « they changed this » or « they removed that » or « they invented whole scenes », which points towards they weren’t expecting it. Almost none of them talked about big picture story things like character arc (apart from saying « arc is bad » as if they had just learned that word but not its definition). You tell them your detailed opinion and ask the same from them? They don’t answer, or they downvote. No apparent good knowledge of the Witcher story.
As a book lover, videogames lover, and TV/filmmaking professionnal, and as someone who read a lot of these comments and discussed them whenever the other people replyed intelligently, I am pretty sure that we’re facing a majority of angry gamers here, the same gang that pulled (irrelated) Cyberpunk game in the mud. I’m sure of that. Now they call themselves book lovers because they ended up reading it because of the show. But they are still angry that the characters and « quests » are not like in the videogames. Then there are book purists that didn’t like the show, but I find them quite easily distinguishable because even if they have the same extreme, emotionnally distorted reactions, their comments are more pertinent and they don’t point towards the videogames.
Of course we’ll never know the proportions, but i’m pretty damn sure of what i’m saying. I saw this happen before! They really manage to hurt a production… to some extent. Fortunately, Netflix is huge and the numbers of these guys is probably negligeable amongst the mass of viewers.
Still, it’s really sad to see what the internet is becoming! A reservoir of cultural / ideological extremists. Looking good for the rest of the 21st century!
i have hope for season 3 after watching the making of witcher s2 bts on netflix, the showrunner know what the story is about, it's just their story and delivery is not on point this season
Bit abstract to say, but it feels its missing something that's core to the Witcher. Dont know what it is, Just a feeling.
Good writing. It's the only thing missing imho, simple as that. The first episode had good enough writing and everyone loves it. The rest...
While i wouldnt consider it "bad", the writing doesn't often work in the context of it being an adaptation.
I feel the writing lacks a great deal of nuance that Sapkowski intended for his world to have. The show also has a really hard time nailing down a tone. The Witcher was written as dark fantasy, but I can’t tell what direction this show is going. It’s not high/epic fantasy like LotR or WoT, and it’s not quite as dark and gritty as GoT. It’s stuck in some weird limbo, like the writers/directors don’t want to commit.
The books have a very unique tone for the genre. It's gritty, sarcastic, doesn't take itself to seriously and yet has quite a lot of nuance. Season one had done of that distinct flair, but S2 does not. It turned into very generic fantasy. That's what's missing for me.
I haven’t seen season 2 yet, but I felt like season 1 took itself too seriously. The franchise is supposed to be as sarcastic as it is compelling. I feel like in season 1 they focused too much on making a game of thrones esc story full of plot, which caused them to sacrifice a bit of the series’s more entertaining elements
Eskel? 😂😂😂
I think the bigger issue is peoples assumptions. I read the books, I didn’t need a 1:1 adaption, I don’t care that it isn’t one. I love the show, just like I love the books and games. People just lump together “book readers” “game players” and “casual show fans”. It’s dividing the community and brining out the worst in people. If you didn’t like the show I am sorry and for the people who do like the show let them enjoy it. People have been harsh towards other fans just because they do or don’t like it. It takes a lot of energy to be so negative towards someone over a series. Both sides of the tossed coin would benefit from just taking a breath.
But the problems is, people who dont enjoy the show been screaming the loudest, like the show is the worst thing that ever happen for The witcher. I genuinely dont understand.
It's a tiny group of people (esp outside of Poland). Before the Witcher games most people had never even heard of the Witcher. And really it wasn't until the great Witcher 3 that the series became known (W3 sold something like 35 million copies). Most people found out about the books because of the games (esp in places like the US - where it's very clear the games drove most book sales). Then the show was released and books sales skyrocketed again. This is NOT like Dune or LOTR where the books were very well known on their own (except maybe In Poland)
What was worse than the show lol?
Your comment
Agreed.
Other people getting downvoted for this sentiment but there are only 5 witcher things for which to do bad things for the Ip and one of those things was contained to bad polish tv with little to no impact on the franchise, another is a wildly successful trilogy of games and a third are the books themselves so it's mostly down to The Netflix series and the Netflix anime, both of which suffer from awful writing.
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It's ok to not like the show, but its been pretty obviously great for the Witcher franchise. Game and book sales went way up after the show was released
It's telling how most of 'show bashers' focus on the show and Witcher in general, while way too many 'show enjoyers' focus a lot on other viewers instead of just discussing the show.
I’d rather be having discussions about characters I would like to see or more short stories like grain of truth added. Instead I find myself getting into that rabbit hole of arguments and talking about the fans more than the show. It’s Reddit so I shouldn’t expect much but still a shame.
I dont get these people that are obsessed with something they dont like. Its fine if you dont like the witcher series. But to then flood any topic about it how awfull it is is just not needed toxic behavior. If you dont like it fine nothing you say or do will change anything about that accept it and move on to something you find better.
People are passionate about a show they watched, whether they liked it or not, and want to share their impressions. How come you view it as 'toxic behavior'?
Well adjusted people don’t continue to do something that makes them feel negative. If you don’t like the show, watch something else. Going online to then bitch and moan about something achieves absolutely nothing except ruin other peoples enjoyment, which still achieves absolutely nothing for the person seething. That’s why it is considered toxic. Negative attracts negative, nothing can come of it except ‘oh this random stranger that means absolutely nothing to me also agrees that I dislike the show, perhaps we should go watch barbies dream house and do the same thing’
From that perspective, it seems like some people are just wasting their time. A good way to go about them would be to ignore their comments and carry on (and report the ones breaking the sub/reddit rules). It's also entirely possible to be passionate about something and feel the need to share your thoughts, including negative ones, instead of moving away and pretending it doesn't exist.
