The Witcher

[Sky]

Saw the first episode last night, it was great. Between this and the Mandalorian, it's a phenomenal time to be into scifi/fantasy.

Ironically at a point in time where the people who dislike scifi/fantasy the most are scifi/fantasy fans 

[MahrinSkel]

Yeah, I didn't get that the three viewpoints were not contemporaneous "Real Time" until Yennefer started talking about having spent 30 years on palace intrigues. Basically everything in her story before the drunken mind-controlled orgy was happening before everything in Geralt's viewpoint to that point, and *all* of both is apparently set well before Ciri's events.

--Dave

[WayAbvPar]

Watched first 3 last night. I read one of the books (I think the one that had the striga princess, since that felt very familiar), and haven't played the games. I am still a bit lost on lore and geography/politics, but I am enjoying the hell out of the show.

[Khaldun]

They *really* needed to tell viewers about the different time frames but ok, it's otherwise surprisingly good.
 

[Goumindong]

They do tell the viewers but its subtle. They often mention kings and events of various kingdoms and its always different. The first time we meet ciri we see that her grandmother is the lion of cintra and her winning her first battle is mentioned in yennifers story. Similarly every time they talk about Nilfguard it has a different king etc etc.

Its also one of the things i most liked. It let them weave the themes together in reinforcing/contrasting ways that would not have been possible if being faithful to chronology

[Tale]

I was expecting this to be shit. I tried and failed many times to enjoy Witcher 3 but it just didn't gel with me and neither did the world. I don't relate to Geralt at all. Netflix shows have done nothing for me lately.

It opened with a shitty monster fight. It proceeded to a shitty wizard illusion house. Then it went to the epic fall of Cintra and I was massively on board. It got cool. Trying to find time to get beyond episode 2 between baby-wrangling.

[Riggswolfe]

I binged it all and quite enjoyed it. I was a few episodes in before I realized the timelines weren't synced. I've read all the books and played all the games so I should have known this but it just didn't click with me. I don't think they even sync until probably the 6th or 7th episode. I have mixed feelings about how they handled the time jumps. I mean, sometimes little title cards with "30 years ago in castle blahblah" feel lazy but with all this jumping around with characters and places that viewers don't know it could easily be very confusing and probably is to a lot of viewers.

I think the second season will be much easier to follow as it should get into much more straight forward stories. They've covered most of the short stories now and united Geralt and Ciri so we can hopefully get to the meat of the stories.

[Hoax]

My 60 something yr old father managed to sort out the time skips. The only one that messed him up was the  so it is possible.  

He also binged this in two days without me even having time to encourage him to check it out. Hopefully this puts up huge numbers (because its great and I want more AND because I hope they keep releasing shows all at once), reviewers were not kind but I notice that more recent reviews are all coming in much more positive because reviewers are completely full of shit always.

[Lucas]

You said it best, Hoax: this show is almost adorable in its moments of jankyness; just like playing a Gothic game, or trying to sort out the plot of a Divinity one with their often questionable dialogue flows  
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It's more akin to the  atmospheres potrayed by Willow, Princess Bride or Nevending Story (with a bit of added violence and tits  ) than the impeccable "packages" provided by your nowadays Game of Thrones, Westworld and whatnot. And it should be watched with that in mind, IMO (of course, with all the offer available now, you could say "I prefer something with higher production values", sure)

There are flaws, mostly due to the fact that the showrunner (she admitted it herself) is a total neophyte in her role (she was just a writer before), and the rest of the writers looks very young as well. Like Riggswolfe said, book 3-7 should really help with the flow, but of course critics and reviewers in general have to write about what they're currently watching, "potential" doesn't matter.

Anyways, Cavill, Chalotra and Allan are really, really good, especially considering is basically a debut for both women.

[MahrinSkel]

I think they took a big risk the way they structured it, but managed to Rule of Cool their way past the jankiness enough that people will look forward to future seasons that aren't so damned "What the fuck is actually happening here?"

--Dave

[Abagadro]

I'm two episodes into this and I have no fucking idea what is even going on.

[Azuredream]

Really enjoyed this. I think Cavill nailed Geralt which was the most important positive. Finished Witcher 1 a few years back and made it a bit into Witcher 2 before I stopped. Inspired now to go reinstall and finish the games.

[Hawkbit]

[Threash]

It's more akin to the  atmospheres potrayed by Willow, Princess Bride or Nevending Story (with a bit of added violence and tits  ) than the impeccable "packages" provided by your nowadays Game of Thrones, Westworld and whatnot.

I was thinking more of a really high budget Xena.

[Setanta]

Just finished binging this and, while I enjoyed the games, thoroughly enjoyed the series and bought the first book. It doesn't let the reader down at all.

Far better than GoT and the last season of WW, Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri were spot on and only Triss feels underdeveloped as a character. The fall of Cintra was good viewing and I actually enjoyed the time skips not being telegraphed. It took me back to S1 of WW.

[Lucas]

from Marc Jobst(director on The Witcher, among other things) twitter feed,  a gory BTS photo; good old prosthetics     :


https://twitter.com/marcjobst1/status/1209450637961891840

[Threash]

I actually enjoyed the time skips not being telegraphed. It took me back to S1 of WW.

They were explicitly telegraphed if you had CC on, otherwise it was easy to miss. Also they did not bother ageing up the characters that should have aged (the bard and the queen and her husband), which is kinda cheating to be honest. Either way those are just minor complaints in an otherwise very entertaining show.

[Riggswolfe]

I actually enjoyed the time skips not being telegraphed. It took me back to S1 of WW.

