It is weird that both Altered Carbon and the Witcher started with huge amounts of nudity, death, grit, and darkness.
But then both tried to dial it back for season 2.
The Witcher not as much, which is why it wasn't a train wreck.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Good news: Show renewed for S4 ahead of S3
?????? news: Henry Cavill out as Geralt, Liam Hemsworth in
- Netflix twitter
accompanying press release
Larry isn't jacked enough to play Geralt; he only has an 8pack, remember?
Edited by Synchronicity on Oct 29th 2022 at 2:46:37 PM
That's a shame Cavill as Geralt was perfect casting. He's going to be hard to follow.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup threadCavill actually has been unhappy in the role for a long time. Cavill is a Witcher super fan and apparently hates all the changes they keep making to the text. He actually flat out refused to do one scene and rewrote it himself.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 29th 2022 at 2:52:30 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.The changes from the books are adding up too:
- The Evil Nilfgaardian General Dude is actually a heroic boyish knight who is in love with Ciri
- Fringilla female fanatical Nilfgaardian sorceress is actually a fun tomboy sorcerer in love with Geralt
- The elves don't murder a bunch of babies
- Yennefer would rather die than ever hurt Ciri versus wanting to sacrifice her to Baba Yaga (that was an awesome hut, though)
- The two Witchers they kill in the climax are actually major characters with their own arcs in later books
- Vilgfortz is shown to be a mediocre sorcerer instead of the primary antagonist and greatest one in the world.
Wow thats certainly something to learn about
While you don't have to be a mega-fan to adapt something, you should at least do so with a general respect and desire to do so accurately to the source material
Ha getting writers who actively disdain the major prior works ever worked out?
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I'm going to have to do that thing again where I say that there's no divine mandate that a movie or series be a perfect, one-to-one adaptation of the source material. That said, if Cavill is really upset because of what they're changing, then I will respect that since I very much respect his dedication to the character of Geralt.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I take a moderate view that an adaptation doesn't have to be 1:1 but that if you're marketing something as an adaptation, the people who come to see it because of it being an adaptation do so because they already like it and changes will be subject to extra scrutiny.
Last season there was an adaptation of the Beauty and the Beast short story by Sapkowski which is about a man falling in love with a monster and his (and her) humanity existing despite how awful he was. The Netflix adaptation was how he was actually EVIL and deserved to be killed.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.RE: Cavill leaving the show:
NOOOOOO!
(*learns that it's because he's coming back as Superman*)
Oh, that's right. Okay, I'm less freaked out now.
(*learns that he wasn't happy being Geralt anyway because of the changes they keep making*)
Well. That's new. And heartbreaking.
(*learns that the writers on The Witcher show don't really like the books or the video games*)
...Then why are they on this show in the first place? That's like being hired to write a show for Halo and not bothering with the lore.
Oh. Wait.
Okay, what is it with adaptational TV shows and hiring writers who don't even care about the source material? Doesn't anyone else think that's just backwards? What's next, the writers for the Last of Us HBO series turn out to actually hate the games?
Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Oct 29th 2022 at 7:13:50 AM
When hiring writers for an adaptation, you'd at least want someone both fond and familiar enough with the source material to at least not make it In Name Only, which often defeats the point of making an adaptation as opposed to bootstrapping what's basically an original work onto it. They don't have to love it or strive for a perfect one-to-one adaptation but they should at least understand it somewhat, because knowing it enough to understand its mistakes and lesser aspects also will help them to know what kinds of mistakes to avoid.
Edited by AlleyOop on Oct 29th 2022 at 7:24:17 AM
Getting these kinds of writers does also add the risk of them making unnecessary changes under the idea that they are "improving" the source material
Like how the writers for the Halo show thought they were making some kind of deep statement on Master Chief the games never did when all it amounted to is just Chief having sex with a woman.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."For reference, this is a claim
coming from one of the former producers and writer, Beau DeMayonote , in his Q&A focusing on the upcoming X-Men '97 animated series. He used this claim to justify how X-Men will have to have fans, and how fandoms are used as "limit tests to keep egos in check" for deviations.
The IGN article points out that the series has a rotating cast of writers, and "some" was used to vaguely describe them.
Edited by XMenMutant22 on Oct 29th 2022 at 12:23:54 PM
Henry Cavill's quite possibly the biggest superfan of the IP, and he practically bent himself over backwards just to get a shot at playing Geralt. He's already mentioned in the past about wanting Geralt to be more like his book self, and that he'd been pushing for it.
To quote:
Just watch any interview with him regarding the series and his passion is basically overflowing, which is why him bowing out after Season 4 has everyone scratching their heads. There's also Beau de Mayo, a former writer for the show, straight up saying the a lot of people who worked on the show straight up disliked the books and the games, going so far as to openly mock the source material.
I have a feeling Cavill was basically butting heads almost nonstop trying to get the writing team to stay faithful to the books, which they clearly didn't want if Season 2 is anything to go by, hence his decision to leave the series.
"Henry Cavill loves the Witcher IP" is obvious; "the writers don't care for the Witcher IP" has a couple of verifiable sources: DeMayo's comments primarily, plus Cavill's said he's tried to get more book fidelity on there. "Henry Cavill was butting heads with the producers and quit because of Creative Differences" is a theory, and I think that Netflix releasing the news themselves instead of having a major trade break it is an attempt on their end to control the narrative and tamp down on said speculation.
Edited by Synchronicity on Oct 30th 2022 at 12:41:50 PM

The writers toned down the nudity this season, which I found interesting. I don't mind a bit of T&A, but it can be distracting and there's an important core story being told.
For a few moments I thought we'd see "more" of Ciri, but she is supposed to be underage in the story even if her actress is an adult, so it would have been a bit creepy.
Edited by Fighteer on Dec 30th 2021 at 10:03:27 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"