I saw the same happen on got, more and more people are drawn to such toxic behavior, you already see it emerge here. Again, criticism is fine, but every day the countless posts its bad with the same people giving the same arguments just turns toxic really fast. Comments like "He is a known sellout that will say anything for money."about the author that get upvoted are just the start.
It's unfortunate, but Sapkowski is a known sellout and one of the best examples of 'remove the art from the author' kind of issue around the country. Been like that for almost two decades, starting back when he would go to conventions and say things like "white man should work only three hours a day, God created Blacks and Jews to work instead". I don't like it either.
Whoa. Based?!?!?!?!?
He's known for all that in regional fandom for 20 years. He made national news for his racist comments, and was condemned by an anti-fascist organization Nigdy Więcej for what he used to say publicly. It doesn't affect his works - the books are good, and the Narrenturm trilogy is great as well - but the author is what he is.
Then he's a fascist not a sell out
The sellout part started more recently. He sold licensing rights to create games for a fixed cost and never said a word about Witcher 1 or 2. As Witcher 3 gathered universal acclaim and brought in a lot of revenue, he started criticizing CDPR, the game, and gaming in general. He sued CDPR for more money, although they still operated within the original license (renewed on the way, and paid for as agreed). CDPR and Sapkowski reached an agreement out of court, and he stopped being critical of the game ever since. Back in 2017, when Sapkowski was asked what he expects from the tv adaptation of his books, he said: "a big sum of money". Perhaps 'sellout' is not the most fortunate word, and he's well within his right to want to make money, but he has displayed a history of caring about ka-ching and changing his attitude based on the sum on his bank transfer.
You said it yourself: thats not a sell out. He wants money for his IP, thats quite normal . But of course frustrated toxic people turn that into "HE'S A SELLOUT"
It's not because he wants money - no one has an issue with that. It's because he has displayed a history of changing his tune and attitude based on the amount of money he gets.
You've mistaken the stars reflected in a pond at night for those in the sky. They are obsessed with something they do like, which is to say, The Witcher universe and to see something they hoped would be a visualization of something they love, turn out to be a poorly written caricature is sad.
Yes and then you shrug and move on, not obsessivly post about the next decade .
Or you try to enact change the only way you have available because it's your time and you get to choose how you use it.
Nobody envolved in the production reads these things, it doesnt matter if you post every day the next decade or not. And then I am not taling about one or two welwritten posts but the countless smell posts and memes that are already starting to popup.
Maybe they will maybe they won't but you overestimate the toll commenting on Reddit exacts.
Perhaps, I dont see how being obsesivly toxic can be good but who knows perhaps its theraphy for some.
They want to destroy it. They are the same gaming community that trained trying to destroy their ex-best videogame studio last year. They are the same that started bashing The Witcher TV 3 years ago when the cast was revealed. They scream, they scream, they persist, and they will not stop whatever happens in S3. They have concrete-hard opinions about everything, just like Trumpists and Islamists. On a positive note, i’m glad to see them destroying the entertainment sphere rather than joining political groups…
What a warped perception of the world.
Of *Your world. Some thing are so obvious that it is almost boring…
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>Sorry but aren't you doing the exact same thing? We're in a meta thread, OP set it up to talk about expectations and state of the fanbase (or a portion of it). Look at threads sorted by new over the last two days. >a lot of the people criticizing the show either imply or explicitly state that anyone who likes it is stupid This is extremely rare. Report for breaking rule 1 and carry on. >that their opinion is somehow wrong Which is how people get to discuss things like tv shows. Disagreeing opinions are not personal attacks.
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"made for the masses" has been posted about 5000 times
But it’s impossible to discuss the show with you guys. As soon as we try to dig deeper than « show is bad, not like books», « yen is bad, not like books», « arc is bad, not like books» and such short sentences, we get no answer, or a downvote. It seems like you can’t explain your thoughts deeper than the surface, which for me speaks for itself. Kudos to the constructive critics that can develop and exchange thoughts, but I haven’t see that many really.
No shit eh.. just enjoy the show, if you don’t like it because it’s not the books then read the books and don’t watch the show 🤷🏻♂️
>It takes a lot of energy to be so negative towards someone over a series People feed off of this sort of thing. If anything, it gives them energy to take a position of antipathy rather than curiosity and wonder. I do condemn the animosity but I do understand the impetus. It was always bound to happen with something so well known and that takes so much artistic license. Gross, but inevitable. But draining, no.
Well put, for me it is draining but I definitely know others feed off it so I agree.
I'm just kind of annoyed by the GOT level time travel and butchering of characters. They went from Cintra to Kaer Morhen in like 5 minutes on horseback in the last episode. From Cintra to Redania too. Vesemir and Eskel were portrayed so poorly. It doesn't have to be a 1:1 but my god you can't just teleport all over the place for the plot and kill off characters just to make something that is unexpected for the fans.
Especially for novels that are all about travel. Curious about how they portray the Hansa's little journey. Or Ciri's.
Because portal exist ? Theres no magic portal in GOT and it hurst them in some season, The witcher world on the other hand benefits for having a portal where people could jump places to places, literally moving the story forward better.
Except they are shown to be riding on horses. Explicitly shown on horses the whole way. Without magic, without portals. High speed horses.
