I was going to to try the first book but all of the printings have that stupid AS SEEN ON NETFLIX sticker on it. As well as other bulkshit. Ugh.
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The Witcher |OT| Something More (Dec. 20th Netflix) - TAG SPOILERS WITH EPISODE
- Thread starter WadiumArcadium
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I feel your pain.I was trying to buy the last book (8th) last month and all had a bubble PRINTED on it with the same text. Ended buying it anyway.
That and trying to avoid the "game" covers.
I had the same trouble with Game of Thrones. I want a nice cover without all the advertisements. Is that so much to ask? :(
The English translations are either non-sequitur game covers or "as seen on Netflix."
Good luck!
You'd probably have to find the original Polish versions (in Polish, so...) or go digital
Was afraid it will be a complete disaster, so approached it cautionously overy the christmas. Ended up actually liking it. Only thing I still can not forgive is that Triss is not ginger. Blashemy! :) That contrast between Yen and Triss was an excellent accent that worked well in games and could transfer well to the TV series.
Been said a million times but red head Triss is a game creation, in the books she's described as having chestnut hair :P
Pretty sure they mostly are. Sure, there are short stories in the first two books that could happen in any random order like A Little Sacrifice, The Witcher, A Grain of Truth or The Lesser Evil and of course the whole framing device is not "chronological".
However, whether those are chronological or not doesn't really matter as they're not really tied to narratives that stretch beyond that specific story. The stories involving Jaskier, Ciri and Yennefer though definitely do happen in chronological order in the books and are never as confusing in their structure as in the show.
Are there even English translated versions of the books out without the game covers? The only one I know of is Season of Storms, though that one isn't much better lol.
I don't know what I prefer, the covers that are just concept art from the games that has nothing to do with the actual content of the book or the ugly generic "fantasy" cover that makes it seem like I'm reading some cheap dollar store knock-off.
In one of the weirder moves of the show, they made Renfri actually magical and I guess she can also see the future.
To me, part of what made the original story so good was how the reader (and Geralt) was never quite sure if Stregobor was right about those girls or if he was just a misogynistic psychopath making use of common superstition to capture and murder girls.
And you're never quite sure if Renfri is really a murderer from birth or just became that way because that's what tends to happen when everyone wants you dead for just being born the wrong gender at the wrong time.
Then the show actually made Renfri in a magical murder mutant who can resist magic and see the future. So fuck me, I guess.
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Agreed about making Renfri actually magical in the show. The books tries to make things ambiguous, but I never thought she was. I did believe she was made into a murderer because of what Stregobor and others do to her.
No. In episode 8 they flashback to Renfri before Geralt and Ciri meet. They make it obvious beyond denial.
I don't fault them for that because if she wasn't a magical murder mutant then Stragober would just take her out and there would be no way that she could battle Geralt (who is a different type of murder mutant) one on one without getting obliterated. While I can see why keeping it ambiguous makes it more of a moral dilemma, it really didn't bother me.
I feel it was pretty clear that in the show, Stregebor wanted to study/kill all born under the Black Sun, under the guise of "she/they will destroy the world".
I didn't mind at all that Renfri was actually a mutant/magical in some way. Geralt didn't care about whether or not she was a mutant/mutated, he cared that she was going to kill innocent people to force Stregebor out. The core ideas (lesser evil, end justifying the means) are still there.
I hope we get versions of Jaskiers songs that don't have all the background music that drowns out his vocals.
I replayed the third game in June last year, and after I finished I had a desire to read the books so I just went out and bought all 8. They are the Orbit publishing releases with the game art covers and red spines. I like them, and I was able to get them before they printed them with the Netflix circle on the cover lol I was in Barnes and Noble the other day and hated that they actually printed them on the covers instead of just putting a removable sticker.
She didn't. Geralt had told her a story about another "girl in the woods" he encountered soon after finishing his training. When she said "that girl in the woods is your destiny" she was just talking about moral situations like that in general. Renfri was never referring to Ciri specifically.
I always thought if they ever actually did go some kind of Animatrix animated short direction they should've gotten Kawajiri on it. A lot of similarities between Witcher and Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust.
You can go the Kindle route. I really recommend it. Reading books on a Kindle is like reading in the future or something, no other way I can explain it.
I hate Netflix's new metric for what they count as "watched" but if they're happy then I guess that's good enough.
Well if this holds or is close to it with the second season then we don't need to worry about Netflix pulling the plug prematurely.
I'd put money on them possibly renewing for a 3rd season before season 2 even airs.
Well if this holds or is close to it with the second season then we don't need to worry about Netflix pulling the plug prematurely.
I generally found this to be one of the worse seasons of tv I saw in recent memory - I have no previous interaction with this fictional world, but seemingly every character's arc was severely botched, and the main character did not seem to have any motivation for much of anything and just spent most of the time near important things rather than actually being important himself. The timeline jumbling did not help anything either and mostly just made the season more convoluted than necessary
just to point out again, Netflix counts anyone who watches 2 minutes of the show as "having watched the show".
Then more people watched at least 2 minutes of this show compared to any other show in it's first season on the service. Wait till you find out how YouTube calculates views on their videos.
