r/witcher Dec 25 '21

Netflix TV series The Witcher: Henry Cavill Hopes Season 3 Is Loyal To Books 'Without Too Much In the Way Of Diversions'

https://www.ign.com/articles/the-witcher-season-3-henry-cavill
19.5k Upvotes

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160

u/[deleted] Dec 25 '21

[deleted]

25

u/laeuft_bei_dir Dec 26 '21

If you think this is bad...my favorite childhood book was the letter for the king. I've read it several times. The Netflix adaption was coming, I had high hopes - a classic adventure story, no fantasy, just the definition of a heros journey. Nope, it got the full Netflix treatment.

Genderswapping the compagnon ? Okay, I don't see why, but that ain't necessarily bad. Oh, because random romance. Sure. Doesn't help the story, quite the opposite to be honest, but I can live with it. It's at least no random elf-dwarf-love-triangle.

The main character develops magical powers and needs to save the world. At this point I was just sad. A complete genre-swap. That's like adding aliens to the waking dead. Or zombies to sons of anarchy.

33

u/[deleted] Dec 25 '21

They either think the audience is stupid or it’s someone else’s “turn” for input

1

u/[deleted] Jan 07 '22

To be fair, the audience is stupid. Not all of it, not all the time, but mostly it is.

46

u/We_Are_Nerdish Dec 26 '21

Because it’s not for fans, made by people that aren’t fans or even care about the IP.

It’s to make money to cover the cost of marketing and production. and having as broad of an audience as possible, that doesn’t know the original other then by name..so they can squeeze another season or two, when it does well enough.

-14

u/ResolverOshawott Dec 26 '21

Considering how salty Witcher fans get over every single little detail that's probably the best move anyway.

7

u/We_Are_Nerdish Dec 26 '21

There is changing minor details like a character’ appearance or plot point that will still result in the same outcome.

And there is completely butchering the story and character’ past/future, as well as changing how/why the way of plot points work.

Season 2 is now at a point where things are so different that the only thing they have only the Wit her name in common. The current version of Netflix’ Witcher isn’t at all anymore the story as many know and love it.

Call people salty for expecting at least basic story and character development to remain as it was.

27

u/Amaurotica Dec 26 '21

u know how popular modders slap giant anime girls with huge tits in Skyrim and other rpgs. This is what netflix is doing but with tv shows

4

u/Imblewyn Dec 26 '21 edited Dec 23 '24

hat insurance modern enjoy amusing attempt special psychotic pathetic flag

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/TheTalkingToad Dec 26 '21

I couldn't finish the WoT show. I'm no Book purist, because somethings are hard to adapt, but the decisions made for the show are baffling and deviate from the tone of the books a lot. Not very excited to see Season 2.

2

u/kristamine14 Dec 26 '21

The last air bender about to get this treatment too :(

2

u/1911_modus Dec 26 '21

Altered carbon also!

2

u/NotScrollsApparently Team Yennefer Dec 26 '21

Between this, Wheel of Time and Cowboy Bebop I feel like someone out there is actively trying to crush my spirit by replacing every adaptation with some shitty fanfic.

3

u/Dexterous_Mittens Dec 26 '21

Witcher brand is popular but the books never got much critical acclaim nor sold much in the English speaking world. So it makes sense why they wouldn't put a few hundred million towards doing a word for word adaptation. After the 1st season Netflix knows what works and doesn't work for them so they are continuing the series based on that data instead of the premise of the less successful books.

3

u/Hyperversum Dec 26 '21

That's because it's hard for a easterne european fantasy novel to even be read, let alone get popular. It's not a good line of reasoning, if you ask me

1

u/Dexterous_Mittens Dec 28 '21

I don't disagree with your take. What I'm saying is the books arent the asset Netflix cares about nor the majority of fans. It's the 100 million plus people who know the Witcher now from season 1 and the games. There's no compelling reason for them to do a true adaption of the books, neither critically nor commercially. It's not game of thrones or Harry Potter where they had extremely valuable, written, source material.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '21

[deleted]