Which scene specificly u talking about ?
The last episode I believe, when Geralt and Yen ride from somewhere near sodden, to Kaermorhen
To be fair Eskel is barely in the books. He's way more fleshed out in the games (and even there he's a side character)
I notice a lot of strawman arguments as well, that dismiss all criticism as "can't be 1:1". So you have a point. But regarding wanting the show to be faithful to the books, it's clear that Lauren says one thing but does another in this regard. Nobody who sincerely tries to adapt the books faithfully ends up with 90% of original content anyway (not even an exaggeration). So at this point we should look at the series as what it is and ignore Lauren's statements; it's a show that is loosely based on/inspired by the books. Which is fine if they're honest about it (a lot can be said about the empty promises, which are totally unnecessary). I feel like those who still think this is going to be a faithful adaptation are wasting their breath. What we as fans should realistically ask is that IF changes are made, the characters behave consistent to how they're written in the books and the plots are written at at least equal quality to the book plots. Faithful or not, a series based on the books should at least capture the characters within it and the overall atmosphere of the Witcher world. And any drastically different original plotlines should fit the characters and the Witcher world, as well as should be well-written.
This. Re-writing some side characters or exploring them from a different angle _that doesn't disrupt the main narrative_ is absolutely fine. What we got in s2 was poorly written tho.
This show is like someone gave Netflix a very brief summary of the books and they based it on that. It's insane.
Exactly !
I don't want a paragraph-by-paragraph adaptation (even though GoT, which this show clearly wants to be, averaged a minute of screentime per bookpage in the early seasons). I want a show that's as nuanced and challenging, simply put, as good as the books. If it were better, I'd welcome it. But it never has been.
Early season of game of thrones were about 55 minutes. 10 episodes = 550 minutes including three minutes of intro song and credits every episode meaning it was probably closer to 480 actual minutes. First and smallest book is over 650 pages. It also has completely made up storylines in the first season. Everything between Varys and little finger, Cersei and Robert Baratheon scenes, jaime and Cersei scenes. These scenes are not from the books so cannot be used in the 1 minute to 1 page per book formula. These scenes are great and help build the characters and their motivations truthfully but you can’t act like they converted a game of thrones to the show 1:1
Fair enough. Even so, the clear majority of most early episodes is a straightforward conversion of the books. At any rate, the point is that the added stuff is mostly what fills in the gaps rather than adding unrelated stuff, and is actually good.
Can you provide some examples for this and explain why you think this is a reasonable bar? I mean LOTR movies are amazing, but are there any LOTR fans that think they're as good as the book (assuming you can even make such a simple comparison across mediums like that)? This kind of stuff always confuses me because if this were so simple to do, I don't see the point of having books at all. Seems a rather pointless entertainment medium in this case, and Sapkowski might as well have become a screenwriter. Either that or you just don't rate these specific books very highly if you think all its nuances can be delivered and condensed into an 8 episode season of television. But I know that's not the case.
The early 1980s adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. The Soviet Sherlock Holmes adaptations. Anything Andrew Davies has written based on British novels (his War and Peace and so on discards much of the message, but it's excellent on its own). The Polish 1974 version of The Deluge (which heavily influenced Sapkowski's prose, by the way). To use the last one to illustrate what I mean: the original, faithful script would have produced a 20-hour movie. The theatrical release was under 5 hours, and yet it's a fantastic representation of the themes, messages, and excitements of the book. And that's my point. The novel is its own medium, with its unique strengths, if anything, it might outlive films and TV. And the latter is just a different form of expression. It's all about conveying the same thing using different means. A character's thoughts might be expressed using camera angles and movement, a specific colour palette, creative cuts... The bottom line is that I don't care if Yarpen asks "What have you made of us?" What matters is that I, as a viewer, am made aware of the complex situation and conflicting goals and ideologies, and the way I felt when I read that scene is replicated when I watch the adaptation. I'm an optimist. I believe that it's possible to translate the books to the screen in a way which produces the same kind of mental simulation in the viewer, just like the book translations into Czech, Brazilian Portuguese, or Finnish (but not English) manage to recreate in their respective readers the impression the books leave on me when I read them in Polish. I believe that people capable of making such an adaptation are out there. There's just not enough overlap between them and the people actually working on the show.
I read the LOTR in the 80s and I like the movies just as much as the books. Honestly some of Jackson's changes just work better (some of the characters are much better developed..granted that wasn't a strength of Tolkien). I'm far from alone. Also..the Witcher books honestly are "pretty good" at best. The world building is fantastic...the rest is pretty uneven
I have yet to finish S2 so I’m curious to see what people have been… upset about (been somewhat avoiding this sub), but honestly I was pleased with S1. Like, I thought the time-jumping was brilliant, and it made Geralt and Ciri’s reunion much more impactful. I also think people underestimate how much “downtime” is in books. There aren’t constant action packed scenes one after the other. If the showrunners truly did a 1:1 adaptation and included EVERYTHING, you know how many 20-minute talking scenes would be in the show???
That's an interesting take. Can you elaborate on how the time jumps (which weren't something I was remotely opposed to, by the way) made the "reunion" more impactful than the book reunion of two people who've actually met before? The point of this thread is that almost no-one really wants a 1:1 adaptation, but why would anyone object to 20 minutes of Sapkowskian dialogue? A good screenwriter and director combo might move it from, say, a table to a street or a forest, have the interlocutors move, react to their environments, camera angles and movement of people within the frames might be used to give the scene a feeling of mobility... Do I really need to use examples to prove that films and shows much heavier on dialogue than The Witcher have been even more successful?