If you want to be clever, you could argue that Renfri wasn't actually predicting the future, just making a fairly accurate educated guess that someone as long-lived as Geralt would encounter another girl in the woods at SOME point in his life, and maybe he'd be able to save the NEW girl instead of her.
Fast and loose. Hard and loose unless you're talking about your poops.
Well, my point is that movie Triss hair is too similar to Yen's and it is a missed opportunity. Besides, "Chestnut" can mean many different colors, but mostly is much lighter than what movie Triss has.
EDIT: Browsed an internet on the topic, I think the consensus is that Triss has changed the hair to red in the last two books. So the game, which is set after is correct, but before that the hair was "fresh chesnut", whatever that means.
which would also be a useless metric for the rest of the shows on Netflix, it's PR without any substance. It's a good show that's getting a second season, we don't need to buy Netflix's talking points.
About damned time. Maybe I should've asked sooner...
The show really drove up interest in the books. All of the books have like 50+ holds on them in my city's library system.
This wasn't PR, it was info taken from the earnings call with shareholders.
Man, I hate that apparently no one can properly criticize the show without being called out as someone who needs to "get a life" or his points being dismissed in most forums and social medias
I mean, I like the show - it's fun, but many things aren't that great in the show: for example CGI is many cases is not so good, set design and in general sets and clothes/armors look really "fake", the writing isn't that great either and as an adaptation, it doesn't have near the same depth and complexity of the books and most of the changes made to the stories are worse than what is in the books or don't make sense.. the same people who are praising the show and it's writing are the ones that criticize the writing in the last two GoT seasons, which is fair but in all honesty - some writing in the Witcher show is worse than what GoT had in the last seasons
Again, I still liked the show and I'm really looking forward to season 2, but the first season was far, far from great
I mean, I like the show - it's fun, but many things aren't that great in the show: for example CGI is many cases is not so good, set design and in general sets and clothes/armors look really "fake", the writing isn't that great either and as an adaptation, it doesn't have near the same depth and complexity of the books and most of the changes made to the stories are worse than what is in the books or don't make sense.. the same people who are praising the show and it's writing are the ones that criticize the writing in the last two GoT seasons, which is fair but in all honesty - some writing in the Witcher show is worse than what GoT had in the last seasons
Again, I still liked the show and I'm really looking forward to season 2, but the first season was far, far from great
I agree that the show has its flaws, but as with your post, most people with huge, glaring complaints never really give a detailed explanation of what is bad or why. When discussing flaws or critiquing something, I think everyone benefits from having an actual discussion, rather than "well, I think this looks cheap" and leaving it at that.
Take the cinematography. Overall, I think it's pretty fantastic and beautiful at times. I'm a Director of Photography/videographer and some of what they shot really is lovely, so I really don't understand the blanket "the show looks ugly".
I can tell you that I think the ugliest cinematography + set design is in Episode 3 during the sorceress ball/gala whatever. Which is a shame, since it's the big reveal of Yen, but the cheap blue accent lights on the walls really look like something from a high school dance.
Contrast that with the courtroom in Episode 4, which is beautifully lit/shot, even if the directing and editing is messy. I think that even Renfri meeting/talking with Geralt in the forest really has a subtle beauty to it.
Get one of those fancy Obama Netflix stickers and cover that shit up yo.
What's your definition of "properly criticize"? Because most of your points are just opinion. "The writing isn't that great" is really broad and you're basically saying "why can''t people just admit the writing is bad?" when not everyone thinks that. While there are some weak plot points I think a lot of the writing is actually pretty great. In my opinion Ciri's story is the weakest but I think that's mostly because the didn't have enough for her to do throughout the entire season so some of her story feels like filler.
In terms of depth and complexity novels give you WAY more room for that. In a novel characters can often directly tell you what they're thinking whereas in a show it generally needs to be conveyed through actions, facial expressions or dialogue. For example the audio books of the first 2 short story collections which make up most of the first season are over 22 hours long. This is 8 hours of TV. Obviously you're going to get more depth from the books.
In terms of CGI I find that people only notice when something looks bad, without realizing there is CG happening all the time they never notice. Like when people talk about Black Panther having bad CG it's really just that one fight (which admittedly did look bad) without thinking about the other thousand shots in the movie which look great.
I think a lot of the cinematography in the show looks fantastic, but other scenes can look pretty flat. Some people just notice all the not to great shots and ignore all the great ones.
Here's a great breakdown of some of the CGI from the show:
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Of course my points of criticism are my own opinions - what I meant by proper criticizm was that when I wrote my complains about the show in lenght, I was dismissed in the same way just like the people who when complaining about the show were only going about the PoC characters in the show (and casting PoC actors in general) or that the show isn't perfect copy of the books or because some "SJW" nonsense
I want to have a normal, constructive discussion about the flaws of the show and not just to get responses like "get a life".. there are houndreds of forums where people can praise the show to heavens, but when you want to have a discussion about the problems the show has, you are getting attacked instead
And in my previous comment I didn't go into depth with the problems I have with the show, because I just wanted to, well, complain about the fact that people don't want to hear or discuss in any way about these topics and rather insult everyone who wants to
I could and can go much deeper with my issues about the show and be more specific, because of course I don't think all the writing in the show is bad or not good, the same with CGI and of course I don't expect the show to have the same depth and complexity of the books but that doesn't mean the show is free from any criticizm, right?