The Witcher author is a fan of Henry Cavill's portrayal of Geralt – and even imagines the character speaking in Cavill's voice
The Witcher author is a fan of Henry Cavill's portrayal of Geralt – and even imagines the character speaking in Cavill's voice
"The voice of Cavill, that’s right for me"
He's right, Cavill's Geralt was perfect. The Witcher author is still a bit of a wanker, though.
Why is he a wanker?
Sapkowski doesn't/didn't believe that video games are a worthwhile medium of telling a story.
When CDPR wanted to make the first licensed Witcher game, he wanted a one-time payment of about 10k USD or thereabouts because he didn't believe they'd be successful. When they made it big with The Witcher 3, he sued them for their profits, claiming that the licensing contract only covered a single game. They settled the lawsuit, and I think they have a new contract that gives Sapkowski part of the profit.
Dmitry Glukhovsky, author of the Metro novel series, publicly called him an old fool for this on the dead bird site. He's probably right, the games are what propelled his books to worldwide fame.
I dont remember everything, but hes been complaining nonstop about how CDPR is ruining his franchise, said they robbed him of money because the games are worth more than the rights he sold to them, something about how they butchered the books, and continues to claim the books are far more popular than the games.
Idk there was a lot and i might be misremembering things and forgetting others
I can only imagine how giddy this has to make Henry Cavill. This has to be the greatest stamo of approval.
greatest stamo of approval
Henry Cavill: "Have mercy!"
Cavill could've been the Sir Ian McKellen to Gandalf, the William Shatner to Kirk, the Harrison Ford to Indiana Jones.
He could've been immortalised as being Geralt. When people picture Geralt, they could have pictured him.
But the producers and writing staff fucked it all up. I still feel a bit jaded every time I hear about this absolute trainwreck of a TV series.
They fucked it up when they decided to write their own trash instead of staying true to the source material.
This kind of arrogance is prevalant throughout the whole sector and seriously ruins any attempt at making a proper translation of beloved franchises to any form of filmed media.
The moment I hear "the writing team has taken some creative liberty" I am 100% done with your new project. The only thing you need to do in order to litterally print money is hire a scriptwriter and director that has read and is a fan of the source material. No need for writing teams, no need for adaptation to different audiences, just cater to the fans or fuck off.
With Cavill leaving the show the only redeeming quality is gone and I doubt many people will be interested in sticking around for the whole crash and burn that will follow.
Ehhhh sometimes I think you need to make some changes to adapt the content to the new medium.
The Witcher 3 changed a bunch of stuff, it's still a great game.
The Lord of The Rings trilogy changed a lot and IMO they are absolute masterpieces.
The difference being, as you say, you need people involved that are fans and care about the existing art, rather than trying to make it their story out of ego or because they think the original story is dumb.
Those people aren't there for the story, the characters, the universe that was lovingly crafted by the original creator, they just want a popular IP they can stamp their name on and steal the success of. And it doesn't work.
We have leaks of writers from this show literally mocking the original writings. That's a travesty. No wonder they completely butchered the show.
Sounds like Netflix writers are a little too eager to make this work their own.
But this begs the question: why didn't they just write an original series instead of seemingly doing everything "wrong"? (quotes because artistic works technically are entirely subjective, but objective categories of 'right' and 'wrong' probably should supercede this).
It's clear the public wants a faithful portrayal, but that's the one thing the writers just aren't willing to do for some reason. I can't help but wonder why
Because there's no built in fan base with original work. They wanted quick easy money.
That's the answer anytime people do this with existing IPs. They're just using the already built in fan base for fast cash.
IP abuse.
But this begs the question: why didn’t they just write an original series instead of seemingly doing everything “wrong”?
You answered your own question, friend:
Sounds like Netflix writers are a little too eager to make this work their own.
They basically character assassinated and/or completely changed everyone, including the female characters they were trying to prop up as being strong (Yennefer in the Netflix show is a screaming whining mess who can’t do anything on her own and dicks over Ciri while Yennefer in the books and games takes shit from nobody, especially when it comes to Ciri and Geralt). They even (surprised I am even saying this) blackwash Fringilla in the Netflix show, whose entire point in the books is that she looks and is extremely similar to Yennefer during a time when Geralt and Yennefer were broken up. Them expanding on Istredd (except for the weird pedophilia with a young Yennefer) and the head teacher of
HogwartsAretuza was pretty cool, but the writers literally shoehorned their own issues and takes on the show with no respect to the original material.Fwiw, they also bullied the hell out of Cavill on set for trying to keep things faithful to the books and playing the games because A) he’s a Witcher fan and 2) it was helping him get into character.
But this begs the question: why didn’t they just write an original series instead of seemingly doing everything “wrong”?
These people don't care about the material, medium or the consumers - they care about the money. Nothing else. So if someone has an unique and brand new idea for some fantasy series that doesn't have an already established fanbase, it is a gamble to actually produce it ... will it flourish or flop? You simply don't know beforehand, because the public hasn't reacted to the idea yet.
Buying the rights to an already existing franchise with an already existing fanbase and then producing a series about it, that's a lot more likely to make money - plus free advertisement as the already existing fanbase will make sure to share and discuss the upcoming series, internet tabloids will churn out articles about rumors and leaks and the like, and especially when you then do something outrageous like deliberately butchering the story and/or characters or shoehorning your own shitty ideas into the series, you will get even more media coverage for free: angry fans sharing their opinions online, people watching episodes because they couldn't just believe how bad everyone else said they were (or watching them so they could join internet discussions about how bad it was), memes, blogs, discussions ... you get the gist.
To those people, there is nothing "wrong" with that. On the contrary - it makes money, so it must be right. Fuck the source material. Fuck the author. Fuck the fanbase. Their opinions don't matter als long as they stay agitated and keep consuming what we dish out - that's their mindset, and producing deliberately shitty shows even helps with that, as paradoxical as it may sound at first.
It’s clear the public wants a faithful portrayal, but that’s the one thing the writers just aren’t willing to do for some reason. I can’t help but wonder why
Because Netflix doesn't pay for the writers to solve problems. Have something that doesn't translate well to screen? Don't try to figure out to how to make it work—get rid of it. Have a character arc or plot point that moves "too slow" for modern audiences? Good news, that's an action scene now, and there's a gun, or a sword... or a gun-sword!
Sure, the writers can be blamed sometimes (especially when they are also the show runner... cough Davis S. Goyer cough), but a lot of the time, it's studio pressure to make something quickly and that follows a formula that some exec believes is the golden ratio of shit to slick.
On the flip side of this, I wish Peter Jackson and co had been given the proper time to do the hobbit justice.
I at least agree with the 3 movies approach. In an effort to make it a kids book, Tolkien naturally rushes over scenes that aren't kid friendly. Like how the battle of the five armies is like a paragraph and can be summed up as "holy hell that was crazy and amazing, the giant eagles even showed up and carried the day. Too bad you were unconscious the whole time, eh Bilbo." I'm not sure Hollywood audiences would appreciate that kind of climactic fight bait and switch.
To be fair, if you did a faithful adaptation to the Witcher books, you'd end up with a story where Geralt and Ciri barely have any scenes, he's constantly chasing and never catching her for 5 seasons.
Changes needed to be made for the book translation to work, I just think they made too many
I think everyone does... except the bitch in charge.