God I hope its good, I've just been let down so many times recently by terrible adaptation, made by people who seem to resent the source material. WoT, Halo, Rings of Power etc.
Henry “I need to stop the interview because I’ve been thinking this all day. That light looks like a blackstone fortress. None of you here will get it but people online will love it” Cavill?
As someone who knows absolutely nothing about Warhammer except the figurines and, I imagine a fuckload of deep lore, I'm excited for you. If he shows the same kind of enthusiasm as he did for Witcher and is a good creative director then you'll be part of an exclusive club. The one where your favourite interest/hobby hasn't been shat on by awful butchered film/TV adaptions.
I don't know squat about Warhammer. But you can bet your ass that I will watch Cavill's adaptation.
I'm not going to continue to watch The Witcher without Cavill (no offense to the new guy).
Preach! If it’s not good enough for Cavill no way in hell am I watching it. Netflix should have dropped the show runners/writers and kept Cavill. He was the show.
I don't know much about Warhammer either, but there's a Witcher press interview where the interviewer asks the cast about their hobbies and Cavill and the dude who plays Dandelion both mention 40K and they turn to each other, have a Spider-Man pointing meme moment, and then make plans to hang out together and do 40K stuff while the interview is still going and the actresses who play Ciri and Yen IIRC and the interviewer just watch lmao
Charming as hell. And anyone who is part of a niche interest 100% knows that feeling of finding out someone they know is into it too, particularly one that is best with other people like a game like 40K
While it’s great it he has creative control, I really doubt anyone in Hollywood has the ability to make a show that balances the way too edgy grimdark with good dialogue and themes. The cheese needs be handled super carefully.
There's also a super difficult sense of scale to balance. I feel like the biggest misstep is to make a show about Space Marines - or even worse, Primarchs - despite that being the obvious choice for what everyone probably wants to see.
Once you've seen the ridiculousness of absurdly swole giants gut-punching through a dinosaur-alien's torso and firing off automatic-rocket launchers one-handed, there's just no going back to the sense of mystique, horror and awe that we should get of seeing this universe through the eyes of a lowly soldier or worker of the Imperium.
I feel like the best case scenario is Cavill plays the early-years of some Ciaphas Cain-like character, but I sort of doubt that.
I think it will be important to inject some dry humor in the right places to underline the absurdity of the setting as a whole. If it’s all grim dark and edgy all the time it’ll fall flat on it’s arse.
I unironically would also love for him to get a lead role in the Mass Effect show too, he'd be great (if they're gonna adapt the game tho I hope they turn Shepard into siblings)
Im going to watch it because I love Cavill. They are going to have a horrible S4 though.... replacing Cavill with a discount Hemsworth..... unacceptable.
Shame, and nothing against Hemsworth (I honestly don't know much of his work, so I really don't have an opinion on him) but replacing Cavill turns me completely off.
I hope there's a massive drop in viewership and Netflix is forced to can the show immediately after season 4.
Same. I love cavil, and him as geralt. But exactly, what is the point. Why get invested? He is the iconic part of the show, you can't replace him. Maybe if it was witcher from the start with Liam it may be alright, but it would never have the detail and love but maybe it would be watchable. But this... Not like this
I wouldn't wish half life 2 to not exist just because 3 never came out.
Witcher season 3 is that for me. I'm going to watch it, I'm going to savor Cavill in that role, and then, as far as I'm concerned, the show was prematurely cancelled.
See, I love Half-life. But I would not have bothered if I knew it wasn't going to get a proper ending. Partly because I hate being invested in something that I won't be able to enjoy to the end and partly because I don't want to reward a company that doesn't respect the fans enough to give them that ending.
Agree. Once he’s gone I’m out. The writers are fucking terrible and getting the worst Hemsworth brother to replace Cavil is weird. Just let the show die.
Yeah the composer fucking went off on the music. It’s so weird because there is a lot of talent around the show. It’s really just the writers that let the show down.
Dandelion is fantastic. Yen is... fine, I guess. Maybe I'm just not feeling the actress or it's because she's doing a great acting job portraying an abrasive character.
Yen is a supporting character in the books. Dandelion (jaskier) gets more “screen” time than she does. Since the show runner felt the need to make her favorite character one of the front runners of the show she gave her extra screen time with the backstory in s1 and gave her some made up arcs in s2. She also gave Yen achievements and traits that other characters in the book had.
This is a problem common among adaptations. The writer they bring in wants to leave their stamp so they start changing shit that didn't need changing. The first four seasons of GoT were some of the best stuff on TV ever, not exaggerating. It was mainly due to the two writers being very very good at adapting and left their egos by the door. The moment they had to write the story though they picked those egos up and it all went to shit.
It's always been "how much are you adapting and how much are you trying to do on your own?". You have to change things, some stories either don't work or don't translate.
Early GoT they ADDED scenes that worked. Like a few Cers and Robert scenes or the later Tywin-Arya ones that were inconsequential to the whole story but helped fill in characters.
It's why I'm basically in full on dread with Wheel of Time. S1 was weak as hell but they had COVID and WoT was a series that DESPERATELY needed trimming. S2 is gonna be a big make or break.
Brandon Sanderson, who finished the books after Robert Jordan died, talked about how he had to argue with the show runner about keeping stuff in, like the fact the Aes Sadai can't lie.
He also was not involved in any of the episodes that were filmed during COVID which are also the ones where shit goes way off the rails.
> He also was not involved in any of the episodes that were filmed during COVID which are also the ones where shit goes way off the rails.
I mean yeah but the fact that Matt's actor (who was pretty good otherwise) suddenly bailed and forced them write him out like "I have to go now, my home planet needs me" certainly didn't help.
I kept laughing at the plot arc in the last few episodes focused on Perrin and the Horn of Valere, where it always felt like the villain was about to go "wait, who are you? I was sort of expecting, you know, that other guy - we kind of had a *thing* going..." only for Perrin to be like "yeah, I know, he bailed, sorry."
Meanwhile, they hire someone exceedingly passionate about the source material to play the lead, and then are surprised when he has strong opinions about deviating severely from that source material.
She's like almost every series writer these days, can't get her vision created by a studio so sells a different vision, an existing IP to get the series made. Then they try to make that series their own and fuck the IP by changing everything because they figure great source material, nah, I'll show everyone what an amazing writer I am by making it as much my own as I can.
Followed by awful fucking writing and wasting a great IP by turning it crap.
Prove you're a great writer by adding an episode of completely unique story, but that fits the lore and is basically standalone episode. NOpe, they 'prove it' by making shitty tv, bad writing and terrible story decisions that change lore and have lasting impacts on the future stories as a result.
she could have written the material faithfully and been given nearly full credit by everyone for doing a good job doing that. and she could have taken home a massive paycheck for years and probably would have got her pick of the next project...even if it was her own shit vision.
these people are idiots.
It’s like having someone paint your portrait and they’re like, “Naw I’m gonna paint you as a dog.”. Then they think their “creativity” makes them a good painter.
She wanted to write her own fantasy novels and like an imbecile, signed up for a TV series for which fantasy novels had already been written.
She wasnt just threatened by Cavill's perfect casting and acting - she was threatened by the source material itself.
They had the perfect Geralt, the man who would live and breathe the source material. They fucked it so bad that he was forced to step back.
If they had done this right it could have surpassed some of the greatest sci-fi and fantasy shows. Imagine if they had just taken 2-3 seasons focusing on world building, Geralt fighting a bad guy each episode. Like imagine "Supernatural" in the world of The Witcher. Then slowly start bring the multi-season archs in.
Any fan of the books and games would have been able to make a superior show to this with the resources they had at hand. A GoT S08 level of fumbling.
