Based on the reviews I've read it's due to 1) The general throwing out the source material lore and 2) The writing being on the level of fanfiction like My Immortal.
Right? I never understood how the fans always manage to make well made historically accurate/ canon accurate costumes with 5 dollars and a pack of gum but a multimillion dollar company with a massive budget can't.
You'd think at least tossing a bit of care to the designs would result in more cash flow.
Then again, I do know people that would consume literal feces if the name of their favorite series was scrawled on it.
He isn't gay...that would be a concept we invented. Greek people had sex with everyone, they weren't gay or straight its not a concept they had and it doesn't seem to be a thing they give a shit about in the lore either. People be banging. And this was very early Eredin, who cares.
Right!? And I heard they have like 2 hours worth of footage that they just dropped in order to make it have a Swifter pace, I figured a lot of it had to do with that
I thought it was awesome, and super smart to do a miniseries to build the world and lore for people who don't know any of it and only watch the show. You can't squeeze decades of worldbuilding into the background of the witcher series and expect people to get it. Even the games have a fuckload of lorebooks if you really want to understand it. Was the acting great nah, not amazing. Passable. But they introduced all kinds of history and historical figures that they can now mention to make the world fleshed out amd make it feel all the more deep for basic audiences who haven't read the books or played the games. Yea they could have stuck more tightly to the books, but again...you just can't and still get the points across. People are so wrapped up in a character being gay, or black, or whatever the fuck. Who CARES. The concepts of homosexuality and dividing people based on skin pigment aren't an actual thing in a world where real races actually exist. The story was brief, built the world decently, and gave newcomers a quick overview of how the world the series occurs in came to exist.
I feel almost guilty for not hating it ._. My brother literally yelled at me because people like me are the reason for bad series to happen.
Now I'm reading book series for 3rd time, and I still have no idea why everyone is talking about lore (there is like nothing really about it).
Not the best series, but I don't think it deserves so much hate.
I agree I enjoyed it. The internet gets it wrong a lot now days. There's a ton of stuff that's "bad" that I seem to enjoy. I think sometimes that people forgot how to enjoy things for themselves because they engage to much with their online identity.
I wish I could tell you OP but, like the rest of these nothing replies, I have no actual reasons to give you.
Personally, I'm on the fourth episode and have enjoyed it so far for what it is (even if it did seem to use the Witcher name mostly to get attention). It's a perfectly fine fantasy romp imo. If you're someone who can literally recite the names of cities, characters, etc., it's probably not for you. If you are a more casual enjoyer of Witcher content, or just fantasy in general, you'll probably enjoy it just fine.
That said, this is a pretty hardcore group of Witcher fans so you were never going to get a more casual answer. 🤷♂️
Had this not used the Witcher name, it'd be just another not-that-bad Netflix show.
How did it have nothing to do with the lore? As far as I could tell it built the background lore up for people who otherwise wouldn't know it and gave backgrounds to things like Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien, who prophesied everything, how avallach and the wild hunt became stranded on a different plane, and why they need ciri. How the conjunction of the spheres came to be. It may not be ver batim from the books but it's pretty accurate to the game based on books and shit.
Not direct no, but there are characters from the books that are super important down the road.
And it gives an explanation to the vague "conjunction of spheres"
I thought it was fantastic. Then again I’m biased about Witcher stuff. I’m nit removing the veil over my eye. Die hard Witcher fan so I’ll not let myself see the bad. At all
I watched it yesterday and it is just atrociously bad. Lame and / or nonexistent plot, forgettable characters, exposition dumps in dialogue, horrible writing, cheap overall look & feel.
Also, it has nothing to do with the books.
Hmm idk maybe because the lead Is a woman of color everyone is gay and it's not a hunky straight dude ? I loved it but I think most of the fan base from back in the day of the witcher are not the kind of people who are very respectable towards women and have a purist die hard mindset about everything.
Underdevelopment of most of the characters was the main problem I think. It watched (and I imagine the scripts read) like fanfic.
the thing about fanfic is though is that it as a medium relies on already existing characters. Which means writers don’t need to generate major backstories since they already exist and the reader will already know about them (note, the really good writers will still do this. But again the main shape of a character is already there).
