Fantasy Netflix's The Witcher - General Discussion Thread

[Zorro]

I like what I saw again! Looking forward to it

 

[DKDetective]

Yen does look like hot fire, especially in those outfits. But yeah, there is a false gloss over everything. Makes it feel like Halloween decoration then the real deal.

I feel like someone needs to grab the crew and make them watch the LOTR trilogy special features, where they show that they have a department that spends almost as much time distressing and caking everything in mud as makes the costumes and sets. Geralt's armour and sword hilt could use some rust at the very least. Patina, give me Patina dammit!

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I feel like someone needs to grab the crew and make them watch the LOTR trilogy special features, where they show that they have a department that spends almost as much time distressing and caking everything in mud as makes the costumes and sets. Geralt's armour and sword hilt could use some rust at the very least. Patina, give me Patina dammit!

Geralt would never let his sword rust.

I just realized what it made me think of. The difference between OT Star Wars and PT Star Wars. I know a lot of people don't like that Middle-Earth basically became New Zealand, but why that was important imo was it made it feel real. You were there. And it went along with all the amazing work on the costumes and weapons, making them look actually used.

 

[flickchick85]

I mean it’s not as clean and shiny and plastic as Asgard in the first Thor, so there are lower bars, lol.

 

[TheVileOne]

I dunno, I thought it looked good for the most part. Now, did the trailer blow me away? No, but few things do these days. I mean the last early footage I saw that really blew me away was all The Mandalorian trailers and material I saw.

Plus, I think Anya did a great job in the scene I saw at Comic-Con.

Things I liked about this trailer. The monsters are in there. It looks like Geralt's even using Aard. Talking about lesser evils. Yennefer has her violet eyes! Something they wouldn't do for Daenerys in Game of Thrones.

Nilfgaard armor makes me physically ill, but what's done is done. I think Geralt's main sword does look cool at least. Overall, a good trailer.

It doesn't look like they are downplaying magic and fantasy similar to Game of Thrones.

Also, Game of Throes definitely cheaped out a couple of times in Season 1. Even Benioff and Weiss admitted they ran out of money so they couldn't do a battle scene. That's why the drinking scene with Tyrion happened. All the major battles in S1 happen offscreen.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I dunno, I thought it looked good for the most part. Now, did the trailer blow me away? No, but few things do these days. I mean the last early footage I saw that really blew me away was all The Mandalorian trailers and material I saw.

Plus, I think Anya did a great job in the scene I saw at Comic-Con.

Things I liked about this trailer. The monsters are in there. It looks like Geralt's even using Aard. Talking about lesser evils. Yennefer has her violet eyes! Something they wouldn't do for Daenerys in Game of Thrones.

Nilfgaard armor makes me physically ill, but what's done is done. I think Geralt's main sword does look cool at least. Overall, a good trailer.

It doesn't look like they are downplaying magic and fantasy similar to Game of Thrones.

Also, Game of Throes definitely cheaped out a couple of times in Season 1. Even Benioff and Weiss admitted they ran out of money so they couldn't do a battle scene. That's why the drinking scene with Tyrion happened. All the major battles in S1 happen offscreen.

This is definitely true. But that is also the benefit of having the actors GoT had. They could spin gold almost out of anything, and were as magnetic as any battle.

Also while I do agree GoT felt cheaper during it's first couple of seasons, it didn't look overtly cheap. The costume design, the make up work and set design elevated it. This doesn't seem to be of that same quality.

 

[TheVileOne]

I dunno, I don't think this trailer looked too clean or glossy. It is a trailer. it does seem like a lot's going on in the first season. I hope they have enough time to cover all these bases between the introduction of the central characters, along with what looks like the fall of Cintra.

Game of Thrones I think was able to get away with a lot on the strength of its amazing production values and acting which overcame parts I think were not very well plotted out. I acknowledge that the show's presentation was transcendent, along with some of the performances, while I maintain the writing was always rather lacking from the beginning.

 

[DKDetective]

Geralt would never let his sword rust.

I just realized what it made me think of. The difference between OT Star Wars and PT Star Wars. I know a lot of people don't like that Middle-Earth basically became New Zealand, but why that was important imo was it made it feel real. You were there. And it went along with all the amazing work on the costumes and weapons, making them look actually used.

I said his sword hilt. Geralt would never let his sword blade rust, but the hilt is another story. It is constantly exposed to the elements as he treks across country. It will rust on a real sword no matter how good of care you take. They even did that Aragorn's and even Gandalf's swords in LOTR. It's subtle but it is there.

The PT and the OT is a great comparison. It is very much the same issue. It's unfortunate because a lot of the core designs are quite good. Other than the Nilfgaardian scrotii, I like a lot of the armour designs better than most of the stuff on Game of Thrones. (The Lannister stuff looked stupid as did the Unsullied, etc. The Northern stuff was sadly a standout.). I liked that they are going for more High Medieval styling like the games, which is refreshing.

 

[TheVileOne]

I'm not quite seeing the PT comparisons yet, but we'll see with the final product.