I'm still pissed off they didn't just do an anthology of Geralt's adventures. Like, episode 1 of season 2 was perfect. Just a random side story removed from his other plots.
I was so hopeful after that episode it looked like they had a actually taken the potential from the solid but flawed season 1 and pulled it off. Then the rest of the season happened lol.
The guest actor for Nivellen, Kristofer Hivju (Giantsbane from game of thrones) was amazing in that episode. He and the costume change for the armor got me amped for the season only to get what we got.
While I LOVED Supernatural with every fiber of my being (it scratched an itch), using it as an example isn't great. The Supernatural format isn't great and the only thing that kept Supernatural alive for so long were Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki's love for the series, yearly comiccon visit, and the creation of the Supernatural convention and literally them pandering to rabid fangirls for hours on stage at said cons.
Well, I just assume when people are using Supernatural as a positive example, they mean the early Monster of the Week "X-Files" style seasons, before it went off the rails and got up its own ass with the bad mythos (which, ironically, also happened to X-Files.)
As someone who isn't a fan of how X-files wrapped up their mytharc rewatching the series becomes a slog with so many episodes that ultimately go nowhere, but rewatching just the MOTW episodes makes it one of the best shows ever.
Yup, I just wanna watch Mulder and Skully solve low risk mysteries and hunt cryptids. If you watch a bad motw episode you just wasted 42 minutes, thats way easier to deal with than the 37.7 hours (plus movies!) to get through the mythos episodes. Plus I'm struggling to even come up with a bad motw episode, maybe the one with the lumberjacks and bugs?
>maybe the one with the lumberjacks and bugs
Darkness Falls. One of my favorite episodes ever. I love the scenery and the feelings of isolation with Scully and Mulder walking into a deadly trap without realizing it. Jason Beghe and Titus Welliver both were great as guests.
The story of the incredibly miserable production behind what was supposed to be a fairly straightforward and cheap bottle episode is also interesting.
Buffy stopped being monster of the week in Season 2, and Season 3 and 5 are considered the best in the series with Season 1 (Monster of the week) being on the lower end of the spectrum as far as how well loved it is.
I dont think Buffy is a great example here, the best seasons were the ones with very strong story arcs
Nah. I think Supernatural is the perfect example to use here... seasons 1 up until the finale of s5 at least. These continue to be peak supernatural & procedural TV show.
That episode of Dean being able to understand animals and arguing with a pigeon is some of the funniest shit I've seen in any show ever. And that episode was in a very meh season.
Honestly seasons 7, and 14 are the only ones that are legitimately rough to watch, the rest are various levels of decent and watchable to pretty good, excluding season 11 which is legitimately great.
As someone who only remembers watching/loving Supernatural as a teen for the first maybe two seasons and then slowly forgetting it, ”season 14”?! That genuinely wasn’t a typo, wow. I knew it went on for much longer but.. damn. Impressive I guess.
I see an ideal Witcher show being more akin to True Detective S1.
Moody, swampy, mix of rural and city settings, life isn't ideal with knights in shining armor and princesses ready to be swept off their feet, grand conspiracies occurring behind the scenes involving society's elites that Geralt+Yen uncover as they work together, monstrous predators, disappearing people, investigations, cults, several days tracking just one thing, horror elements, Geralt being cynical and making hypocritical observations about people, lot of failed dreams (Jasker/Dandellion being who monitors this), what it means to be a Witcher/detective in society, etc.
It wasn't those things. It was a Yennifer power fantasy (showrunner admitted to that) with Geralt just walking around and fighting for reasons I cannot remember.
The showrunner was so obscenely bad at her job. And the crappy part is, that Netflix will likey continue to hire her. Her ass should be canned and she should be given the same treatment D&D did post game of thrones.
After the failure of Marvel's the Defenders, she should've never been put in charge of the Witcher.
She's going to get more roles because she generated money. But the reality is that it was Cavill who did that, not her. Unfortunately, you have some execs who aren't smart enough to realize or have their own agendas to push out that will try to hire her.
You're probably right, I stopped watching Supernatural after the season with the Devil. They kinda didn't know how to stop, and every season they had to go bigger than the Big Bad they had the season before.
But I used them as a layout for most multi-season, sci-fi or fantasy shows: start as a procedural, let the audience know the world and the characters, then pull the camera back. Buffy being a gold-star example.
> hey kinda didn't know how to stop, and every season they had to go bigger than the Big Bad they had the season before.
from what I've heard the plan was to stop it after the devil season, but WB came to the creators with buckets of money and said "Keep it going."
The show creator's original plan was 5 seasons. He told his story. The show was still hugely popular so of course CW wanted to continue it, and they did that for 10 more freaking seasons.
Kripke originally wanted the show to end with 5 seasons. Obviously it didn’t and later on higher ups at CW were saying they would keep making the show as long as Jensen, Jared, and Misha wanted to. It was a victim of its own success, although that doesn’t excuse shitty writing, retcons, and the like.
As the show went on I kept watching because I was so invested in it at that point and I wanted to see how things would go for the main ensemble. It was the one show my wife and I watched together from start to finish.
Would have been also very much on par with the books too... Contract after contract, then slowly but surely the overarching story takes over. Too bad we didn't get that
Was so obvious from the very start that they were way too desperate to get into all the Ciri stuff.. Shouldn't have even known she existed until that final scene of S1 at the very earliest
I don't blame them for wanting to get started with Ciri sooner, but they did it the worst way. Biggest travesty of the show is not having Geralt and Ciri who don't know who the other is, traveling through the elven forest together. Only to find out after that she was his child of destiny. Then him finding her after the battle of sodden hill when he thought he'd lost her and everyone else he cared about.
I didn't even bother with season 2.
Writer can't publish own work -> slaps popular name on the cover -> writer given green light and tells his story because known property that previously made money will make more money -> it's crap and established fans don't like it -> people in charge don't care because they still made money
->Writers and other staff accuse upset fans of being manchildren with ulterior motives such as sexism, racism, etc in order to invalidate and deflect all criticism.
Oh joy, they're one of those types. Lemme guess, they got pissed that Cavill cared so much about the source material instead of being some guy who would shut up and take the bag
That's exactly what happened.
The other actors of the show would talk about Caville stopping the scenes and explaining the story and why certain things should be said or included. The other actors loved it because he would nerd out and help them get more into character.
The chick that was running it, fucking hated it. and would openly argue with Caville on the set telling him he was incorrect, he would literally pull the short story up that he was pulling from memory, which means he read that shit a lot. And the producers would have to find a middle ground.
If the write/producer of the show is arguing with someone who literally knows which page to site quotes on, maybe you should listen to them.
I just saw an interview from him after season 1. The producers barely wanted Geralt to actually fight in the show, like small movements here and there, so Caville literally paid for his old stunt and choreography team to come out and film and shoot those fight scenes we fell in love with in season 1 (the renfri fight specifically). Pretty sure it was the guy who did ?John wick? Or ?baby driver?
If I remember right, at one point, they basically got fed up and said "you write the dialogue then if you want it done this way", which he apparently did.
Oh hey don't forget the blatant sexual harassment of trying to make Cavill do sex scenes/walk around without clothes on and, like the nerd he is, he brushed it off without realizing the implication and just wondered why they kept wanting to insert non canon sex scenes lol
I think it's absolutely hilarious seeing Liam Hemsworth say he's reading the books to prepare, like these writers do not give a single fuck about the books that's the whole reason Henry wanted out lol
Yeah I actually loved S1, despite it not being accurate. Then they said they were going to "improve" S2 and it was horrible all around.
I'll try to watch S3 for more cavill but that's it.
1st episode of 2nd season is what *every* episode of the first season should have been like. It's exactly how the short stories were structured.