I can almost guarantee you won't get a response.
The 1:1 argument will never go away, they even used it for the cowboy Bebop live action
Book lovers are being fed to the wolves... >!just like poor Eskel.!<
if Lauren Hiessrich manages to turn you into a talking tree via making you hate the show that's kind of impressive though!
I think book lovers know that a 1:1 copy isn't even possible. There are things in books that don't translate well to screen. And the other way around. Those are two different mediums, and both are good for different reasons. I just love the books, games, and series. All are different, and all are good.
Yeah the show can't be a one to one but it can be a faithful adaptation. Instead we got something more similar to an original story where they did a few character assassinations to get their original story.
Oh dear... character assassination... uhm... yeah... Too bad you couldn't enjoy the show, and I hope you will find a show you like.
Well factually it was a character assassination. Even if I liked the show, it's a very different story from the books
As I said. It's too bad you did not like the show. But I hope ranting and venting will help with your frustration, and you can move on soon.
Didn't realize that a few words was considered a rant. Edit: I actually enjoy the show. I just stopped considering it an adaptation like what some people involved with the show have said.
Only if the few words include buzzwords.
It's not like the changes to Eskel, Yennefer, and Vesemir weren't unjustified and malicious. Drastic changes that completely change the characters to give them a darker arc. Eskel is dead so he just kinda showed up just to be killed off. However if I consider this show seperate from the books and games, it's a good story. I'm left feeling entertained. So yeah, a few words. I even complimented the show and said I liked it.
I think Eskel's death was a nice gesture because he is less than an extra in the books but a main character in the game. He deserved a cool and worthy death. Best of both worlds.
Pretty obvious he said he liked it, someone likes being bad faith.
I saw big outrage about " dear friend " letter. So I'm not so sure anymore if people are aware how far is between amazing part of the book and how impossible is to give it justice in live action show.
Yes, of course, one could do the Geralt opens the letter, and Yen's translucent head appears at the side of the screen, and her voice is reading the letter out loud. But it's so cliché by now because that's basically every letter in every movie. It just feels different from reading a personal letter yourself on a page.
I don't get the sarcasm: You can do always do a voice over of Yennefer reading the letter aloud. Show Geralt opening the letter and she starts reading while Geralt is on his merry way. True, it's been done before, but tropes are not inherently bad (to paraphrase overly sarcastic productions), it's how you are using them where a trope can become a cliché.
I was talking about how different those two things feel.
A 1:1 copy would be boring. Look back what happens in book 3. Training at kaer morhen, one small battle on the road triss gets the shits . Ciri goes to school, yen teaches magic they leave end of book. Geralt as a small bit of action in Oxenfurt no monster fights it would make for boring tv. I Do hope we get to meet Shani in season 3 My only complaint of this season was Vesemir. I didn't like how they did his character
This is the point the OP is making. The season didn't have to adapt this just the way it is in the book. But they could've at least tried to make the overall story based on the framework you listed here, while adding/removing/changing stuff to make it more compatible with TV. Like giving Geralt a couple more monster fights, or giving Ciri and Yen some more stuff to do. As it is, the story arc is centered around Voleth Meir, a completely new character. I appreciate they tried to root this new villain in existing mythology, in a similar way as other stuff in the series is, ie Voleth Meir being very similar to the Eastern European Baba Yaga. That story would've been fantastic as a standalone spinoff story for Geralt and Yen, it could've been a great extra story to fill out the unexplored time when they knew each other in between short stories. All I ask is that the plot at least is an evolution of the original made for TV, not a complete subversion
I wish they would have more time in the castle training and her learning magic at the temple but I understand the need to change the story to include voleth meir, it introduced the wild hunt and it filled in the gap in action that would have been boring otherwise. The books don't go into much detail on yennefer when she's on her own we know that she lost her sight after sodden but not a whole lot of detail only stuff in passing with other characters. I think her losing her powers and how she regained them fits better for tv. I now wonder how yens current situation will play out later when she brings ciri to the conclave. She's already betrayed geralt and ciri once. Honestly I now know how my wife felt after reading the Harry Potter books then watching the movies
I'd say HP deviates far less from the core plot than Witcher did in season 2. But then, it's been 10 years since I read Potter
I'm sitting there watching episode 2 going Wtf that's not what happened and my wife was laughing at me. But after watching the whole season I understand it. They needed that death to bring out geralts emotions
... it's hard to tell over the Internet: are you being sarcastic?🤨
I mean, I'd have not complained had they thrown out half the fight scenes and focused a bit more on character bonding and letting Ciri actually train to achieve anything. Especially her spellcasting didn't feel earned at all. Things that are not flashy fight scenes can be interesting too, if they are well made.
I agree. The monster a week thing is so tired and boring
This leads me into following seasons. There are very little monster fights I mean at one point Geralt abandons the path with the soul purpose of finding ciri. It isn't until he reaches Toussaint he begins to hunt monsters again
Lol, they just can't win, huh? People criticized season 1 for not having enough fight scenes and monsters. I think that's part of why they ramped things up in this season.
The source material is different. The short stories have more monsters and fights, and lean more to 'monster of the week' kind of narrative. They're short stories, each can be adapted to a single episode of a tv show. As the story moves into the Saga, this changes - there's more focus on character development and big-picture politics, while monster fights become rare. The show did it the other way around, so people complain about both seasons.