I'll say not in terms of cleanliness and sterility, but I was not a fan of a lot of the action for Dark Fate because it felt too stylized which doesn't work for a Terminator series.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

 

[Reek]

I mean I liked it... i think its got great potential... Don't forget... Game of Thrones first season wasn't some mindblowing thing visually... hell the only stuff was the very first scene with the whitewalkers and the final scene with the baby dragons, right? i dont think we should judge until we watch but to each their own... Geralt is supposed to be kind of boring until he gets to certain points, so now sure how thats a complaint about cavill being bland...

also... I didn't see any Gwent... or Gwint... or Gwant... or Gwunt.... very upset about this. may as well cancel the damn show!

 

[Deck Rickard]

What is the Nilfgaardian armor that everyone seems to dislike? Is that what Geralt is wearing? I think it looks cool.

 

[Reek]

What is the Nilfgaardian armor that everyone seems to dislike? Is that what Geralt is wearing? I think it looks cool.

well the shows looks like.... shriveled poo....

 

[Deck Rickard]

Oh I see. Yeah, that design is... umm... yeah.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I mean I liked it... i think its got great potential... Don't forget... Game of Thrones first season wasn't some mindblowing thing visually... hell the only stuff was the very first scene with the whitewalkers and the final scene with the baby dragons, right? i dont think we should judge until we watch but to each their own... Geralt is supposed to be kind of boring until he gets to certain points, so now sure how thats a complaint about cavill being bland...

also... I didn't see any Gwent... or Gwint... or Gwant... or Gwunt.... very upset about this. may as well cancel the damn show!

I do think GoT had quite a few striking visuals in it's first season, beyond the "big ones". The sky cells and the Wall to name a couple more. I also do think they had some directors who made the most of it all.

 

[Reek]

Well even the GoT season 1 trailer didn't show anything too special... not gonna post it cause i dont know if it had the BAD BAD NAUGHTY WORDS

just trying to be fair to something we havent really seen much of lol

 

[Roose Bolton]

There was a pretty big jump between the visuals of Season 1 and Season 2 of GoT. Season 1 looked like a high end BBC historical production, whereas Season 2 was when it started to get into that cinematic quality.

 

[flickchick85]

And yet, this still looks cheaper. This has a $10mil per episode budget, doesn't it? GoT's first season only had $6mil per ep. This should not look cheaper than that. I think it's the claustrophobic cinematography that's partly to blame. GoT had more natural lighting and really showed off its locations.

 

[Roose Bolton]

I honestly don’t think anything here looks worse, visually than GoT season 1.


GoT season 1, I would say, barely looked like a HBO production. The costuming, the wigs, some of the sets, the CGI, the fact that you had scenes in Essos that were very clearly just shot on the cliffs of North Ireland...I actually think Season 1 looked quite poor.

 

[flickchick85]

*shrugs* To each their own.

 

[Reek]

I havent seen any budget announcements... not sure where 10 mil per episode came from unless i am just uninformed

 

[Perfect Cell]

Does anyone remember the show The Bastard Executioner? That's what sprang to mind when I saw this trailer. It's not that things look bad, or cheap... they just look like props and set pieces. That was my main issue with Bastard. The on-screen product looked like a production mimicking medieval imagery and settings, rather than an actual lived-in world. Like a Renaissance Fair. It really took me out of the show. That's the sense I kinda get from Witcher, albeit with significantly higher production values.

But this is just a trailer, so it's hard to judge it too harshly. It just has that same sheen to it.

 

[flickchick85]

I havent seen any budget announcements... not sure where 10 mil per episode came from unless i am just uninformed

I heard it a couple weeks ago, that it was a $70-80mil budget for the season, roughly $10mil per episode. Not sure where, though.

EDIT: Apparently it's from that DanielRPK guy so it might be BS, I don't know his track record on these things.

 

[TheVileOne]

Oh I see. Yeah, that design is... umm... yeah.

Here's another in camera version of it:

I think GoT did have some nice visuals and eye candy in the first season, but it also sticks out in my mind a lot that the minute a major fight is about to happen Tyrion gets knocked out and the whole thing happens offscreen.

In Season 2 they did definitely step things up with the Battle of Blackwater, which even for me not being a big fan of the show, I think that was a strong, ambitious sequence that came together really well.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Is it safe to say I'm not a fan of this trailer?

I'm glad that fighting shots in the trailer don't have shaky camera, so that's one positive thing to say, but their movement is pretty slow and lackluster. I've seen better choreographed armored fights in Martin Lawrence's the Black Knight, so I'm not sure I should excuse the heavy gear in this one.

Henry was talking American most of his trailer lines until near the end of it. Is this change in accent going to be a thing that will happen often? I hope not, but it might. Why does he sound American while everyone else is using English accent? I'm watching the trailer a second time as I type this to make sure I did not make a mistake there.

Also; expositional narration by the woman talking to Geralt in the trailer makes me wonder how much of the show's dialogue is going to be exposition by someone talking to the main character.