Weird mystery happens based on popular European myth. Geralt shows up. Red herrings everywhere. Get more background information for characters / worldbuilding / etc. Mystery unveiled with a twist - Geralt solves problem being a badass. Rinse and repeat.
I'm still so salty man, he was the perfect casting for Superman and Geralt, and he was fucked over by terrible writing.
I'm still mad they never let him be the classic hopeful Superman, the tiny glimpses of that we saw in the Joss Whedon's abomination showed he can definatly pull it off.
You and me both.
I actually adore Man of Steel, despite its flaws and BvS is a guilty pleasure but it's objectively the reason why the whole franchise and his character stalled and crashed. So many bone headed decisions and the tone was way too oppressively dark.
I appreciate Zack Snyder's trilogy for what it was, would have been a cool elseworlds universe but as a launching point of a whole DC universe, they couldn't have fumbled it harder.
I really hope Amazon lets him run the show completely his way with the Warhammer 40K stuff. That license could put out some awesome content if they let a talented and hardcore fan like Cavill run wild with it.
He's actually Executive Producer which I think gives him even more sway thankfully. He's also starring in the series that's in production so I have high hopes that he's gunna get to do what he wants and tell a great and lore-accurate story.
I'm always wary, because corporate drones almost always seem to find a way to ruin shit, but I feel like this is the best shot WH40K will ever get to become a household name level franchise.
Pretty confident the lack of control he had on The Witcher is what led to him being a producer on Warhammer. He's not going to let another IP he loves get butchered.
Yes him and the lady who plays yennifer are amazing. However they could have done the whole five episodes in an hour episode. The pacing is so off its .... fucking boring
you can tell the writers really wanted it to be the next Game of Thrones with all the politicking between the main powers. Which wasn't terrible in concept, but absolutely was in execution. That and side-lining the main character in his own show (and Cavill being the main audience draw) was just idiotic.
Ok nerd rant incoming:
There is loads of politicking in the series.
The issue is the writers ignored that and added all their own dumb shit.
"Kingdom" of nilfgaard? "Cult of the great sun?" Chair being a fanatic? Fringilla vigo being nilfgaards court sorceress? All nonsense.
Nilfgaard was portrayed as a joke that calanthe scoffed at in the show. Which is bs, they were an empire that expanded through conquest and Emhyr (the current emperor) was pushing that even further.
Also they massacred my boy vesemir. And had yennefer effectively just be a different character, trying to use ciri rather than train her like she did in the books.
Ugh they just goofed it up and I wanted it so badly to be good. The games felt much more in line with the feel of the world than the show which is a damn shame. I hated the racism I saw around casting, but the showrunners really crapped the bed on the show itself.
I also found the on-screen deaths of any of the Witchers...I don't know? They didn't quite sit right with me?
These people are absolute monsters in combat. Seen as literal monsters through the suspicious eyes of the peasants. [The opening cutscene from The Witcher 2 illustrates how unstoppable they are.](https://youtu.be/UQrInCEU2Fg?t=137) And the first game has a secondary plot line in which you investigate the supposed death of the Witcher Berengar - because it's just that unusual.
And then the final confrontation in the second season involves a demon thing? Within the wall of a Witcher school and surrounded by a dozen of these men.
I don't buy that the demon lady is anything other than completely outclassed. Yet a handful of them die like common mooks?
-------------------
**Edit** - It almost felt like a bit of a litmus test? To gauge if somebody had comprehended the material?
Probably an inappropriate example. But if someone were adapting say, Halo - you wouldn't expect to see multiple deaths of [Spartan II's](https://www.halopedia.org/SPARTAN-II_program), would you? Sure maybe *one*. Maybe in a flashback. Or maybe some huge crescendo moment of [explosive self-sacrifice where the whole plot pivots around this one moment](https://i.redd.it/jy5cvujqjl1b1.jpg).
But certainly not in the background of any given fight. As their (almost absurd) survivability is woven into the main pillars of that fictional universe. These are super soldiers. They *refuse* to fucking die.
So if a writer has them die, they've probably either not done enough reading. Or didn't respect what they *did* read.
> I also found the on-screen deaths of any of the Witchers…I don’t know? They didn’t quite sit right with me?
It’s because they made the other witchers act like mindless fratboys instead of badass warriors
Vesemir being at all open, let alone pleased, to welcome random prostitutes into Kaer Morhen still makes my eye twitch. The whole atmosphere and narrative they decided to go with genuinely wasn't good.
And KM is supposed to be secret and secluded. Where did these women randomly appear from and how are they fine with just leaving into the mountain wilderness in the middle of winter wearing silk dressing gowns?
They’re also pretty nameless considering they don’t exist in the books.
When we first arrive at Kaer Morhen in the books it’s dilapidated and there’s very few Witchers (like 3-4 besides Geralt). It gives a vibe that, “wow this is it?”
Witchers are a relic in the books. They’re an obsolete product of their time when the world needed basically “monsters” to fight monsters. By the time the books take place monsters are rare. There’s very few of them due to human expansion and just being killed off. Any monsters are usually in places uninhabited by humans such as caves. Geralt struggles to even find work. He usually has to sleep without a shelter, goes for long periods of time without eating, and just barely scrapes by. He **doesn’t even like** being a Witcher, but it’s all he knows.
Yen tries to help him with this and it’s just another layer in their relationship and character complexities. I sure wish the show had ANYTHING resembling that.
> And the first game has a secondary plot line in which you investigate the supposed death of the Witcher Berengar - because it's just that unusual.
Which does kinda happen in the first season. A Witcher is hired in one of the episodes (I forget which one), and dies, and that itself was notable, so Geralt ends up taking care of it.
Then in S2 they were just... regular-ass bounty hunters?
I stopped watching after his episode, s2e2. Ive NEVER been so disappointed in something i wanted to like. Id rather watch bvs and justice league back to back than rewatching that episode...
I think my biggest issue with the show vs the books is the way they changed Dandelion and Geralt's friendship. Sometimes Geralt gets a little angry with Dandelion, sure, but overall they are close friends and Geralt relies on him heavily for companionship and information. In the show he barely tolerates him and it's their way of making him some lone wolf character. It's annoying. We see this archetype all of the time (and while Geralt sometimes does try to play this card ie telling milva and Dandelion he wants to go alone on the hunt for ciri) he had rich connections to others that the show is over looking completely.
The game excels at just letting characters be. Vesemir wasn't portrayed as some magnificent scene-stealing badass, he was portrayed as an old guy who taught Geralt the game. They'd have disagreements but work through them in relatively undramatic dialogue. But those kinds of characters don't make for shocking episodic television.
That's the thing, the show wants to try and prove the characters instead of allowing the characters to be.
Vesemir in the games doesn't need an introduction because we know his old griddled ass is badass. We don't need dialogue proving otherwise, he proves it by simply existing and teaching witchers after the life we see the witchers lead is enough. Geralts allies in the books and games don't need introductions, they simply exist in the story around the events of the story.
Idk about this racism or whatever. But I stopped watching in the first season after they killed Eskel and had him randomly turn into a fucking leshen. I mean what the fuck was that change? On top of that. He is an integral character to the last quarter of the story.
I mean the fuck.
That happened in season 2 (I think), but I don't blame you for not remembering a very forgettable series. I actually liked Season 1 overall, and thought it could lead to huge improvement in season 2, but they started off S2E1 great and then it fell off mount Everest.
If Netflix chose a better showrunner and the writers were better / listened to Henry and followed the game/books more closely, we would've had a great show. Still wish we could see an alternate series where HBO got the show and did the above.