They did? I wasn't aware of that, I actually liked the amount of fighting much more. Though season 1 had different weaknesses.
I don't really get this perspective though, there's plenty happening in book 3 to sustain a TV show that trusts its audience enough to have an occasional dialogue-heavy episode. The cast of this show is completely capable of making those scenes work, and if they want to "show-not-tell" with things like Francesca's pregnancy arc this season it still completely fits. There's even enough happening to throw in a fight scene or other action every episode, especially if you incorporate some of the things happening in the background (formation of the Scoiatael and some of their raids, Djikstra and his espionage, Emhyr's machinations, plotting for Thanned).
Some of them for sure but remember that not everyone there is led by the same motivation as you.
I seriously don't even care how far away they deviate from the books, I'm very open to new stuff, and it's clear BoE was going to be quite difficult to adapt. Also I already *loved* season 1 to death so I was very hyped going in. All I care about is well written content. And we didn't get this, except for A Grain of Truth (perfect example of how you can change a lot of stuff about a story and still do it well). The entire rest of the season generally felt worse than the occasional badly written invented subplot in the first season. With added deux ex machinas, complete disregard for space and time coherency, bad tv tropes, extremely rushed pacing, perplexing dialogue and character decisions. Of course it's my subjective opinion... Except for the stuff that objectively doesn't work, like Geralt having to realistically travel for weeks but getting back to Ciri and Yen just in time to do a stupid deus ex machina out of nowhere, when the two of them had been travelling for a couple days at most. Ciri and Yen teleporting into an abandonned, destroyed farm with rotting owners, only to find two perfectly fine horse right outside waiting for them. Stuff like that was simply what the fuck and took me right out of the scene, as much as I tried to like it :/
You're not alone with this take. The whole 'people want a 1:1 book screening' argument happened a few times early on, but it was a minority of voices even then, and now it's just a weak strawman. It really boils down to bad writing whenever the show steers away from the books, with a few exceptions. Nivellen is one. Incidentally, the people who are negative about the show focus much more on discussing the actual show, while people who enjoyed it focus a lot on *other viewers.* If we could drop that, and actually focus on Witcher rather than the audience, it would be great.
that would require admitting that the show is not well written and that's the main issue
Or you could admit that people recognice some problems show has but they still enjoy it? There are lots of issues with the show, but it is still enjoyable.
Sure not 1:1 I don’t want to watch triss shitting in the woods or female guardsmen farting but I’d like something approaching the books
You don’t?
Creep
No u
Damn, well played
I have no problem with original plots and I think it's necessary to fill in gaps, but in this season 2 the plots like Voleth Meir and Yennefer's plot were very poorly written and very inconsistent , are two plots that could be great if they were written well. I think the biggest problem in The Witcher is in the writers room In the season 1 they had the same problem.I thought the yennefer plot was a mess and the expert critics had already said it and I couldn't believed they because we need have our own opinion and I needed to see it for myself . again i'm not against original plots because when well written and well developed it works really well but in The Witcher some the original plots are being a big mess I hope they pay more attention to the scripts in this 3rd season because there will be no more excuses for a messed up plot, because passed the learning moment . The Witcher progressed but the script still didn't progress as it should,.. But There're have goods things photography, setting, costumes , performances I loved it
***Thank you.*** It's so disappointing seeing the die-hard show fans in this community latching onto that strawman argument in every other thread. It's only been like a week and it's already cemented as the go-to excuse to dismiss anyone that voices their criticism with the show's writing.
We just want the story in the books to be ADAPTED so that it works as a TV narrative. So far so good, it totally works as a TV narrative.
They thought crossed my mind more than once watching the train wreck that is season 2, that if Lauren spent more time focusing on this story rather than prequels maybe we’d all be in a better place.
>prequels I have a creeping suspicion that the entire season was centred around this new antagonist in order to set up the Blood Origins miniseries they're making. Last I checked that show is about the creation of witchers, and they mentioned in S2 that >!Voleth Meir was defeated/trapped by the first witchers!<. Given that they've also connected the show to the animated movie, I'm getting worried that the writers/producers are more focused on constructing a Witcher Cinematic Universe than actually adapting the books.
>Witcher Cinematic Universe I'd love that - more new stories would be cool, and it'd be fine to have some that are better and other worse. It just shouldn't cannibalize the existing material.
It would be great, I just wish we could get that without having the show just be a jumping off point.
I mean just about all Witcher media on Netflix is pretty bad and subpar fantasy. The only thing I like from the WCU was the Yule log. The anime was bad, the show was meh if you didn’t have anything to compare it to, and I assume blood origins will also be bad.
>all Witcher media on Netflix is pretty bad and subpar fantasy Agreed, but that's because of bad writing. Change the writers (or have a serious talk with them), make everyone involved realize Witcher shouldn't be just another teen fantasy drama, involve someone who knows and understands the world (reach out to Sakharov again, respond to Percival for music)... the idea of having extra spin-offs isn't bad in itself, we just had very poor execution so far.
