Fantasy Netflix's The Witcher - General Discussion Thread

[TheVileOne]

Love seeing things like this lifted from the game.

It's actually not just from the games

 

[DarthSkywalker]

It's actually not just from the games

Scenes specifically designed to mimic the look of the games, are from the games. As the first season taught us, you can take the look and design of the Witcher in much less interesting ways then the games did.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I'm cooking through season 1 again. I really, really hope season 2 is better paced now that the time jumping is done, and Ciri should be spending her time with Geralt and probably Yen.

 

[Iceman]

There should be less need for it now that people are in the right place, and if they do employ it still hopefully it will be less jarring.

 

[TheVileOne]

Through the experience of reading the books, what's actually been interesting to me is seeing how many things in the games are originally rooted in things mentioned or established in the books.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Reviews are good so far! From the snippets I read on RT, it sounds like a huge improvement over the first season in pretty much every way.

 

[TheVileOne]

Reviews are good so far! From the snippets I read on RT, it sounds like a huge improvement over the first season in pretty much every way.

I hope Entertainment Weekly got cut off after how they handled the first season, which was unprofessional.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I hope Entertainment Weekly got cut off after how they handled the first season, which was unprofessional.

What did they do exactly?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

 

[TheVileOne]

What did they do exactly?

Netflix's 'The Witcher' is nakedly terrible

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Through the experience of reading the books, what's actually been interesting to me is seeing how many things in the games are originally rooted in things mentioned or established in the books.

Yes, because CDPR knew how to adapt material. They used it as proper backstory. But there is also a reason a deal has been made with them, so they can use more of their designs and ideas.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Netflix's 'The Witcher' is nakedly terrible

That's a review. One that expresses that what they saw of the show, they didn't like. That's not unprofessional. That's the most popular form of the medium these days. Just check out YT.

One of Roger Ebert's most well known and popular reviews is him taking a personal lashing to Brown Bunny. Just because someone is a "professional" critic, doesn't mean they aren't allowed to have a personality.

 

[BlackFox]

Reviews are good so far! From the snippets I read on RT, it sounds like a huge improvement over the first season in pretty much every way.

While I enjoyed the first series more than most it certainly needed to improve in many ways, glad to here it seems it has addressed a lot of problems and is going over much better with critics at least, this is encouraging to hear.

 

[Gothamsknight]

Can't believe it's been 2 years since season 1. Can't wait to check out season 2 this friday! I honestly hope this show goes on for years and years to come.

 

[Iceman]

Reviews are good so far! From the snippets I read on RT, it sounds like a huge improvement over the first season in pretty much every way.

Oh nice, good to hear. From season 1 it felt like there was a lot of potential to this show and it was bubbling beneath what it could achieve at its best.

 

[Wolvieboy17]

That's a review. One that expresses that what they saw of the show, they didn't like. That's not unprofessional. That's the most popular form of the medium these days. Just check out YT.

I'd say the most unprofessional part of that review was the incredible lack of research. It was reviewed by TWO people and neither of them bothered to go beyond Wikipedia. I remember one of them dismissing the whole "Lesser Evil" conversation because it was clearly pulled from a video game (Because it talked about choice?) When it was word for word from the book.

 

[TheVileOne]

 

[DarthSkywalker]

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I'd say the most unprofessional part of that review was the incredible lack of research. It was reviewed by TWO people and neither of them bothered to go beyond Wikipedia. I remember one of them dismissing the whole "Lesser Evil" conversation because it was clearly pulled from a video game (Because it talked about choice?) When it was word for word from the book.

Why would you ever have to do research to review a movie or show?

 

[Snow Queen]

I hope every Spider-Man reviewer reads a certain amount of Spider-Man comics before reviewing the movie.

 

[Persona]

Everyone called out that EW review as bad, even those who agreed with the general sentiment of it. Just really shoddy criticism, even by EW's standards.

First season of The Witcher was a classic case of a mixed bag. Some really good elements, some MOR ones, and some bad ones. But Cavill and Charlotra were good and the action was cool when it didn't involve terrible CG dragons. Looking forward to S2.