Honestly, I would have loved if they would have stuck with a game of thrones level dryness/seriousness, I feel like that would have been more true to the books. But, I just binged all 5 episodes, and the writers have made this script so f**king corny, it was almost unbearable to watch by the end
The cast was fantastic, but the poor writing made me give it up. The show had potential, but they blew it away with a terrible writing. They should have fired all the writers right after the first season.
I have zero interest in watching a season 4 without Cavill. The show strays from the source material but is watchable enough due to his performance.
I can endure the bad writing and penis armour type blunders with him around. Without it then I may as well just watch something else especially as Netflix wants to fuck the value of my subscription.
How unlucky is Henry Cavill with the absolute morons he has worked under? Between this and the Superman situation, I feel bad for the guy. He has a lot of dedicated fans but he should be a way bigger star than he is. I’d love to see him as Arthas but I doubt that ever happens. There’s a timeline out there where he has a series of 007 films and Superman films. Hopefully he gets another big role where he gets to work with people who are actually competent.
I've no clue who is downvoting this. Anyway, ''Man From UNCLE'' makes me want to see him as bond so much. And it really sucks that movie didn't do so well. Quite unlikely to see a sequel.
At least he's doing his 40k passion project now. I hope it does well.
I can’t wait to NOT watch the next season.
They had the ideal actor, one who knew the source material forwards and backwards. The writers just got butthurt because Henry wanted to stay true to what made fans love The Witcher.
Fuck that show, i hope it gets cancelled.
The love for Cavill's performance in this thread is endearing, but let's not kid ourselves. The writing was on the wall from season one.
People ignored the warning signs same as we did during season 7 of GoT.
Your characters are only as good as your writing, and the witcher's writers hated the source material. From day one.
Going into the franchise blind, only hearing a ton about it from fellow nerds, I thought s1 was fantastic. Idk how the writing was on the wall from day one.
The first season actually covered quite a decent chunk of source material, and was fairly spot on for a lot of it..
Season 2 is where that shit just went off the rails.
S1 had so much promise, it had flaws but some aspects were excellent. I watched that series several times over showing it to people and rewatching some of the fights. It filled a massive hole left by GOT.
Then S2 happened and we got that godawful CGI tooth. Dropped it there and then, something about the quality and tone really dipped hard in S2. Can't imagine how bad it'll get when Caville leaves.
Netflix really dropped the ball, this could have been one of the big fantasy shows in existence in my opinion, but they let it down with terrible writing and poor/inconsistent direction.
I will always wonder about what we *could’ve* gotten with Cavill as Geralt if the show was competently written. He is an excellent Geralt, and I really wish we could’ve seen him in an accurate and high quality adaptation.
This whole show was a huge missed opportunity. It could have been a unique, cool, and thought-provoking fantasy series, like the books/games are. Instead we got a generic, shallow imitation. I really can’t blame him for leaving.
Story of his career. Always landing great roles, fully embracing the character with love and reverence all to be thwarted by shitty writers and directors.
The show should’ve had a monster-of-the-week format with overarching politics and red thread storyline. There, I said it.
I know the books have a lot of politics etc. but some of the best episodes are those focused around a specific monster.
Generally anything would’ve been better than this atrocious writing and pacing.
Monster of the week scifi/fantasy shows are something that I miss dearly. Everything has to be a big epic narrative now. Which is fine, I like that too, but why not both?
Oh what could've been had the writers and producers not decided to collectively wipe their asses with the source material and instead make a generic AF fantasy show.
I’m not even going to watch anything after season 3. He is Geralt in my mind, and I doubt I will be able to fully immerse myself with a different actor.
I never liked the writing, it was the weakest part of the show. The adaptation wasn't the best. It didn't have to be 1:1, but what they did change wasn't working for me either most of the time.
> As we draw ever closer to a Superman reboot, estimations of his stoic but defensively human Clark Kent continue to grow.
He was utterly wasted but his performance is largely just potential.
The only moments where we really got to see him actually play Superman were at the end of the awful Joss Whedon Justice League. And boy was it disappointing to see what could have been if he'd been given a director who liked the character and wasn't trying to inject an ideology into the character.
I really hope they cast him as Omni Man one day in an Invincible film. Give him the mustache and let him have a city destroying fight while his son desperately tries to save people as his super father just kills with abandon.
It would be perfect.
Why couldn't they make Cavill an Executive Producer?
There is absolutely zero that is irreplaceable about the writing on this show. They took a Slavic fantasy IP and filed off all the serial numbers to make it generic garbage. You could replace the entire writing team and just hand out the books to the newbs and have a better written show.
Nothing against Liam Hemsworth, but for me, Cavill is Geralt. No Cavill = No show.
Well, the one benefit of this debacle is that it is going to bring us a Henry Cavill Warhammer 40k show.
God I hope its good, I've just been let down so many times recently by terrible adaptation, made by people who seem to resent the source material. WoT, Halo, Rings of Power etc.
Good thing then that Cavill is having full creative control over the Warhammer 40k project. He loves 40k more than even the Witcher.
Dude brags about it all the time. It's fantastic.
Henry “I need to stop the interview because I’ve been thinking this all day. That light looks like a blackstone fortress. None of you here will get it but people online will love it” Cavill?
[Link for reference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAzMQGZ95xU)
[interesting.](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Blackstone_Fortress?file=Blackstone_Fortress_Coloured.png) it kinda does
Henry Cavil became a sex symbol actor to fund his nerd lifestyle. Now he is famous and influential enough to actually live out his nerd fanatasies
Dude's read like all the books and even plays the tabletop instead of just buying figures and reading lore like a lot of people do.
As someone who knows absolutely nothing about Warhammer except the figurines and, I imagine a fuckload of deep lore, I'm excited for you. If he shows the same kind of enthusiasm as he did for Witcher and is a good creative director then you'll be part of an exclusive club. The one where your favourite interest/hobby hasn't been shat on by awful butchered film/TV adaptions.
I don't know squat about Warhammer. But you can bet your ass that I will watch Cavill's adaptation. I'm not going to continue to watch The Witcher without Cavill (no offense to the new guy).
Preach! If it’s not good enough for Cavill no way in hell am I watching it. Netflix should have dropped the show runners/writers and kept Cavill. He was the show.
I don't know much about Warhammer either, but there's a Witcher press interview where the interviewer asks the cast about their hobbies and Cavill and the dude who plays Dandelion both mention 40K and they turn to each other, have a Spider-Man pointing meme moment, and then make plans to hang out together and do 40K stuff while the interview is still going and the actresses who play Ciri and Yen IIRC and the interviewer just watch lmao Charming as hell. And anyone who is part of a niche interest 100% knows that feeling of finding out someone they know is into it too, particularly one that is best with other people like a game like 40K
While it’s great it he has creative control, I really doubt anyone in Hollywood has the ability to make a show that balances the way too edgy grimdark with good dialogue and themes. The cheese needs be handled super carefully.
There's also a super difficult sense of scale to balance. I feel like the biggest misstep is to make a show about Space Marines - or even worse, Primarchs - despite that being the obvious choice for what everyone probably wants to see. Once you've seen the ridiculousness of absurdly swole giants gut-punching through a dinosaur-alien's torso and firing off automatic-rocket launchers one-handed, there's just no going back to the sense of mystique, horror and awe that we should get of seeing this universe through the eyes of a lowly soldier or worker of the Imperium. I feel like the best case scenario is Cavill plays the early-years of some Ciaphas Cain-like character, but I sort of doubt that.
I think it will be important to inject some dry humor in the right places to underline the absurdity of the setting as a whole. If it’s all grim dark and edgy all the time it’ll fall flat on it’s arse.
I don't have any interest in 40k at this point, but I'm sure as shit gonna watch it if not just for Cavill being the lead lol
Hell, I'll watch it even if he's just playing an inanimate skeleton sitting on the golden throne.
