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The Witcher [Netflix]

Started by Ja'moke, December 19, 2019, 06:59:41 PM

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Dex Sawash

5 Eps in, Can't  figure out what is actually happening. Are there time jumps?
Bonus points for  hunchback nudity though

druss

Quote from: Dex Sawash on December 23, 2019, 03:44:10 AM
5 Eps in, Can't  figure out what is actually happening. Are there time jumps?
Bonus points for  hunchback nudity though
Yeah, pretty much all of the stuff with the main man Geralt is set before the sacking of the city at the start. Makes sense by the end.

Chollis

Ruddy good fun.  I'm not sure I'd have found it as enjoyable if I wasn't a huge fan of the games though. It throws you straight in with the multiple timelines and various names/people/places, and I'll admit to being pretty confused until the strands came together at the end. Was very sceptical of Cavill as Geralt before this was released but he was fantastic (and very sexy), him swinging a sword about was the best part of the show.


Sounds like the 2nd season might not even be out til 2021 though?

MojoJojo

Quote from: Chollis on December 23, 2019, 09:54:39 AM
Sounds like the 2nd season might not even be out til 2021 though?

Too busy doing side quests.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Episode 2 saw an abrupt, but welcome, tonal shift after the relentlessly dour first one. I laughed quite loudly when Gerald punched the bard up the nuts.

Also, while it was about as subtle as a clout to the groin, Jennifer's lament at being sold for less than a pig was almost as painful too.

I was mildly hammered when I watched the third episode, so I don't think I followed much of what was going on, aside from Jenny's plot. I certainly had no idea that the show was meant to be pulling some sort of Westworld style flashback shenanigans.

So far it's good enough to keep my attention for the time being. Cavill's still like an overcooked lump of beef, but he carries himself well in the action scenes. I'm not remotely convinced that it isn't trying to be Game of Thrones though.
Mostly it makes me wish that Netflix or someone would do a Hellboy show.

Hank Venture

It reminds me of Sinbad. Same campy fantasy. Proper 90s show.

My only real issue is that Cavill is too handsome. He looks weird, nobody's that lucky with their genes. He's like the platonic ideal of a man.

Twit 2

Quote from: Ja'moke on December 22, 2019, 05:24:59 PM
The moment I was sold, and when I knew it wasn't trying to be GOT, was in the first episode while Stregobor the sorcerer dude was spewing out some cryptic jargon about a curse, and Geralt told him to speak normally, and then dismissed the premonition because "all good predictions rhyme."

I was like, ah, okay, this show is willing to have some fun.

So ripping off jokes from the Lego Movie then?

Poobum

Really liked this, it's certainly grimmer than the games for me, but I think that's how I chose to play, so I did a bit of a "that's not how my Geralt would be" for the first couple of episodes. Dandelion/Jaskier without an American accent works so much better, I actually like him now, rather than wondering who this cosplay twat was. Non redhead Triss would be a really stupid thing to complain about, ahem. And I think at least one thing has deviated from the books, so it'll be interesting how the Emhyr var Emreis backstory gets dealt with.

wooders1978

Is it terrible of me to hold the opinion that triss and yenn are not fit enough?
I secretly know the answer to that is "yes"

Zero Gravitas

Quote from: wooders1978 on December 24, 2019, 11:14:58 AM
Is it terrible of me to hold the opinion that triss and yenn are not fit enough?

Yeah, if you're gonna have your cooker scraped out you'd expect more in return than that.

Head Gardener

finished it last night and although EP07 was a confusing mess to my slightly sozzled head the final episode was great

Inspector Norse

I'm about halfway and think it still needs some fine-tuning in the dialogue, acting and plot-balancing; Geralt's monster-of-the-week shenanigans have the most energy and fun but the least relevance, despite his being the main character. Yennefer actress doesn't have the presence to carry her more serious role, and Ciri is a bit underwritten with too much generic wandering around in forests, always a sign with TV genre stuff that they need to keep costs down (that's Richard Horne in the chicken hat, I just noticed).
And yeah, the multiple timelines angle is pretty awkward and unclear.
It's a grower, though. I quite like the irritating bard and it does have a good undercurrent of expectation-foiling cynicism.

Twit 2

1st episode was a steaming pile of microwaved shite.

The annoying modern/sassy intonation by Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles (Renfe).
GRAVE

Henry Cavill.
GAS

Absurdly convoluted exposition and pisspoor dialogue.
CANCEL

Shonkily appalling fantasy names pulled out of disabled kid's arse.
CINTRA

A sideways look at fantasy tropes.
WHEDON-AIDS

Will probably end up watching the whole series.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

♪♪♪ Stick a coin up your Witcher
      Da dooby doo dooby ♪♪♪

olliebean

Haven't got around to trying this yet, and frankly Netflix is putting me off. Every single thing I've watched there recently has had the trailer for this come up at the end of it, and what with the way it cuts into the credits, it feels like they're trying to bully me into watching it.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: olliebean on January 08, 2020, 12:44:15 PM
Haven't got around to trying this yet, and frankly Netflix is putting me off. Every single thing I've watched there recently has had the trailer for this come up at the end of it, and what with the way it cuts into the credits, it feels like they're trying to bully me into watching it.