 

[TheVileOne]

I hope every Spider-Man reviewer reads a certain amount of Spider-Man comics before reviewing the movie.

What EW did would be more akin to watching 30 minutes of No Way Home and walking out and writing a review of the movie based only on that 30 minutes.

 

[Wolvieboy17]

Why would you ever have to do research to review a movie or show?

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but research is quintessential for a review of any piece of media. That doesn't mean you have to read all the source material, but you should at least read the context around it, whether that's interviews with the creator, press material etc. This review doesn't even bother to mention one actors name because... why?

Specifically in this review, it was rife with assumptions based on a source material they didn't bother researching. If you haven't read or played anything Witcher related, making any judgement call of the product you're reviewing in relation to the source material is unprofessional.

And again, they watched 1-2 episodes and gave the entire show a zero. That's laughably unprofesh. Laziest damn thing I've ever seen.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but research is quintessential for a review of any piece of media. That doesn't mean you have to read all the source material, but you should at least read th

Specifically in this review, it was rife with assumptions based on a source material they didn't bother researching. If you haven't read or played anything Witcher related, making any judgement call of the product you're reviewing in relation to the source material is unprofessional.

And again, they watched 1-2 episodes and gave the entire show a zero. That's laughably unprofesh. Laziest damn thing I've ever seen.

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not, but this is fully and completely wrong. Because you are reviewing the piece of media and not it's source material. A movie is a movie, not a book/video game/etc. This would be like saying you can't review the Lord of the Rings trilogy unless you read the books. That's not how it works and to suggest otherwise is some Zack Snyder fan level of ridiculousness. Are positive reviews that came from someone who didn't read the books also unprofessional?

By the way, they couldn't review the "entire" show, if I remember correctly. Because Netflix didn't give them all the episodes pre-release. Still, doesn't matter. If it's so bad you can't get past a certain amount of episodes, that's the review.

 

[Wolvieboy17]

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not, but this is fully and completely wrong. Because you are reviewing the piece of media and not it's source material. A movie is a movie, not a book/video game/etc. This would be like saying you can't review the Lord of the Rings trilogy unless you read the books. That's not how it works and to suggest otherwise is some Zack Snyder fan level of ridiculousness. Are positive reviews that came from someone who didn't read the books also unprofessional?

By the way, they couldn't review the "entire" show, if I remember correctly. Because Netflix didn't give them all the episodes pre-release. Still, doesn't matter. If it's so bad you can't get past a certain amount of episodes, that's the review.

My bro, I was a radio Games Reviewer for 5 years, raised in a family of journalists. I cannot begin to tell you the amount of research that is required for an informed and quality review. As a reviewer representing any publication or outlet, it's your responsibility to at least have a solid knowledge of:

• The creators: Who is making this show/movie, what's their style and track record like?
• Who's the audience? Is this a show aimed at a younger audience? Men or women? Is it a franchise with an established audience?
• Genre knowledge - Whatever the genre, you either need to have a good general knowledge of the tropes and audience expectations... And where there are gaps, you need to fill them with research or talk to an expert for a 2nd opinion.

Honestly, this lazy, YouTube critic modern attitude that a review is nothing more than "one person's reaction" to a piece of art. People don't go to university and master a craft to just give an uninformed, useless emotional response. You're expected to know a lot about your industry, the medium you're reviewing and when you encounter something you don't know, you find out. A good reviewer gives their audience proper context, wrapped around a researched and informed critical analysis.

Nowhere in my post that you quoted, did I say a reviewer needs to read the source material... But you can't then claim "This dialogue is bad because of the way it references the video games" one sentence after admitting you haven't played the games.

And I'm sorry but saying a thing is "so bad you don't need to watch it all" qualifies as a review? It's their JOB my dude. That's the laziest most unprofessional cop out I've ever heard. What, only good art is worth reviewing? The entire foundation of critical review is that EVERYTHING is worth reviewing.

If you can't even watch/read/play something you're reviewing start to finish, your review is worth exactly nothing.

(Also this wasn't Netflix's fault - The reviewers admit in their own review that they skipped entire episodes. One of the two reviewers only watched half of the first one.)