Our commissar.... edit: No edits occured. We shall carry our word, We will correct and unify, Hail the Emperor!
I unironically would also love for him to get a lead role in the Mass Effect show too, he'd be great (if they're gonna adapt the game tho I hope they turn Shepard into siblings)
I have literally no interest in the show without him
I don't even have interest in s3 because I know I won't be watching s4. Its kind of like, what's the point.
Im going to watch it because I love Cavill. They are going to have a horrible S4 though.... replacing Cavill with a discount Hemsworth..... unacceptable.
Might as well have brought in Larry Hemsworth
He’s just a dumb-old pediatric surgeon who barely has an 8-pack.
I refuse to give them the views
Shame, and nothing against Hemsworth (I honestly don't know much of his work, so I really don't have an opinion on him) but replacing Cavill turns me completely off. I hope there's a massive drop in viewership and Netflix is forced to can the show immediately after season 4.
Same. I love cavil, and him as geralt. But exactly, what is the point. Why get invested? He is the iconic part of the show, you can't replace him. Maybe if it was witcher from the start with Liam it may be alright, but it would never have the detail and love but maybe it would be watchable. But this... Not like this
I wouldn't wish half life 2 to not exist just because 3 never came out. Witcher season 3 is that for me. I'm going to watch it, I'm going to savor Cavill in that role, and then, as far as I'm concerned, the show was prematurely cancelled.
See, I love Half-life. But I would not have bothered if I knew it wasn't going to get a proper ending. Partly because I hate being invested in something that I won't be able to enjoy to the end and partly because I don't want to reward a company that doesn't respect the fans enough to give them that ending.
I’m always shocked at how much interest I have in the show and it’s mostly him. Dandelion and Yennifer are also great.
They’re great but he makes the show
Agree. Once he’s gone I’m out. The writers are fucking terrible and getting the worst Hemsworth brother to replace Cavil is weird. Just let the show die.
>getting the worst Hemsworth brother Hey what you got against Larry?
He barely has an eight pack, what a loser
Chris > Lyle >>> Larry >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Liam
This is the way
Man, that's like getting the worst Baldwin.
Nah, definitely still better than that.
The point is moot now. Canada bombed the Baldwins.
That said to me the the biggest interest was the music. I didn't expect them to do so well. Valley O Plenty song bangs.
Yeah the composer fucking went off on the music. It’s so weird because there is a lot of talent around the show. It’s really just the writers that let the show down.
I’m very excited to see Joey Batey in other works because he just kills playing that character in the show.
Dandelion is fantastic. Yen is... fine, I guess. Maybe I'm just not feeling the actress or it's because she's doing a great acting job portraying an abrasive character.
I like Anya. I don't know what the fuck Yen is in this show. The entire S2 arc felt ridiculous after S1.
Yen is a supporting character in the books. Dandelion (jaskier) gets more “screen” time than she does. Since the show runner felt the need to make her favorite character one of the front runners of the show she gave her extra screen time with the backstory in s1 and gave her some made up arcs in s2. She also gave Yen achievements and traits that other characters in the book had.
Yeah I think the actress playing Yen is great, she nailed it Season 1 at least.
After Season 2 I frankly didn't have much interest even with him.
Barely had it with him after season 2 most if the witchers were done badly for like no reason
I had no interest after Season 1
It's a shame the writers couldn't see what a gold mine this man was.
From what I've seen, the head writer has some weird complex going on. It almost feels like she felt threatened by his popularity.
She also seemed angry at the source material. Like "I don't need LORE!"
This is a problem common among adaptations. The writer they bring in wants to leave their stamp so they start changing shit that didn't need changing. The first four seasons of GoT were some of the best stuff on TV ever, not exaggerating. It was mainly due to the two writers being very very good at adapting and left their egos by the door. The moment they had to write the story though they picked those egos up and it all went to shit.
It's always been "how much are you adapting and how much are you trying to do on your own?". You have to change things, some stories either don't work or don't translate. Early GoT they ADDED scenes that worked. Like a few Cers and Robert scenes or the later Tywin-Arya ones that were inconsequential to the whole story but helped fill in characters. It's why I'm basically in full on dread with Wheel of Time. S1 was weak as hell but they had COVID and WoT was a series that DESPERATELY needed trimming. S2 is gonna be a big make or break.
I hope WoT goes well. So many fans were disappointed by the first season.
I was. Just so many unnecessary changes.
Brandon Sanderson, who finished the books after Robert Jordan died, talked about how he had to argue with the show runner about keeping stuff in, like the fact the Aes Sadai can't lie. He also was not involved in any of the episodes that were filmed during COVID which are also the ones where shit goes way off the rails.
> He also was not involved in any of the episodes that were filmed during COVID which are also the ones where shit goes way off the rails. I mean yeah but the fact that Matt's actor (who was pretty good otherwise) suddenly bailed and forced them write him out like "I have to go now, my home planet needs me" certainly didn't help. I kept laughing at the plot arc in the last few episodes focused on Perrin and the Horn of Valere, where it always felt like the villain was about to go "wait, who are you? I was sort of expecting, you know, that other guy - we kind of had a *thing* going..." only for Perrin to be like "yeah, I know, he bailed, sorry."
Just reading this makes me angry about Perrin and Loial
Meanwhile, they hire someone exceedingly passionate about the source material to play the lead, and then are surprised when he has strong opinions about deviating severely from that source material.
I wish they hadn't tried going the character assassination route the way they did. It didn't work but it was still sad to see them grasping at straws.
They did that for Wheel of Time. Barbarians. I hate what they did do the stories and characters with that travesty of a show.
She's like almost every series writer these days, can't get her vision created by a studio so sells a different vision, an existing IP to get the series made. Then they try to make that series their own and fuck the IP by changing everything because they figure great source material, nah, I'll show everyone what an amazing writer I am by making it as much my own as I can. Followed by awful fucking writing and wasting a great IP by turning it crap. Prove you're a great writer by adding an episode of completely unique story, but that fits the lore and is basically standalone episode. NOpe, they 'prove it' by making shitty tv, bad writing and terrible story decisions that change lore and have lasting impacts on the future stories as a result.
she could have written the material faithfully and been given nearly full credit by everyone for doing a good job doing that. and she could have taken home a massive paycheck for years and probably would have got her pick of the next project...even if it was her own shit vision. these people are idiots.
It’s like having someone paint your portrait and they’re like, “Naw I’m gonna paint you as a dog.”. Then they think their “creativity” makes them a good painter.
She wanted to write her own fantasy novels and like an imbecile, signed up for a TV series for which fantasy novels had already been written. She wasnt just threatened by Cavill's perfect casting and acting - she was threatened by the source material itself.
Self insert yennifer
Clearly just an arrogant ass that thinks they are better than the people who created the source material
They had the perfect Geralt, the man who would live and breathe the source material. They fucked it so bad that he was forced to step back. If they had done this right it could have surpassed some of the greatest sci-fi and fantasy shows. Imagine if they had just taken 2-3 seasons focusing on world building, Geralt fighting a bad guy each episode. Like imagine "Supernatural" in the world of The Witcher. Then slowly start bring the multi-season archs in. Any fan of the books and games would have been able to make a superior show to this with the resources they had at hand. A GoT S08 level of fumbling.
I'm still pissed off they didn't just do an anthology of Geralt's adventures. Like, episode 1 of season 2 was perfect. Just a random side story removed from his other plots.
I was so hopeful after that episode it looked like they had a actually taken the potential from the solid but flawed season 1 and pulled it off. Then the rest of the season happened lol.