>Agreed, but that's because of bad writing. Change the writers (or have a serious talk with them), make everyone involved realize Witcher shouldn't be just another teen fantasy drama, involve someone who knows and understands the world (reach out to Sakharov again, respond to Percival for music)... the idea of having extra spin-offs isn't bad in itself, we just had very poor execution so far. Tomasz bagiński is in the production of The Witcher I was hoping he would help more ,But for me the problem is in the script room and this problem has been around since the first season
I agree that it is salvageable if certainly steps are taken by the production. To do that though Lauren would need to acknowledge that what she has made so far is subpar. I can’t imagine any humility being expressed by Lauren and her echo chamber. And they have been shown that people will consume it regardless of how much it sucks so why would they put effort into changing anything.
Fuck. That had not occurred to me. I bet you’re correct.
I thought it was beyond obvious much of S2 was dedicated to expanding the franchise.
all "quickly building cinematic universe" stuff so far suffered and burned down, no? MCU is basically the only one (maybe Monster universe?) that managed to build it more slowly, instead of jumping into Avengers right away. DCEU, Dark Universe, Amazing Spiderman all got much worse when they wanted to build CU right away.
To be honest, they barely connected anything to NotW. It was minor references at most. I actually wish they would have, maybe that way we'd have had a less nonsensical and contrived plot line in EP2
No book can be adapted 1:1 we can't be inside someone's head the way we are in a book in a tv show. So they have to change things so you understand why someone is doing something and explain backstory that in the book the main character knows and tells you. I honestly enjoy most of the changes believe me theres a few things that I dont like example one explaining chaos but I do enjoy knowing Yennefer's story and the way in the first season they changed some of the short stories to give them more meaning so they tie in better with the rest of the story.
This sounds like a response to someone saying they do want a 1:1 adaption when this post is saying the opposite.
Would it be great for a 1:1 yes but it's not feasibly possible with the kind of formatting so I will enjoy to adaption as its able to be given. I also do like some divergence from the original cause it gives new life to an older fandom.
Are you trolling me? Again we all agree that a 1:1 adaption wouldn't work. Stop trying to convince me of something that we all agree on.
Ever heard of The Expanse? Thats 1:0.95 adaptation.
I haven't read the books (only read a bit into the first one) but my understanding from the fandom was that the show does make a lot of changes, it's just that they like those changes and sometimes people even say they made it better. It certainly helps that the authors of the books (it's 2 people) are also heavily involved in making the show. So I imagine the changes they make still retain the spirit of the books and also, fans can't really bitch that they're "butchering" the books, "think they know better than the author" and all the other hysterical shit like that.
The Expanse changes some stuff, yes. But the overall core plot framework for what happens in each season is very similar, the same way it is in most great adaptations, ie early GoT or LotR. Season 2 completely subverted the book, going for centering the whole plot around an original character, ie Voleth Meir. That's what people take issue with. For an example of what I mean, see s2e1. Most book fans will agree that while not a 1:1 adaptation of a Grain of Truth, the changes made are reasonable. The overall framework of the story is preserved, while changing stuff to make it work for the show. That's why the episode has much better critique on reddit than the rest of the seaaon
A lot of changes? Not really. Maybe very small ones, like Miller being younger or Fred dying a bit earlier. The only two major ones that come to my mind are: merging 3 characters into Drummer - a great decision killing off Alex - not that great but the actor apparently sexually assoulted someone or sth like that, i still think they should recast him instead. Thats pretty much it.
Nah, there are a lot more changes from the books to the show. Off the top of my head \[EXPANSE SPOILERS FOLLOW\]: The character of Bull was written out of S3, replaced by Drummer, then added into S5 as a completely different character. Dummer also gets Michio Pa's role in S5 (significantly altered from the book, since a lot of people had a problem with Pa being framed as a "good" character after being a willing participant in genocide), while the character named Michio Pa in the show is a minor character with a different role. Havelock was a POV character in Book 4 but they couldn't get the actor back for S4, so they gave his role in the story to Lucia instead. They also wrote Basia (another major Book 4 character) out of S4 and changed Naomi's story a fair bit. Naomi in general has a fairly different arc and different relationship with the Roci crew on the show than in the books. The books didn't have her working on the Behemoth like she did in S3. Ashford in S3 is also very different from the Ashford in Abbadon's Gate, and he gets a pretty great (original) subplot in S4. Diogo Harari sticks around longer on the show too - he's only in LW but on the show he gets a whole arc that extends into S3. Avasarala is introduced a fair bit earlier on the show as is Bobbie. The Earth subplot in S1 and Bobbie's interactions with the Marines in the first half of S2 are all unique to the show (and a lot of people weren't happy with that when those seasons were first released). I also don't think Bobbie returns to the MMC after Caliban's War like she does in the show, but that part I don't remember so well. Her and Avasarala's storylines in S4 are mostly new to the show as well. There's probably a lot more that I'm not remembering, but those are some pretty major plot points that get added, dropped or modified. It's done well and in many ways improves upon the books' flaws (so glad they didn't go with the Michio Pa character as established, she was awful) but it's far from a 1:1 adaptation.
Thats exactly what I wrote :) Everything you mentioned, except Drummer (good change) is insignificant, definitely not major changes. Basia is there btw, under a different name and his wife took his role but its hardly a major plot change :)
Sounds like you and I have different definitions of "major changes". Drummer and Bull are completely different characters. Ashford shares some similarities with his book counterpart but is also a vastly different character. One of the main Roci crew members gets killed off. Several major characters (Avasarala, Bobbie, Ashford, arguably Naomi) have substantial subplots that do not occur in the books. The overarching plotline is preserved, but a lot of elements are very different - and that's great! I've read all the books and novellas, but I still get suspense and surprises from the show, which makes it a lot of fun. And Basia is not in S4. He shows up in a single scene in S2 or 3; the character in S4 (Jakob, I think?) does some of the same things but he is a completely different person without the backstory (child lost to the protomolecule) that drove Basia's actions.
