By Sam Coles:
When crafting an adaptation it’s almost the same as standing
the on the side of a building, where you have one side telling you to jump
because you didn’t get every detail right while others are trying to save you.
Nowhere is this more prevalent with book adaptations where most of the time
they do get it right, but there are times where they completely miss the target
and bombard the nearby village. Fortunately The Witcher on Netflix falls in the
camp of a good adaptation of the books, now it’s not all plain sailing but
overall it is good. I want to talk about the series as a whole and give my
thoughts.
Let’s give some background about The Witcher, based on a set
of novels by Andrzej Sapkowski that were first published in the early 1990s in
Poland were at first a set of short stories that then birthed a saga. Years
later CD Projekt Red managed to negotiate the rights of the books from the author
and made games about them, simply named The Witcher. It wasn’t until 2015 with
The Witcher 3 that the series exploded with popularity, where people started to
pick up the books which I did but much earlier in 2012 after finishing The
Witcher 2.
Like many I was sceptical about the Netflix series with the announcement,
I was worried that they were going to tone down the violence and themes but
then remembered Netflix are not bound by traditional television rules. When it
finally debuted I was in love with it, the world from the books were perfectly
translated onto screen coupled with the great characters, speaking of which.
Henry Cavill as Geralt of Riva was a great casting choice;
he is very vocal about his love for The Witcher with both the books and the
games. He takes elements from both the games and books, where he takes the
gravely demeanour of the video games but he also brings across the sarcastic
wit and often aggressive and broken man that is Geralt of the books. His performance
as the monster hunter is superb; his delivery in every scene is on point
coupled with his chemistry with the rest of the cast which is very convincing.
Not only that Anya Chalotra who plays Yennefer of Vengerberg
is the perfect second half for Henry as Geralt, the passion between the two performers
really captures the love that Geralt and Yen have in the books. They argue and
then proceed to have sex afterwards, one would say a chemically imbalanced relationship,
but one of filled with passion nonetheless. These two really carry the entire
first season, as they really embody the characters and they are what I imagine
them being from page to screen. She does a really good job of bringing the sorceress and temptress to life.
Cinematography and music is fantastic, the series is shot
masterfully with great angles and close ups during really intense moments
coupled with great camera work during the fight sequences with quick cuts that
don’t muddle conflicts. The music is unique while taking some ques from The
Witcher 3 soundtrack from the folk band Percival, plus we have “Toss a coin to
your Witcher” which the internet immediately ran into the ground. Overall
presentation of the production is fantastic, with the costume design for Geralt
looking amazing, where it is clearly inspired by the default armour set of The
Witcher 3.
Now it’s not entirely perfect this series there were some
questionable choices with design and cast, first is the casting of Triss Merigold.
Now I’m all for different interpretations of a character if the description is
somewhat vague, however Triss is distinctively written to be a red head and
they cast someone with dark hair, what? It doesn’t shatter the immersion
completely as she still has the same mannerisms from the books, but I did have
to look twice when Yennefer called her Triss. Another problem I had are the
designs for the Nilfgaardian armour, good lord I shan’t elude to what it looks
like but most juvenile minds can put two and two together. It just doesn’t look
great, but you don’t see it too often which is fine.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised with Netflix’s adaptation
of The Witcher, Henry Cavill nailed the portrayal of The White Wolf Geralt of
Riva and the characters overall where expertly written. The world was
faithfully brought to live from page to screen, and I look forward to season 2
in 2021.
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