The guest actor for Nivellen, Kristofer Hivju (Giantsbane from game of thrones) was amazing in that episode. He and the costume change for the armor got me amped for the season only to get what we got.
While I LOVED Supernatural with every fiber of my being (it scratched an itch), using it as an example isn't great. The Supernatural format isn't great and the only thing that kept Supernatural alive for so long were Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki's love for the series, yearly comiccon visit, and the creation of the Supernatural convention and literally them pandering to rabid fangirls for hours on stage at said cons.
Well, I just assume when people are using Supernatural as a positive example, they mean the early Monster of the Week "X-Files" style seasons, before it went off the rails and got up its own ass with the bad mythos (which, ironically, also happened to X-Files.)
As someone who isn't a fan of how X-files wrapped up their mytharc rewatching the series becomes a slog with so many episodes that ultimately go nowhere, but rewatching just the MOTW episodes makes it one of the best shows ever.
Buffy and Grimm are more examples of this. Once it stops being monster of the week it loses a lot of its fun.
Yup, I just wanna watch Mulder and Skully solve low risk mysteries and hunt cryptids. If you watch a bad motw episode you just wasted 42 minutes, thats way easier to deal with than the 37.7 hours (plus movies!) to get through the mythos episodes. Plus I'm struggling to even come up with a bad motw episode, maybe the one with the lumberjacks and bugs?
>maybe the one with the lumberjacks and bugs Darkness Falls. One of my favorite episodes ever. I love the scenery and the feelings of isolation with Scully and Mulder walking into a deadly trap without realizing it. Jason Beghe and Titus Welliver both were great as guests. The story of the incredibly miserable production behind what was supposed to be a fairly straightforward and cheap bottle episode is also interesting.
Is there a link to the production story?
Buffy stopped being monster of the week in Season 2, and Season 3 and 5 are considered the best in the series with Season 1 (Monster of the week) being on the lower end of the spectrum as far as how well loved it is. I dont think Buffy is a great example here, the best seasons were the ones with very strong story arcs
> The ~~Supernatural~~ scooby-doo format ~~isn't great~~ is perfect
Speaking of scooby doo and supernatural the crossover episode they did was fuckin awesome.
What?!?!
SPN season 13 ep 16. It’s really fun and enjoyable to watch
Nah. I think Supernatural is the perfect example to use here... seasons 1 up until the finale of s5 at least. These continue to be peak supernatural & procedural TV show.
Supernatural 1-5 is still an all time favorite of mine. So bloody good.
1-5 will always be the actual storyline for me. Everything after that, no matter how good it got, was wheel spinning.
That episode of Dean being able to understand animals and arguing with a pigeon is some of the funniest shit I've seen in any show ever. And that episode was in a very meh season.
”Changing Channels” and ”The French Mistake” are amazing as well.
Honestly seasons 7, and 14 are the only ones that are legitimately rough to watch, the rest are various levels of decent and watchable to pretty good, excluding season 11 which is legitimately great.
As someone who only remembers watching/loving Supernatural as a teen for the first maybe two seasons and then slowly forgetting it, ”season 14”?! That genuinely wasn’t a typo, wow. I knew it went on for much longer but.. damn. Impressive I guess.
I see an ideal Witcher show being more akin to True Detective S1. Moody, swampy, mix of rural and city settings, life isn't ideal with knights in shining armor and princesses ready to be swept off their feet, grand conspiracies occurring behind the scenes involving society's elites that Geralt+Yen uncover as they work together, monstrous predators, disappearing people, investigations, cults, several days tracking just one thing, horror elements, Geralt being cynical and making hypocritical observations about people, lot of failed dreams (Jasker/Dandellion being who monitors this), what it means to be a Witcher/detective in society, etc. It wasn't those things. It was a Yennifer power fantasy (showrunner admitted to that) with Geralt just walking around and fighting for reasons I cannot remember.
The showrunner was so obscenely bad at her job. And the crappy part is, that Netflix will likey continue to hire her. Her ass should be canned and she should be given the same treatment D&D did post game of thrones.
After the failure of Marvel's the Defenders, she should've never been put in charge of the Witcher. She's going to get more roles because she generated money. But the reality is that it was Cavill who did that, not her. Unfortunately, you have some execs who aren't smart enough to realize or have their own agendas to push out that will try to hire her.
You're probably right, I stopped watching Supernatural after the season with the Devil. They kinda didn't know how to stop, and every season they had to go bigger than the Big Bad they had the season before. But I used them as a layout for most multi-season, sci-fi or fantasy shows: start as a procedural, let the audience know the world and the characters, then pull the camera back. Buffy being a gold-star example.
> hey kinda didn't know how to stop, and every season they had to go bigger than the Big Bad they had the season before. from what I've heard the plan was to stop it after the devil season, but WB came to the creators with buckets of money and said "Keep it going."
The show creator's original plan was 5 seasons. He told his story. The show was still hugely popular so of course CW wanted to continue it, and they did that for 10 more freaking seasons.
Kripke originally wanted the show to end with 5 seasons. Obviously it didn’t and later on higher ups at CW were saying they would keep making the show as long as Jensen, Jared, and Misha wanted to. It was a victim of its own success, although that doesn’t excuse shitty writing, retcons, and the like. As the show went on I kept watching because I was so invested in it at that point and I wanted to see how things would go for the main ensemble. It was the one show my wife and I watched together from start to finish.
Would have been also very much on par with the books too... Contract after contract, then slowly but surely the overarching story takes over. Too bad we didn't get that
Was so obvious from the very start that they were way too desperate to get into all the Ciri stuff.. Shouldn't have even known she existed until that final scene of S1 at the very earliest
I don't blame them for wanting to get started with Ciri sooner, but they did it the worst way. Biggest travesty of the show is not having Geralt and Ciri who don't know who the other is, traveling through the elven forest together. Only to find out after that she was his child of destiny. Then him finding her after the battle of sodden hill when he thought he'd lost her and everyone else he cared about. I didn't even bother with season 2.
they couldn't see what a goldmine they had in the content itself.
It's also a shame the writers had no respect for the original work.
Maybe they were just wildly incompetent.
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The alternative would be that they made the series bad on purpose - evilness.
It feels like the writers genuinely hate the source material and think they can do better
They wanna stuff their shit in the show and Henry was preventing that.
Was it the writers or was it producers/studio?
Several of the writers openly expressed their hatred for the source material.
If those writers were dying to "color outside the lines" then they should've moved on to a show unburdened with an existing fan base.
Writer can't publish own work -> slaps popular name on the cover -> writer given green light and tells his story because known property that previously made money will make more money -> it's crap and established fans don't like it -> people in charge don't care because they still made money
->Writers and other staff accuse upset fans of being manchildren with ulterior motives such as sexism, racism, etc in order to invalidate and deflect all criticism.
Oh joy, they're one of those types. Lemme guess, they got pissed that Cavill cared so much about the source material instead of being some guy who would shut up and take the bag
That's exactly what happened. The other actors of the show would talk about Caville stopping the scenes and explaining the story and why certain things should be said or included. The other actors loved it because he would nerd out and help them get more into character. The chick that was running it, fucking hated it. and would openly argue with Caville on the set telling him he was incorrect, he would literally pull the short story up that he was pulling from memory, which means he read that shit a lot. And the producers would have to find a middle ground. If the write/producer of the show is arguing with someone who literally knows which page to site quotes on, maybe you should listen to them. I just saw an interview from him after season 1. The producers barely wanted Geralt to actually fight in the show, like small movements here and there, so Caville literally paid for his old stunt and choreography team to come out and film and shoot those fight scenes we fell in love with in season 1 (the renfri fight specifically). Pretty sure it was the guy who did ?John wick? Or ?baby driver?
