After finishing season 3(in my opinion, the last season), I have been left with a bitter taste in my mouth. The Witcher started off very good way back in 2019. It had great actors, quick, edgy action scenes, stunning visuals, great music and interesting characters. Then of course, in the typical Netflix fashion, it was messed up because the writers and showrunners thought they could do better than the original story.
The casting in this series is mostly good. They nailed casting Henry as Geralt, as the actor shows of his love for this world and the character, and you can clearly see it on screen. Also Freya Allan is really good as Ciri, and she looks the part. Both Henry and Freya play well off each other with every scene they are in Anya Chalotra was fine as Yennifer, most of the time. She isn't what the character is suppose to be, but the actress does a fine job. Joey Batey as Jaskier was a standout in season 1, after than he fell hard, and became irritating. The rest of the cast is... well. If you love the lore and story of the original novels, and have come to watch the series due to your love of the games, you will be extremely angry at the casting here. They messed up hard on almost every other character. They changed everything from the looks, to their personalities. Overall, only few actors actually do a good job in their roles.
The story is muddled, and all over the place. Even in season 1, everything is weirdly put together and you don't figure out until near the end of the season, that you've been viewing things from different times. As the seasons progress, things get worse. The story becomes inconsistent, characters change drastically, and it goes from being an interesting, dark world, to a CW series, with cringe dialogue, teenage drama ect. While this series does follow some major story beats of the novels, it diverges so much that it becomes this weirdly put Frankenstein's monster of a series.
The production is fine for the most part, with some amazing scenes of visuals, locations, costumes (not counting the literal garbage armour for soldiers in season 1), make-up and monster designs. Those behind the scenes, that weren't directors and writers, put a lot of effort into the look and feel of this series. The music too, was really good, and most of us have heard of the now iconic "Toss a a coin to your Witcher" song. Who would have though that the series that popped out that great tune, would become one of the worst shows of its kind.
Overall, The Witcher started out great, and declined right after that. It has become so different from its original material, that it feels like the creators of this show, and Rings of Power are competing with each other, to see who ruins its source material the most. Could you imagine how amazing this series could have been if HBO got a hold of it? With the right cast, directors, writers and showrunners, we could have had something that could have gone down as one of the best series out there. But no, Lauren Schmidt Hissrich thinks she knows these characters and this story better than the actual author. And because of that, we have gotten this failure of a series.
5/10.
The casting in this series is mostly good. They nailed casting Henry as Geralt, as the actor shows of his love for this world and the character, and you can clearly see it on screen. Also Freya Allan is really good as Ciri, and she looks the part. Both Henry and Freya play well off each other with every scene they are in Anya Chalotra was fine as Yennifer, most of the time. She isn't what the character is suppose to be, but the actress does a fine job. Joey Batey as Jaskier was a standout in season 1, after than he fell hard, and became irritating. The rest of the cast is... well. If you love the lore and story of the original novels, and have come to watch the series due to your love of the games, you will be extremely angry at the casting here. They messed up hard on almost every other character. They changed everything from the looks, to their personalities. Overall, only few actors actually do a good job in their roles.
The story is muddled, and all over the place. Even in season 1, everything is weirdly put together and you don't figure out until near the end of the season, that you've been viewing things from different times. As the seasons progress, things get worse. The story becomes inconsistent, characters change drastically, and it goes from being an interesting, dark world, to a CW series, with cringe dialogue, teenage drama ect. While this series does follow some major story beats of the novels, it diverges so much that it becomes this weirdly put Frankenstein's monster of a series.
The production is fine for the most part, with some amazing scenes of visuals, locations, costumes (not counting the literal garbage armour for soldiers in season 1), make-up and monster designs. Those behind the scenes, that weren't directors and writers, put a lot of effort into the look and feel of this series. The music too, was really good, and most of us have heard of the now iconic "Toss a a coin to your Witcher" song. Who would have though that the series that popped out that great tune, would become one of the worst shows of its kind.
Overall, The Witcher started out great, and declined right after that. It has become so different from its original material, that it feels like the creators of this show, and Rings of Power are competing with each other, to see who ruins its source material the most. Could you imagine how amazing this series could have been if HBO got a hold of it? With the right cast, directors, writers and showrunners, we could have had something that could have gone down as one of the best series out there. But no, Lauren Schmidt Hissrich thinks she knows these characters and this story better than the actual author. And because of that, we have gotten this failure of a series.
5/10.