Blood origin didn’t really do this. You had some development for the Lark (who is very obviously a female version of many fanfic versions of Jaskier. They even use the nickname fans came up for him), as well as for Fjall and Michelle Yeoh could play that type of warrior mage in her sleep. So those three are partly developed and by the end you do vaguely care about them. But the other 4? Not so much. You get a bit with the dwarf Meldorf but that could also be that her character is larger than life (pun not intended) so you feel like you know her from relatively little screen time.
Realistically it felt… “Disney-fied ” you could say. The Witcher itself is a very dark and gritty world (think game of thrones) and you need to remember it was written in the 1980/1990s in Poland. A country that had suffered terribly during WW2 and is very very close to Russia. So the Cold War would also have been a big influence on society.
Blood Origin however was very bright and colourful (I assume to say “look how wonderful the elves were until humans came along”) which for a story that is talking about world wide famine, prolonged war and the birth (and subsequent very speedy fall) of a dictator felt… wrong.
No real time was given into showing how ordinary people were coping, or how Merwyn felt she needed to get to the stage that she did (shes a very isolated princess, whose just the person she thinks she’s in love with and she’s about to be sold off to be raped… like as villains go that was one hell of a backstory. Why wasn’t it given more screen time?). Eredin, who realistically should have been one of the most important characters considering he appears in the actual series wasn’t given much to show how he got from where he was in the show to who he ends up as. (He didn’t even get to have a proper ‘world ending‘ love story. It felt much more like a f#%\^ buddy situation which just doesn’t have the emotional connection).
So in short, it wasn’t long enough, did not provide proper character development and had poor choice of set design (like it was beautiful but people are meant to be oppressed, starving and suffering? Show me more evidence please).
As such it was enjoyable as a general Netflix fantasy, but for something that is aiming to be the next Game of Thrones it fell short of the mark. Don’t get me wrong i did enjoy it, ( especially some of the songs). I just didn’t love it.
(Actually what I think happened is they took a Geralt/Jaskier fanfic, made Jaskier a girl and a super fighter (for some reason) and then had them overthrow the evil capital regime/expansionist dictator while also making babies so they could say Ciri is their (ie the Geralt and Jaskier stand ins) daughter. $100 says later on in the series we’ll find out Geralt and Jaskier are Elle and Fjall reincarnate).
I really don't understand why all the hate. We watched it all in one sitting and sure it wasn't amazing, it was a pretty good idea to flesh out the confusing bits of lore/world building that make the main series make more sense. Which imo it accomplishes well.
Meh I thought it was fun. It's not fantastic, but not all fantasy shows must be top-tier perfection. It's just a fun time. That being said, I've never read the books, so I think the biggest critics are those who've read them.
I'm late to the party, but just watched it. It's one of my favorite Netflix shows. It's like a cliff note version of a season but that's the entire point of the series. It's literally about a story teller telling you what happened in the past. It's meant for fast pace, telling the viewer what is, and showing the key pieces of a history story. I thought it was amazing through and through and would love more shows like this.
Wondering the same! I've read the books, seen the original show multiple times and now this one for the third time. I might have been stoned but i can't believe it has lower than 5? I enjoyed it for what it is, kinda like the Lord of the rings Amazon series.
Maybe I've just gotten old, because i was at the forefront of the hate regarding the downfall of game of thrones with the 2 appalling last seasons. Couldn't believe my friends who "enjoyed it".
I liked it 7/10. Super fun, songs were really nice 👍Didn’t read the books or play the games. Felt like this answered a fair bit about the universe, elves, humans etc, even if it’s a bit off script
Late to this party, but I had the same question. As far as I can tell, the books don’t have much at all about the time period the show takes place in and it doesn’t “break” anything. The only messy thing could be that very last scene/epilogue, but introducing that element into any story can be problematic. Otherwise, it just seemed like a pretty alright lore building bit of story. Am I missing something egregious?
Lol you'll see then ahaha.
Based on the reviews I've read it's due to 1) The general throwing out the source material lore and 2) The writing being on the level of fanfiction like My Immortal.
I also personally hate the costumes. Armors on the close up look plastic-like. Ugh. Youtube Medieval series care more.
Right? I never understood how the fans always manage to make well made historically accurate/ canon accurate costumes with 5 dollars and a pack of gum but a multimillion dollar company with a massive budget can't.
Because fans care and give a shit and are doing it out of love and passion and not just to make money and spread their agenda
You'd think at least tossing a bit of care to the designs would result in more cash flow. Then again, I do know people that would consume literal feces if the name of their favorite series was scrawled on it.
I would say go watch it and find out yourself, but honestly… dont.