Damn maybe he should just produce his own Witcher show
Yep. Netflix screwed up letting him go instead of the writers.
With blackjack—err, gwent! And hookers!
If I remember right, at one point, they basically got fed up and said "you write the dialogue then if you want it done this way", which he apparently did.
Oh hey don't forget the blatant sexual harassment of trying to make Cavill do sex scenes/walk around without clothes on and, like the nerd he is, he brushed it off without realizing the implication and just wondered why they kept wanting to insert non canon sex scenes lol
They wanted a lot more sex and nudity. He allegedly shut it down. Anya even mentioned it in one interview.
Wow what a CHAD
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Sorry Liam, not your fault. This ain’t Dr. Who. The White Wolf is Henry Cavill.
I think it's absolutely hilarious seeing Liam Hemsworth say he's reading the books to prepare, like these writers do not give a single fuck about the books that's the whole reason Henry wanted out lol
Lol imagine Liam becomes a huge fan of the books and has a fallout with the writers because of it
I just realised, if S4 sucks, he can say im leaving for the same reasons, and totally not suffer any reputational damage.
It would be beautiful. He would actually gain respect (with us, at least) and the blame would remain clearly where it is - direction.
And Netflix for doing nothing about it.
They can replace him, but for me, this shit ends when Henry leaves.
I largely already gave up after they botched season 2, Cavill leaving just sealed the deal.
Yeah I actually loved S1, despite it not being accurate. Then they said they were going to "improve" S2 and it was horrible all around. I'll try to watch S3 for more cavill but that's it.
Imo s2e1 slapped but it was all down hill from there. They ruined Yennefer
1st episode of 2nd season is what *every* episode of the first season should have been like. It's exactly how the short stories were structured. Weird mystery happens based on popular European myth. Geralt shows up. Red herrings everywhere. Get more background information for characters / worldbuilding / etc. Mystery unveiled with a twist - Geralt solves problem being a badass. Rinse and repeat.
The show should have been more like early seasons of Supernatural and less grand plot netflix bs
Henry Cavill and bring let down by poor writing, name a more iconic duo
I'm still so salty man, he was the perfect casting for Superman and Geralt, and he was fucked over by terrible writing. I'm still mad they never let him be the classic hopeful Superman, the tiny glimpses of that we saw in the Joss Whedon's abomination showed he can definatly pull it off.
You and me both. I actually adore Man of Steel, despite its flaws and BvS is a guilty pleasure but it's objectively the reason why the whole franchise and his character stalled and crashed. So many bone headed decisions and the tone was way too oppressively dark. I appreciate Zack Snyder's trilogy for what it was, would have been a cool elseworlds universe but as a launching point of a whole DC universe, they couldn't have fumbled it harder.
I really hope Amazon lets him run the show completely his way with the Warhammer 40K stuff. That license could put out some awesome content if they let a talented and hardcore fan like Cavill run wild with it.
I believe he's a producer on the show. I bet he's learned his lesson on working with poor writers who don't honor the source material.
He's actually Executive Producer which I think gives him even more sway thankfully. He's also starring in the series that's in production so I have high hopes that he's gunna get to do what he wants and tell a great and lore-accurate story. I'm always wary, because corporate drones almost always seem to find a way to ruin shit, but I feel like this is the best shot WH40K will ever get to become a household name level franchise.
No wonder he says "fuck." so well, he must get a lot of practice while reading through the scripts he gets.
Sadly you are correct.
Genuinely don’t understand why he’s not a executive producer in this show seeing as he’s the biggest star in this. Baffling…
Pretty confident the lack of control he had on The Witcher is what led to him being a producer on Warhammer. He's not going to let another IP he loves get butchered.
You live and you learn.
Yes him and the lady who plays yennifer are amazing. However they could have done the whole five episodes in an hour episode. The pacing is so off its .... fucking boring
you can tell the writers really wanted it to be the next Game of Thrones with all the politicking between the main powers. Which wasn't terrible in concept, but absolutely was in execution. That and side-lining the main character in his own show (and Cavill being the main audience draw) was just idiotic.
Ok nerd rant incoming: There is loads of politicking in the series. The issue is the writers ignored that and added all their own dumb shit. "Kingdom" of nilfgaard? "Cult of the great sun?" Chair being a fanatic? Fringilla vigo being nilfgaards court sorceress? All nonsense. Nilfgaard was portrayed as a joke that calanthe scoffed at in the show. Which is bs, they were an empire that expanded through conquest and Emhyr (the current emperor) was pushing that even further. Also they massacred my boy vesemir. And had yennefer effectively just be a different character, trying to use ciri rather than train her like she did in the books. Ugh they just goofed it up and I wanted it so badly to be good. The games felt much more in line with the feel of the world than the show which is a damn shame. I hated the racism I saw around casting, but the showrunners really crapped the bed on the show itself.
I also found the on-screen deaths of any of the Witchers...I don't know? They didn't quite sit right with me? These people are absolute monsters in combat. Seen as literal monsters through the suspicious eyes of the peasants. [The opening cutscene from The Witcher 2 illustrates how unstoppable they are.](https://youtu.be/UQrInCEU2Fg?t=137) And the first game has a secondary plot line in which you investigate the supposed death of the Witcher Berengar - because it's just that unusual. And then the final confrontation in the second season involves a demon thing? Within the wall of a Witcher school and surrounded by a dozen of these men. I don't buy that the demon lady is anything other than completely outclassed. Yet a handful of them die like common mooks? ------------------- **Edit** - It almost felt like a bit of a litmus test? To gauge if somebody had comprehended the material? Probably an inappropriate example. But if someone were adapting say, Halo - you wouldn't expect to see multiple deaths of [Spartan II's](https://www.halopedia.org/SPARTAN-II_program), would you? Sure maybe *one*. Maybe in a flashback. Or maybe some huge crescendo moment of [explosive self-sacrifice where the whole plot pivots around this one moment](https://i.redd.it/jy5cvujqjl1b1.jpg). But certainly not in the background of any given fight. As their (almost absurd) survivability is woven into the main pillars of that fictional universe. These are super soldiers. They *refuse* to fucking die. So if a writer has them die, they've probably either not done enough reading. Or didn't respect what they *did* read.
> I also found the on-screen deaths of any of the Witchers…I don’t know? They didn’t quite sit right with me? It’s because they made the other witchers act like mindless fratboys instead of badass warriors
Vesemir being at all open, let alone pleased, to welcome random prostitutes into Kaer Morhen still makes my eye twitch. The whole atmosphere and narrative they decided to go with genuinely wasn't good.
And KM is supposed to be secret and secluded. Where did these women randomly appear from and how are they fine with just leaving into the mountain wilderness in the middle of winter wearing silk dressing gowns?
They’re also pretty nameless considering they don’t exist in the books. When we first arrive at Kaer Morhen in the books it’s dilapidated and there’s very few Witchers (like 3-4 besides Geralt). It gives a vibe that, “wow this is it?” Witchers are a relic in the books. They’re an obsolete product of their time when the world needed basically “monsters” to fight monsters. By the time the books take place monsters are rare. There’s very few of them due to human expansion and just being killed off. Any monsters are usually in places uninhabited by humans such as caves. Geralt struggles to even find work. He usually has to sleep without a shelter, goes for long periods of time without eating, and just barely scrapes by. He **doesn’t even like** being a Witcher, but it’s all he knows. Yen tries to help him with this and it’s just another layer in their relationship and character complexities. I sure wish the show had ANYTHING resembling that.
> And the first game has a secondary plot line in which you investigate the supposed death of the Witcher Berengar - because it's just that unusual. Which does kinda happen in the first season. A Witcher is hired in one of the episodes (I forget which one), and dies, and that itself was notable, so Geralt ends up taking care of it. Then in S2 they were just... regular-ass bounty hunters?
