I'm ambivalent when it comes to The Witcher series. I liked one of the games and sorta enjoyed the tv series, disliked the first book and hated the first game. Now Nightmare of the Wolf, that feels like what would happen if you took someone who especially hated the premise of the Witcher series, and paid them to demonstrate exactly why they thought it was so bad. I'm not sure if that turned out to be a good idea.
Nightmare of the Wolf is a prequel film centred around the early life of the Vesemir before he became the old Witcher patriarch. The film faithfully shows how one becomes a Witcher (which necessitates the killing lots and lots of children), and what use a Witcher actually serves to society (which is to say, not very much).
The villain of the story is Tetra, a sorcerer who petitions the authorities to wipe out the Witchers. Now when it comes to anti-Witcher prejudice, my understanding was that people's hatred of them was largely driven by a mixture of bigotry, ignorance, and envy. Nightmare of the Wolf however demonstrates that polite society actually has a ton of valid reasons to massacre the Witchers. As if them killing lots of children to recruit to their cult of superpowered pest controllers didn't already tip you off that there is something wrong with their organisation, this movie goes out of its way to show just how crooked the Witchers really are.
To some extent, I like this development. It always seemed improbable to me that a fantasy setting would treat genuine supermen and sorcerers as pariahs, given how precious they are to those in power. There would have to be something really wrong with them to result in this hatred. So kudos to this movie for retroactively offering such a justification. On the other hand, the movie is still way too fond of Witchers in spite of everything, and it's concerning that Vesemir would want to still associate with them by the end of the story, knowing what they did.
As for the rest of the show, it was decidedly meh. There is some okay action and cool monsters, but I wasn't particularly engaged and didn't care much about the characters. The film feels superfluous, answering the questions about the franchise that no one was asking. There's lots of gore and ass, and an edgy 14 year old me might have enjoyed it. But for the adults interested, I would not make it a priority to watch this.
WesternAnimation Wot, No Geralt?
I'm ambivalent when it comes to The Witcher series. I liked one of the games and sorta enjoyed the tv series, disliked the first book and hated the first game. Now Nightmare of the Wolf, that feels like what would happen if you took someone who especially hated the premise of the Witcher series, and paid them to demonstrate exactly why they thought it was so bad. I'm not sure if that turned out to be a good idea.
Nightmare of the Wolf is a prequel film centred around the early life of the Vesemir before he became the old Witcher patriarch. The film faithfully shows how one becomes a Witcher (which necessitates the killing lots and lots of children), and what use a Witcher actually serves to society (which is to say, not very much).
The villain of the story is Tetra, a sorcerer who petitions the authorities to wipe out the Witchers. Now when it comes to anti-Witcher prejudice, my understanding was that people's hatred of them was largely driven by a mixture of bigotry, ignorance, and envy. Nightmare of the Wolf however demonstrates that polite society actually has a ton of valid reasons to massacre the Witchers. As if them killing lots of children to recruit to their cult of superpowered pest controllers didn't already tip you off that there is something wrong with their organisation, this movie goes out of its way to show just how crooked the Witchers really are.
To some extent, I like this development. It always seemed improbable to me that a fantasy setting would treat genuine supermen and sorcerers as pariahs, given how precious they are to those in power. There would have to be something really wrong with them to result in this hatred. So kudos to this movie for retroactively offering such a justification. On the other hand, the movie is still way too fond of Witchers in spite of everything, and it's concerning that Vesemir would want to still associate with them by the end of the story, knowing what they did.
As for the rest of the show, it was decidedly meh. There is some okay action and cool monsters, but I wasn't particularly engaged and didn't care much about the characters. The film feels superfluous, answering the questions about the franchise that no one was asking. There's lots of gore and ass, and an edgy 14 year old me might have enjoyed it. But for the adults interested, I would not make it a priority to watch this.