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Netflix, The Witcher


Lloyd Dupont

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22 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Same for your poor old doggie! 😮

Somehow, despite their allegedly sensitive noses, I have observed dogs to be willing -- nay, eager! -- to snuffle their noses into the most amazingly disgusting places ...

 

Your Dog May Vary

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On 12/20/2019 at 10:17 PM, Lloyd Dupont said:

one bad thing I have to say...

from scene to scene, with some given characters.. time goes back and forth unexpectedly....

got me confused at first! 😮

Yes, I had to look up on a wiki somewhere the fact that there are 3 different timelines going on. Ciri's story is basically the "present". Geralt's story is about 15 years in the past, and Yennefer's origin story is much older than that. At least 30 years before Geralt's story. Eventually, by the final episode, all three stories end up in the same timeline. I thin they could have thrown a quick "15 years earlier" up on the screen at some point.

Now it's just like a 2 year wait until the next season *sigh*.

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Finally finished the Witcher.

Loved the big sorcery battle at the end.

I knew their series were written with multiple seasons in mind but I'm a bit suprised that this felt confident enough to end the series with two protagonists finally meeting each other.

Many questions left unresolved yet knowable by anybody who's played the computer games (I'm always amused by the fact that the actor who voiced Ciri's Dad in the computer game is a bigger name than the actor in the TV series).  One question that the computer games don't explain and I was hoping that the TV series does is why Nilfgard are such wankers.  I mean they had for a key Nilfgard character the guy who played Richard Horne (in the Twin Peaks revival) who was so repellently evil that Big Bad Cooper (his dad and #1 evil dude) felt safer getting him killed in an obvious trap rather than share the same world for another second longer.  

 

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9 hours ago, metcalph said:

I knew their series were written with multiple seasons in mind but I'm a bit suprised that this felt confident enough to end the series with two protagonists finally meeting each other.

Okay but to be fair how could they not it was ... not Chekhov's gun but it was the climax the entire season was rising to

Also, is anyone else enjoying but perplexed that our darling sorceress is about 100 times more nuanced, complex, and deep a character than the alleged protagonist? I love her

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14 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Also, is anyone else enjoying but perplexed that our darling sorceress is about 100 times more nuanced, complex, and deep a character than the alleged protagonist? I love he

Fummy you said that, I heard some youtuber voice the same critic.

As, for me, I think Yennifer, Ciri, Geralt are all both equally interested and represented. I have only been disappointed by Triss that is way more interesting in the video game!

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5 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Fummy you said that, I heard some youtuber voice the same critic.

As, for me, I think Yennifer, Ciri, Geralt are all both equally interested and represented. I have only been disappointed by Triss that is way more interesting in the video game!

Oh you misunderstand, I'm not complaining.

But yeah where the f is Triss, she had like the same screen time as Rose Tico did in the latest Jedi flick, I was doubly mad because she's soooooo cute with all those freckles

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On 12/20/2019 at 7:17 PM, Lloyd Dupont said:

one bad thing I have to say...

from scene to scene, with some given characters.. time goes back and forth unexpectedly....

got me confused at first! 😮 

not quite sure what to think of it now....

I wasn't confused... But likely only because I was warned by this thread!

The issue is real.  It moves the series from a "strong recommend" to a "recommended, but with caveats" from me.

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A lot of people are commenting about the timey-wimey play and honestly I didn't notice it as a stretch. It seemed such a natural and fun play of narrative - I mean, what an opportunity with immortal, unaging characters! Especially when you meet a mature character who seems to be important and then you start to unravel their past, and so often that past is really unexpected. I would never have predicted the series finale from the first episode, but it was so natural an evolution.

But a lot of people have reported it as confusing so I guess they're gonna not do that in the future. A shame, I really found it stimulating.

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3 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

But a lot of people have reported it as confusing so I guess they're gonna not do that in the future. A shame, I really found it stimulating.

Remember Season 4 of Arrested Development, and how it was re-edited to present the story in chronological order to appease confused critics?  Kind of undercut the vision of the original.

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3 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

A lot of people are commenting about the timey-wimey play and honestly I didn't notice it as a stretch. It seemed such a natural and fun play of narrative - I mean, what an opportunity with immortal, unaging characters! Especially when you meet a mature character who seems to be important and then you start to unravel their past, and so often that past is really unexpected. I would never have predicted the series finale from the first episode, but it was so natural an evolution.

But a lot of people have reported it as confusing so I guess they're gonna not do that in the future. A shame, I really found it stimulating.

I also don't mind that they do it; think it can even be a Good Thing!

I just think they did it the wrong way:  unmarked, unannounced.

It really breaks me out of immersion in the narrative, when I need to step back and intellectually analyze (anthro/historian style) that   oh, this happened... uh... about a generation ago, I guess?  And that happened... uh... longer ago... not sure how much longer... huh... and t'other odd scenes, 2-3 episodes ago, did those oddities... hrm... yes, probably... and which time(s) were they???

You know how I think they could -- should! -- fix it?  Go back in and add a fade-in to the start of every time-differential, marked as "12 years before Cirilla meets Geralt" or "3 days before Cirilla meets Geralt" or "89 Years before Cirilla meets Geralt" or whatever.  Then do the same thing going forward, and continue to follow with "before" or "after" for each scene.

It'd make a nice frame to show that this destined meeting is a critical one.

Or pick another moment... Ciri's birth; the fall of Cintra; the battle at Sodden

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On 12/21/2019 at 3:17 AM, Lloyd Dupont said:

one bad thing I have to say...

from scene to scene, with some given characters.. time goes back and forth unexpectedly....

got me confused at first! 😮 

I was confused mid-series, until I realised that some of the scenes were flashbacks to several years ago. 

Overall, I enjoyed the Witcher, solid modern-style Fantasy.

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

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5 hours ago, g33k said:

You know how I think they could -- should! -- fix it?  Go back in and add a fade-in to the start of every time-differential, marked as "12 years before Cirilla meets Geralt" or "3 days before Cirilla meets Geralt" or "89 Years before Cirilla meets Geralt" or whatever.  Then do the same thing going forward, and continue to follow with "before" or "after" for each scene.

that would defeat the narrative decision! they made a real conscious decision to underline his inhumanity and also not to make it a bog standard fantasy by using those kinds of signals.

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46 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

that would defeat the narrative decision! they made a real conscious decision to underline his inhumanity and also not to make it a bog standard fantasy by using those kinds of signals.

Showing him as unchanging -- even as others change -- would still (in fact, MORE) underscore his inhumanity:

  • <scene:  CmG -5months> Geralt does something
  • <cutscene:  CmG -75years>  Geralt does something else, looking identical  ...  <WTF 75 years and he looks the same??!?>

 

As it stands, it is IMHO an overly-confusing signal -- he looks the same, reinforcing the "it's all roughly happening at the same time" perspective, rather than the inhumanity.

 

I suspect he's also signalling that "unchanging inhumanity" with the more flat affect and 2-dimensional characterization:  Geralt really IS that flat, as a person... almost like he wasn't even human!  😁    (at least in most of Season 1)

I mean... I like it well enough that I plan to keep watching!  I am just... less than thrilled with their "narrative decision" to (from my POV) sabotage the narrative impact.

But there are several people that I know for whom this makes it a "do not recommend" -- they either would not follow the timechanges well, or they'd dislike it more than I do, sufficient to dislike the whole series.

 

YourGeraltMayVary

 

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