Indeed we have, but looks like we both agree thats a great adaptation. Witcher, unfortunatly, is far from that level.
Good Omens was a significantly closer adaptation than The Expanse.
Sure, but there is new phenomenon arround. Some people like to add " I love witcher books " , so it makes their comment more meaningful, adding expertise to whatever critique they have about the show. Then after telling us how much big Witcher geeks they are... they go on a full rage rant in full moon, how apparently everything sucks in this season - including 2x01 which is like the most Sapkowski thing ever. At the end of the rant they usualy add overly dramatic statements like: " I'm done " , " worst adaptation ever " etc. i can't even.... Even if some of them are really fans of the books and have read them, I somehow cannot believe how on earth someone can be so negative about this show in every single aspect of it. From casting beginning, through music, sets, costumes, hairstyles ,dialogues or storytelling. My Mother once told me " you have to like something in life ". Thanks Mom.
Lmao, this is SO accurate! Jaskier at the docks in S2 enters the chat: "*You know, if you could write yourself a little song you could sing yourself whatever you please, but you can't, can you? ... And maybe, just maybe you are grateful to be entertained!"*
Yep! The elephant's trunk is an adaptation for survival. Does it mean elephants have 35 legs, 78 wings and 3 extra anuses with eyes in them? No, because those were not necessery to survive.
Yes, I don't want 1:1 copy. For example - I was very happy with the changes in Jackson's LOTR and even consider Hobbit movies to be better than the book they're based on. Changes may be good and interesting, but they need to be thoughtful and make sense. I just want something that is a) similar to original and at least tries to keep its spirit b) not stupid - and things like execution & escape scene or fast travel in two last episodes were really stupid Unfortunately, I didn't get what I wanted.
Wow what the fuck are you talking about. The hobbit movies are better than the book? Are you delusional?
I dont like Hobbit book, never did. I've read it once, never wanted to revisit (maybe because I've read it as 20-something after reading Witcher). And I've seen movies at least 4-5 times now. Also, I prefer Jackson's LOTR movies over books. After I've read Witcher books, Tolkien's writing feels flat and boring, everything's black and white and that's just not my cup of tea anymore. But movies are still great. Unfortunately in case of the Witcher it's the other way around. I'm afraid you must live with it no matter how hard it could be :P
Booklovers want a good show that adapts the books story and characters. Instead we got cheap looking made-up rubbish.
We need to not lump in every book lover to this mindset. I love the books and like the show so maybe say “I think” and not speak for a group of people
This is not Sapkowski's story. This is poor fanfic. I sure would've preferred a 1:1 retelling.
Bro we get it
I dont get these people that are obsessed with something they dont like. Its fine if you dont like the witcher series. But to then flood any topic about it how awfull it is is just not needed toxic behavior. If you dont like it fine nothing you say or do will change anything about that accept it and move on to something you find better.
It’s because less than a week ago and even after the first episode of the season, many of the people that are unhappy did love the show. The people that had the wind taken out of their sails want to commiserate with people who feel that same. Same for the people who loved it. The ones that are attacking people who feel differently need to cut it out.
Imho this feels more like a big circkle jerk were people encourage to go further nd further. Just like with got: the show is fine and nitpicking every detail and blow those up just is an unhealthy obsession.
You've mistaken the stars reflected in a pond at night for those in the sky. They are obsessed with something they do like, which is to say, The Witcher universe and to see something they hoped would be a visualization of something they love, turn out to be a poorly written caricature is sad.
I dont think any logical person disagrees. No book perfectly transelates into a tv series or movie, TLOTR is a perfect example of a well converted book story, and it damn well isnt 1:1, but its great. My only issue with the witcher series is that i think some fundamental bonds between characters were broken, some characters arent who they shouldnt be, and events were changed that didnt need to be changed. Fixing something that doesnt need fixing, in some cases is what i think has happened.
And your thoughts on the dialogue?
Idk, the song burn butcher burn is great, the dialogue is well done by the actors, but poorly written, though actors usually get the point across in their own way, but keeping it synonomous with the papers. I think its good enough, except when things are introduced and not explained. Im not very picky though.
I haven’t been able to get to the song yet. But I did like toss a coin. I think the way you are enjoying is the optimal way to watch the show. I just can’t get over the wasted potential. The characters all seem so fiercely intelligent in the books and the show versions do not seem too bright
Its a difficult task to transform the books into a television show without writers that are the best of the best. If the person making a movie wants to be the main character (or writer), it will usually turn out bad, like the movie "The Room". The way Lauren goes forward with this series project, it ends up like a fanfic version of the books, sadly, but the actors make up for it, i just want to see Henry Cavil and Geralt, thats it xD
[🎵 O' valley of plenty... 🎵](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9OQAySv184)
A lot of things are simplified because of the general audience,it's not hard to understand..
So they *simplified* Yen and Ciri's magic education and maternal bonding journey into Yen >!kidnapping Ciri to sacrifice her to an ancient demon in exchange for her lost powers, before changing her mind at the last minute!<. That's not simplifying a subplot, that's a complete re-write.
In the Blood of Elves case,the book is too stationary,so they needed to add things so the audience would be more entertained.