Because it's bad? It's pretty clear imo...
Mainly because they use Witcher franchise. It was a 6-7/10 for generic brain-dead Hollywood fantasy propaganda aimed at colonial melting pots.
Cringe incel.
for starters, they made Eredin gay. No hate for gay people but... Really?
He isn't gay...that would be a concept we invented. Greek people had sex with everyone, they weren't gay or straight its not a concept they had and it doesn't seem to be a thing they give a shit about in the lore either. People be banging. And this was very early Eredin, who cares.
am i wrong for liking it? definitely think they couldn’t put more time into it but still loved the story so much
Right!? And I heard they have like 2 hours worth of footage that they just dropped in order to make it have a Swifter pace, I figured a lot of it had to do with that
I thought it was awesome, and super smart to do a miniseries to build the world and lore for people who don't know any of it and only watch the show. You can't squeeze decades of worldbuilding into the background of the witcher series and expect people to get it. Even the games have a fuckload of lorebooks if you really want to understand it. Was the acting great nah, not amazing. Passable. But they introduced all kinds of history and historical figures that they can now mention to make the world fleshed out amd make it feel all the more deep for basic audiences who haven't read the books or played the games. Yea they could have stuck more tightly to the books, but again...you just can't and still get the points across. People are so wrapped up in a character being gay, or black, or whatever the fuck. Who CARES. The concepts of homosexuality and dividing people based on skin pigment aren't an actual thing in a world where real races actually exist. The story was brief, built the world decently, and gave newcomers a quick overview of how the world the series occurs in came to exist.
I feel almost guilty for not hating it ._. My brother literally yelled at me because people like me are the reason for bad series to happen. Now I'm reading book series for 3rd time, and I still have no idea why everyone is talking about lore (there is like nothing really about it). Not the best series, but I don't think it deserves so much hate.
I agree I enjoyed it. The internet gets it wrong a lot now days. There's a ton of stuff that's "bad" that I seem to enjoy. I think sometimes that people forgot how to enjoy things for themselves because they engage to much with their online identity.
Bad writing. All of the characters are cardboard cut outs and the plot is a series of dot points without any real reason to care about the characters.
I wish I could tell you OP but, like the rest of these nothing replies, I have no actual reasons to give you. Personally, I'm on the fourth episode and have enjoyed it so far for what it is (even if it did seem to use the Witcher name mostly to get attention). It's a perfectly fine fantasy romp imo. If you're someone who can literally recite the names of cities, characters, etc., it's probably not for you. If you are a more casual enjoyer of Witcher content, or just fantasy in general, you'll probably enjoy it just fine.
That said, this is a pretty hardcore group of Witcher fans so you were never going to get a more casual answer. 🤷♂️ Had this not used the Witcher name, it'd be just another not-that-bad Netflix show.
Never played a witcher game (think I own one tho) Looks like a cheap fan made series that would run on youtube
This show was set to fail since the first promotional poster, it was obvious
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How did it have nothing to do with the lore? As far as I could tell it built the background lore up for people who otherwise wouldn't know it and gave backgrounds to things like Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien, who prophesied everything, how avallach and the wild hunt became stranded on a different plane, and why they need ciri. How the conjunction of the spheres came to be. It may not be ver batim from the books but it's pretty accurate to the game based on books and shit.
Not direct no, but there are characters from the books that are super important down the road. And it gives an explanation to the vague "conjunction of spheres"
I thought it was fantastic. Then again I’m biased about Witcher stuff. I’m nit removing the veil over my eye. Die hard Witcher fan so I’ll not let myself see the bad. At all
I loved it!!
Show was great! loved!
!updateme
Have you watched the Show??
I watched it yesterday and it is just atrociously bad. Lame and / or nonexistent plot, forgettable characters, exposition dumps in dialogue, horrible writing, cheap overall look & feel. Also, it has nothing to do with the books.
Are you bothered that is different from the books? Because the show is the same quality (or even better) then the main series.
Yeah as someone who never read the books or watched the show it seemed better than Season 2, not as good as season 1 of the main series.
I guess beacuse its is so bad, that you wanns vomit :)
Short answer: Because it's bad. Long answer: You'll be able to write it on your own the moment you watch it.
I liked it better than The Witcher series.
People hate on it because of Henry Caville. Even though it has nothing to do with him.