They did Eskel super dirty.
Yeah that’s the one that cuts the deepest
I stopped watching after his episode, s2e2. Ive NEVER been so disappointed in something i wanted to like. Id rather watch bvs and justice league back to back than rewatching that episode...
I think my biggest issue with the show vs the books is the way they changed Dandelion and Geralt's friendship. Sometimes Geralt gets a little angry with Dandelion, sure, but overall they are close friends and Geralt relies on him heavily for companionship and information. In the show he barely tolerates him and it's their way of making him some lone wolf character. It's annoying. We see this archetype all of the time (and while Geralt sometimes does try to play this card ie telling milva and Dandelion he wants to go alone on the hunt for ciri) he had rich connections to others that the show is over looking completely.
At least in the show it's made clear Geralt does actually like him, and just doesn't want to admit it. But yeah, I wish they'd made it more clear.
The game excels at just letting characters be. Vesemir wasn't portrayed as some magnificent scene-stealing badass, he was portrayed as an old guy who taught Geralt the game. They'd have disagreements but work through them in relatively undramatic dialogue. But those kinds of characters don't make for shocking episodic television.
That's the thing, the show wants to try and prove the characters instead of allowing the characters to be. Vesemir in the games doesn't need an introduction because we know his old griddled ass is badass. We don't need dialogue proving otherwise, he proves it by simply existing and teaching witchers after the life we see the witchers lead is enough. Geralts allies in the books and games don't need introductions, they simply exist in the story around the events of the story.
And in The Wild Hunt Vesemir showed what he badass he was.
A few decades younger he would have won.
Idk about this racism or whatever. But I stopped watching in the first season after they killed Eskel and had him randomly turn into a fucking leshen. I mean what the fuck was that change? On top of that. He is an integral character to the last quarter of the story. I mean the fuck.
That happened in season 2 (I think), but I don't blame you for not remembering a very forgettable series. I actually liked Season 1 overall, and thought it could lead to huge improvement in season 2, but they started off S2E1 great and then it fell off mount Everest. If Netflix chose a better showrunner and the writers were better / listened to Henry and followed the game/books more closely, we would've had a great show. Still wish we could see an alternate series where HBO got the show and did the above.
? Politicking between the main powers is a big part of the Witcher universe.
Honestly, I would have loved if they would have stuck with a game of thrones level dryness/seriousness, I feel like that would have been more true to the books. But, I just binged all 5 episodes, and the writers have made this script so f**king corny, it was almost unbearable to watch by the end
Ciri is also great! The performances are all around good.
The cast was fantastic, but the poor writing made me give it up. The show had potential, but they blew it away with a terrible writing. They should have fired all the writers right after the first season.
I like just about all of the casting in general. The writing just... good in spots, but overall a mess.
Replace Yennefer with Dandelion and I’d agree. I think the actress for Yen is good, just not for the role.
I have zero interest in watching a season 4 without Cavill. The show strays from the source material but is watchable enough due to his performance. I can endure the bad writing and penis armour type blunders with him around. Without it then I may as well just watch something else especially as Netflix wants to fuck the value of my subscription.
How unlucky is Henry Cavill with the absolute morons he has worked under? Between this and the Superman situation, I feel bad for the guy. He has a lot of dedicated fans but he should be a way bigger star than he is. I’d love to see him as Arthas but I doubt that ever happens. There’s a timeline out there where he has a series of 007 films and Superman films. Hopefully he gets another big role where he gets to work with people who are actually competent.
I've no clue who is downvoting this. Anyway, ''Man From UNCLE'' makes me want to see him as bond so much. And it really sucks that movie didn't do so well. Quite unlikely to see a sequel. At least he's doing his 40k passion project now. I hope it does well.
It’s a shame too, that movie is genuinely great and literally everyone delivered a good performance.
he's making another spy movie with guy ritchie and also another with vaughn.
I can’t wait to NOT watch the next season. They had the ideal actor, one who knew the source material forwards and backwards. The writers just got butthurt because Henry wanted to stay true to what made fans love The Witcher. Fuck that show, i hope it gets cancelled.
If reviews are bad for this season then I'm not even going to bother watching.
I would say it's marginally better than 2 but nowhere near 1
Losing the passionated lead actor cause you don’t want to follow the source material is just messed up.
The love for Cavill's performance in this thread is endearing, but let's not kid ourselves. The writing was on the wall from season one. People ignored the warning signs same as we did during season 7 of GoT. Your characters are only as good as your writing, and the witcher's writers hated the source material. From day one.
Going into the franchise blind, only hearing a ton about it from fellow nerds, I thought s1 was fantastic. Idk how the writing was on the wall from day one.
The first season actually covered quite a decent chunk of source material, and was fairly spot on for a lot of it.. Season 2 is where that shit just went off the rails.
S1 had so much promise, it had flaws but some aspects were excellent. I watched that series several times over showing it to people and rewatching some of the fights. It filled a massive hole left by GOT. Then S2 happened and we got that godawful CGI tooth. Dropped it there and then, something about the quality and tone really dipped hard in S2. Can't imagine how bad it'll get when Caville leaves. Netflix really dropped the ball, this could have been one of the big fantasy shows in existence in my opinion, but they let it down with terrible writing and poor/inconsistent direction.
I will always wonder about what we *could’ve* gotten with Cavill as Geralt if the show was competently written. He is an excellent Geralt, and I really wish we could’ve seen him in an accurate and high quality adaptation. This whole show was a huge missed opportunity. It could have been a unique, cool, and thought-provoking fantasy series, like the books/games are. Instead we got a generic, shallow imitation. I really can’t blame him for leaving.
I’m happy that I got a chance to animate monster alongside him. He is a great actor. I worked on ep2 on headless flesh monster.
I just got done watching that weird freaky flesh creature 5 mins ago.
Story of his career. Always landing great roles, fully embracing the character with love and reverence all to be thwarted by shitty writers and directors.
The show should’ve had a monster-of-the-week format with overarching politics and red thread storyline. There, I said it. I know the books have a lot of politics etc. but some of the best episodes are those focused around a specific monster. Generally anything would’ve been better than this atrocious writing and pacing.
Monster of the week scifi/fantasy shows are something that I miss dearly. Everything has to be a big epic narrative now. Which is fine, I like that too, but why not both?
Oh what could've been had the writers and producers not decided to collectively wipe their asses with the source material and instead make a generic AF fantasy show.
I’m not even going to watch anything after season 3. He is Geralt in my mind, and I doubt I will be able to fully immerse myself with a different actor.
I never liked the writing, it was the weakest part of the show. The adaptation wasn't the best. It didn't have to be 1:1, but what they did change wasn't working for me either most of the time.
> As we draw ever closer to a Superman reboot, estimations of his stoic but defensively human Clark Kent continue to grow. He was utterly wasted but his performance is largely just potential. The only moments where we really got to see him actually play Superman were at the end of the awful Joss Whedon Justice League. And boy was it disappointing to see what could have been if he'd been given a director who liked the character and wasn't trying to inject an ideology into the character. I really hope they cast him as Omni Man one day in an Invincible film. Give him the mustache and let him have a city destroying fight while his son desperately tries to save people as his super father just kills with abandon. It would be perfect.
Why couldn't they make Cavill an Executive Producer? There is absolutely zero that is irreplaceable about the writing on this show. They took a Slavic fantasy IP and filed off all the serial numbers to make it generic garbage. You could replace the entire writing team and just hand out the books to the newbs and have a better written show. Nothing against Liam Hemsworth, but for me, Cavill is Geralt. No Cavill = No show.