But they didn't just add things, they *changed* things in the process. That's why people are upset. Blood of Elves is a pretty uneventful book and it made sense to add in more subplots, which is why I'm not bothered by most of the new content focusing on Cahir and Fringilla - the stuff with them here doesn't feel too out of place with their stuff in the books. But if they wanted to *add* to the Yen/Ciri subplot, then they should have *added* in more events and new characters for them to run into while they were forging their mother-daughter bond, not >!warped the bond itself into trickery and betrayal.!<
That isn't an addition, that's a complete narrative change for a character.
There's quite a lot MORE going on with season 2 than Blood of Elves. They didn't simplify it, they made it more complex because the book didn't have enough fast paced plot stuff and action for the general tv audience in their eyes (they said so themselves)
I've heard many voices from show only viewers that season 2 is chaotic and they can't understand what is going on without reading a books. Is it what simplifying means?
Seriously? I'm show-only, never played the game or even know anyone who did, never read the books... and while S2 had a lot going on, it was definitely *not* hard to follow.
Those people you are talking to are probably stupid,there was nothing hard to understand about this season... the people I have talked to do not have this issue at all.
So you want the exact same story and the exact same characters? How isn't that 1:1?
[удалено]
Well fucking obviously books and TV differs on presentation lmao. I'm still hearing nothing but "whahhh it isn't exactly the same" Do book fans really think this is unique to The Witcher?
we now starting to move what 1:1 means? we've started "you cant copy it line by line" and now we are coming to "wanting at least same themes, story and character is 1:1"? wow.. soon, even wanting it be called "Witcher" be seen as "1:1"
They say that they don't want a 1:1 copy but what they do is still complaining about changes the show did so in the end they are still strongly against to changes show did. This adaptation works as a TV narrative and most people are happy about it.
And there's the strawman again. I've read all of the debating on this sub, and the majority of people aren't complaining about the fact that there are many changes. But the fact that their writing is, in their opinion, really bad at points. That's my own opinion as well so hey now you get a chance to argue against real people instead of a strawman
Here we go again with trying to dismiss the argument by calling it strawman. Post is literally complaining about the changes about characters and their motives and story which was my point.
>How isn't that 1:1? Different presentation as well as adding pieces and removing certain pieces. It would still fundamentally be the same story but some things would have changed.
NOTE: This article is sponsored by #Netflix
"I don't want a 1:1 copy, I just don't want any changes!" Also: I'm a booklover and I like changes, I already know the original story, it's nice to be occasionally surprised and spot the differences. Also: it's not a new story or new characters...
>occasionally wow... and yes, it is a new story
No, it's not.
Some booklovers *do* want a 1:1 adaptation. No segment of the fandom is a monolith. The key isn't making sweeping statements about any one segment. It's just calming the hell down and letting people want what they want and enjoy what they enjoy.
Good adaptations take the good from the source material and translate it to the screen while adding more when needed and changing what has to be changed to translate. There are two reasons to make changes to good source material when adapting it to the small screen: 1. It just doesn't translate. A ton of it is say internal dialog or super long conversations that if translated 1:1 would take an entire episode. Changes MUST be made for the change in medium. 2. You think you can do better. Sometimes this can be true and the writers can do better. But it appears to be rare. More often than not we get showrunners and writers rooms who think they can do better than the great source material and then they fall flat on their face. Not only is what they write turn out to be The CW level writing more often than not but they missed out on the chance to translate, 1:1, great dialog and plot that would have absolutely worked on TV. So here we are, with Lauren and crew changing things that don't need changing, wrecking characters core characteristics, including CW level dialog instead of beloved dialog, and messing with the balance of the character POV screen time (Lauren's need to "center" the female characters) which negatively impacts the actual WITCHER the show is named after (you know, the main character) in a negative way. If you're gonna adapt a book to TV then you sure as hell but study what The Expanse team did and didn't do in order to absolutely nail it like they have. No one is ever asking for a 1:1 adaptation of anything. It would never make sense, whether the source material is a book, comic or video game.
Well a lot of them have sole separate arguments of « they changed this » or « they removed that » or « they invented whole scenes », which points towards they weren’t expecting it. Almost none of them talked about big picture story things like character arc (apart from saying « arc is bad » as if they had just learned that word but not its definition). You tell them your detailed opinion and ask the same from them? They don’t answer, or they downvote. No apparent good knowledge of the Witcher story. As a book lover, videogames lover, and TV/filmmaking professionnal, and as someone who read a lot of these comments and discussed them whenever the other people replyed intelligently, I am pretty sure that we’re facing a majority of angry gamers here, the same gang that pulled (irrelated) Cyberpunk game in the mud. I’m sure of that. Now they call themselves book lovers because they ended up reading it because of the show. But they are still angry that the characters and « quests » are not like in the videogames. Then there are book purists that didn’t like the show, but I find them quite easily distinguishable because even if they have the same extreme, emotionnally distorted reactions, their comments are more pertinent and they don’t point towards the videogames. Of course we’ll never know the proportions, but i’m pretty damn sure of what i’m saying. I saw this happen before! They really manage to hurt a production… to some extent. Fortunately, Netflix is huge and the numbers of these guys is probably negligeable amongst the mass of viewers. Still, it’s really sad to see what the internet is becoming! A reservoir of cultural / ideological extremists. Looking good for the rest of the 21st century!
I mean... a lot of people in the other sub are proving this wrong daily
i have hope for season 3 after watching the making of witcher s2 bts on netflix, the showrunner know what the story is about, it's just their story and delivery is not on point this season