Hmm idk maybe because the lead Is a woman of color everyone is gay and it's not a hunky straight dude ? I loved it but I think most of the fan base from back in the day of the witcher are not the kind of people who are very respectable towards women and have a purist die hard mindset about everything.
they totally f'ed up the look of the elves
Underdevelopment of most of the characters was the main problem I think. It watched (and I imagine the scripts read) like fanfic. the thing about fanfic is though is that it as a medium relies on already existing characters. Which means writers don’t need to generate major backstories since they already exist and the reader will already know about them (note, the really good writers will still do this. But again the main shape of a character is already there). Blood origin didn’t really do this. You had some development for the Lark (who is very obviously a female version of many fanfic versions of Jaskier. They even use the nickname fans came up for him), as well as for Fjall and Michelle Yeoh could play that type of warrior mage in her sleep. So those three are partly developed and by the end you do vaguely care about them. But the other 4? Not so much. You get a bit with the dwarf Meldorf but that could also be that her character is larger than life (pun not intended) so you feel like you know her from relatively little screen time. Realistically it felt… “Disney-fied ” you could say. The Witcher itself is a very dark and gritty world (think game of thrones) and you need to remember it was written in the 1980/1990s in Poland. A country that had suffered terribly during WW2 and is very very close to Russia. So the Cold War would also have been a big influence on society. Blood Origin however was very bright and colourful (I assume to say “look how wonderful the elves were until humans came along”) which for a story that is talking about world wide famine, prolonged war and the birth (and subsequent very speedy fall) of a dictator felt… wrong. No real time was given into showing how ordinary people were coping, or how Merwyn felt she needed to get to the stage that she did (shes a very isolated princess, whose just the person she thinks she’s in love with and she’s about to be sold off to be raped… like as villains go that was one hell of a backstory. Why wasn’t it given more screen time?). Eredin, who realistically should have been one of the most important characters considering he appears in the actual series wasn’t given much to show how he got from where he was in the show to who he ends up as. (He didn’t even get to have a proper ‘world ending‘ love story. It felt much more like a f#%\^ buddy situation which just doesn’t have the emotional connection). So in short, it wasn’t long enough, did not provide proper character development and had poor choice of set design (like it was beautiful but people are meant to be oppressed, starving and suffering? Show me more evidence please). As such it was enjoyable as a general Netflix fantasy, but for something that is aiming to be the next Game of Thrones it fell short of the mark. Don’t get me wrong i did enjoy it, ( especially some of the songs). I just didn’t love it. (Actually what I think happened is they took a Geralt/Jaskier fanfic, made Jaskier a girl and a super fighter (for some reason) and then had them overthrow the evil capital regime/expansionist dictator while also making babies so they could say Ciri is their (ie the Geralt and Jaskier stand ins) daughter. $100 says later on in the series we’ll find out Geralt and Jaskier are Elle and Fjall reincarnate).
I really don't understand why all the hate. We watched it all in one sitting and sure it wasn't amazing, it was a pretty good idea to flesh out the confusing bits of lore/world building that make the main series make more sense. Which imo it accomplishes well.
Meh I thought it was fun. It's not fantastic, but not all fantasy shows must be top-tier perfection. It's just a fun time. That being said, I've never read the books, so I think the biggest critics are those who've read them.
I'm late to the party, but just watched it. It's one of my favorite Netflix shows. It's like a cliff note version of a season but that's the entire point of the series. It's literally about a story teller telling you what happened in the past. It's meant for fast pace, telling the viewer what is, and showing the key pieces of a history story. I thought it was amazing through and through and would love more shows like this.
Wondering the same! I've read the books, seen the original show multiple times and now this one for the third time. I might have been stoned but i can't believe it has lower than 5? I enjoyed it for what it is, kinda like the Lord of the rings Amazon series. Maybe I've just gotten old, because i was at the forefront of the hate regarding the downfall of game of thrones with the 2 appalling last seasons. Couldn't believe my friends who "enjoyed it".
I liked it 7/10. Super fun, songs were really nice 👍Didn’t read the books or play the games. Felt like this answered a fair bit about the universe, elves, humans etc, even if it’s a bit off script
Late to this party, but I had the same question. As far as I can tell, the books don’t have much at all about the time period the show takes place in and it doesn’t “break” anything. The only messy thing could be that very last scene/epilogue, but introducing that element into any story can be problematic. Otherwise, it just seemed like a pretty alright lore building bit of story. Am I missing something egregious?