They were explicitly telegraphed if you had CC on, otherwise it was easy to miss. Also they did not bother ageing up the characters that should have aged (the bard and the queen and her husband), which is kinda cheating to be honest. Either way those are just minor complaints in an otherwise very entertaining show.

They did age the queen and her husband a bit but it was super subtle. I think the times we see them it's only about 12 years apart so they didn't need to age a great deal.  As for the bard, yeah, we get a line about his crow's feet but he still looks about 20.

[Lucas]

So, the "Toss a Coin to your Witcher" song is rapidly gaining huge popularity on YT (it's VERY catchy, they totally hit the mark with that) with your usual quota of memes, covers and whatnot.

Unfortunately though, I just listened to the Japanese version and, beside the fact it's sounding like it's straight out of "Fist of the North Star" or something, it's horrendously and hilariously off-key.

Here it is, FEAST YOUR EARS, AND DESPAIR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZZGy8XTkM

 

[Threash]

The song is great, I hope we get more Jaskier.

[Tale]

Finished season and had a great time.

[Hoax]

So, the "Toss a Coin to your Witcher" song is rapidly gaining huge popularity on YT (it's VERY catchy, they totally hit the mark with that) with your usual quota of memes, covers and whatnot.

Unfortunately though, I just listened to the Japanese version and, beside the fact it's sounding like it's straight out of "Fist of the North Star" or something, it's horrendously and hilariously off-key.

Here it is, FEAST YOUR EARS, AND DESPAIR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZZGy8XTkM

 

makes one wonder which language has the best version, I was thinking the same sort of thoughts during final credits of final Mandalorian, wonder what the VA's sound like in all these languages.

[Lucas]

So, the "Toss a Coin to your Witcher" song is rapidly gaining huge popularity on YT (it's VERY catchy, they totally hit the mark with that) with your usual quota of memes, covers and whatnot.

Unfortunately though, I just listened to the Japanese version and, beside the fact it's sounding like it's straight out of "Fist of the North Star" or something, it's horrendously and hilariously off-key.

Here it is, FEAST YOUR EARS, AND DESPAIR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZZGy8XTkM

 

makes one wonder which language has the best version, I was thinking the same sort of thoughts during final credits of final Mandalorian, wonder what the VA's sound like in all these languages.

The Internet is here to serve, good sir (15 languages):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uwbjC_8Nd0 (first comment has the timestamps)

Talking about my language, italian is not bad, considering that, unlike Joey Batey (the actor playing Jaskier), our dubber, Alessio Puccio (italian voice of Harry Potter in all the movies), has no singing background (but I guess that's true for all/the majority of Jaskier's dubbers).

Anyway, as usual polish takes the cake   (just like the games, I'm watching it in polish with italian subtitles  ). Czech is awesome too.
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EDIT: Ah, one last thing, in polish, Geralt is dubbed by Michał Żebrowski (he does an awesome job, IMO). Who is Michał Żebrowski, you might ask? It's the actor who played the original, polish adaptation of the books, called "The Hexer", in 2002:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qYsvywkzuo

[Lucas]

Random 

[Hoax]

thanks for link.

no offense to anyone:
-man Czech is foreign and unpleasant to my ears
-german in charge of being german i knew what i was going to get the cadence is rekt by a bunch of words that are 20 letters too long
-Gerralt de Rivia (spanish) lol. its a huge step down from Hexa to Bruj that's for sure
-The non-european spanish seems like better singer to me than EU spanish un moneyda though... no great
-French not bad, though Ciri sounded way older maybe? i was in the other room.
-Hindi, I'm sorry but what the fuck is Geralt's voice. Hindi is working for me oddly sounds better as sung poetry/spoken word I guess? Wouldn't surprise me if the VA has done more singing though
-apparently i've never heard Hungarian in my life. kinda nice.

[lamaros]

Watched the first four episodes. This sucks a lot less than I thought it would.

[Phildo]

Supercut of every time Geralt says "fuck"!

[Lucas]

Here, have some sorceresses    (BTS photo...slightly NSFW, but not really. Just in case) 


Meme factory for this show might become endless with the addition of the whole gaming community:

[Yegolev]

Watched it all, loved it. Very happy to watch something that didn't hold my hand. Less confusing than Legion, which we also enjoyed. Figuring out the timelines was fun. Lots of clues, in hindsight. Things that seemed throwaway initially were often at least referenced if not important, which tied the whole thong together more tightly than perhaps otherwise.

[Draegan]

This was excellent.

[lamaros]

The irony of some reviewers making for of the fantasy names and trips in this when Mandalorian is out at the same time and getting praised is rather amusing.

[Riggswolfe]

The irony of some reviewers making for of the fantasy names and trips in this when Mandalorian is out at the same time and getting praised is rather amusing.

The Mandalorian is from a setting that the general public has known for 40+ years. The Witcher is known to gamers and those who've read the books, which in the U.S. is mostly gamers again. It's a big difference. GoT had lots of names too but eased us into it a bit smoother especially since the first season's narrative is very linear and focuses mostly on the Starks.

[Sir T]

Renewed for Season 2 ! (personally, I found S1 really enjoyable) 

https://twitter.com/witchernetflix/status/1194662873869496320

I suppose I cant be the only person who noticed that Geralts sword looks like it has a  on it.

[Lucas]

That     is

[Teleku]

Just binged this.  It was great.  I've never played any the games (well, more than 10 minutes before deciding I'd come back to it later, and not) or read the books.

Show was perfect in revealing the lore on it's own terms, and it made watching it all the more fun.  The acting was great, and I'm really looking forward to next season.