Toss a coin to your Witcher you melt

Inspector Norse

Quote from: Twit 2 on January 05, 2020, 02:31:54 AM
1st episode was a steaming pile of microwaved shite.

The annoying modern/sassy intonation by Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles (Renfe).
GRAVE

Henry Cavill.
GAS

Absurdly convoluted exposition and pisspoor dialogue.
CANCEL

Shonkily appalling fantasy names pulled out of disabled kid's arse.
CINTRA

A sideways look at fantasy tropes.
WHEDON-AIDS

Will probably end up watching the whole series.

Finished it now. It had relentlessly shoddy acting, dialogue that flitted between heavyhanded exposition, heavyhanded one-liners and heavyhanded meta commentary, a confusing and poorly-executed multiple-timelines approach, and original folk songs. Most of the budget had clearly been guffed on a couple of CGI scenes, there was a weird dragon that talked without moving its lips/beak, and the advance reports of incredible battle scenes proved to be fake news as we instead got a climactic episode where the massive army of tens of thousands chose for some reason to send its soldiers to attack the fort in small squads of 10-20 at a time. Characters' motivations and decisions were frequently baffling and the worldbuilding involved naming lots and lots of places without making it clear where they were or how they related to one another.

And despite all that I found it entertaining and charming and look forward to a second series. I hope we see more of the angry dwarf.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

I'm not even sure who this show is aimed at. To even have a basic grasp of what's going on, you need to have at least played the games. I can't imagine trying to watch it having no knowledge of the universe, I mean they don't even tell you what a fucking Witcher is. For people who have no prior knowledge, it must be all incredibly bemusing. A bit more exposition was clearly needed, even if that was a short info dump in the first episode, and maybe some text coming up saying "X years ago" when it started doing it's stupid time jumping shit. Were they expecting people to start googling stuff to find out what's going on? That's too much to ask of the casual viewer, and quite rightly so. They'll just turn off and watch something else.

I'd imagine a lot of newcomers will have been put off and sacked it off after a couple of episodes. I know that Netflix doesn't release viewing figures, but I reckon the numbers watching the second series will be significantly less than the first. They've made a bollock of this.

Dex Sawash

Wait, this is based on a game? Do you wander around in game trying to convince monsters to just fuck off by being nice to them?

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

It was originally a series of books, but yep. In the games you kill everything with kindness.

Chollis

Of the people i've spoken to, anyone who played the games finished this and liked it and anyone who didn't turned it off halfway through the first episode

MojoJojo

I've read some of the books (but can't remember them very well) but not played the games. I find it OK. I don't think you really need to know much about what a Witcher is. He wanders around fighting monsters and being broody.

king_tubby

I'd never heard of the games and I've watched this twice now.


Hmmmmmm.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I got the gist from the first episode - Geralt is a sort of fantasy X-men type, complete with townsfolk bafflingly trying to start fights with him. It's the quality of the show that's the sticking point for me.  I feel like it isn't trying to be Game of Thrones, but the show that people dismissed GoT as. A show in which the main character's catchphrase is "Fuck."

Has anyone ever been able to act properly while affecting a gravelly gruff monotone? Assuming he can, Cavill should probably have just spoken normally and conveyed Geralt's world weariness with, y'know, acting.

All that said, episode 4 (I didn't watch the series over Christmas, partially because I didn't want my family to catch me doing so) was intriguing, with the dovetailing plotlines and Queen Calendula, or whatever her name is, was an entertaining character.

Inspector Norse

I thought Cavill was rubbish in a good way, a bit like David Lynch's Gordon Cole. Bad acting used effectively.

Ja'moke

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on January 08, 2020, 01:28:31 PM
I'm not even sure who this show is aimed at. To even have a basic grasp of what's going on, you need to have at least played the games. I can't imagine trying to watch it having no knowledge of the universe, I mean they don't even tell you what a fucking Witcher is. For people who have no prior knowledge, it must be all incredibly bemusing. A bit more exposition was clearly needed, even if that was a short info dump in the first episode, and maybe some text coming up saying "X years ago" when it started doing it's stupid time jumping shit. Were they expecting people to start googling stuff to find out what's going on? That's too much to ask of the casual viewer, and quite rightly so. They'll just turn off and watch something else.

I'd imagine a lot of newcomers will have been put off and sacked it off after a couple of episodes. I know that Netflix doesn't release viewing figures, but I reckon the numbers watching the second series will be significantly less than the first. They've made a bollock of this.

I'd never played the games or reads the books. Loved it. And I was surprised to find that I understood most of the basic beats of the plot. They also explained what a Witcher was in the first episode when Geralt entered that village.

Blumf

Never played the game, but enjoyed it. The wife absolutely loved it and will be grabbing the books soon.

Didn't love the time skipping narrative, but didn't hate it. Struggled to care about that blond girl princess character, but liked the rest.

druss

Can't remember when last a show was this polarising. I get why some people find it shit but for all it's faults I fucking love the twat.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

If you think this is polarised, try looking at some of the Star Wars threads.

Cuellar

Watched about 7 episodes of this and think it's quite boring and rubbish.

Ok cheers.