“There is never a second opportunity to make a first impression.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Author of The Witcher series​

You've played the games. You've read the books. You... hopefully haven't watched The Hexer. But now it's finally time for us to see Netflix's take on The Witcher. Season 1 of the new series will be 8 episodes long and, as stated by executive producer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, will be heavily based on the Sapkowski books that chronologically take place before the games. The series is set to release later this year.

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[Taleweaver]

You... hopefully haven't watched The Hexer.

Not sure what that's about. But the Dutch word for witch is heks, so with a little imagination, you could call that series a cheap knockoff clone?

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Dunno if we watched the same trailer :/
and some blackwashing has happened with some characters sadly
*Polish tears*

We have. You just give a damn about skin color.

Granted : I don't know any of the characters. If everyone would come from the same region in the books, it'd be pretty strange. But if there are different regions involved, it only makes it easier to distinguish who's from where.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Not sure what that's about. But the Dutch word for witch is heks, so with a little imagination, you could call that series a cheap knockoff clone?

No, the Hexer was both an official movie and a TV series of the Witcher that was only released exclusively in Poland, both of which were pretty bad. The movie came out first, and then the TV series came out a year later...which was basically an extended version of the movie split into 12 or 13 episodes.

 

[MagnesG]

I thought it looked decent. I'm pretty stoked for it and just glad it's a thing.

I wasn't expecting an book faithful adaptation, because it's an adaptation, but the folks getting all raged and judging it from the teaser trailer without having seen it is kind of crazy. It might be fun, it might be really entertaining, it might suck, it's just kind of cool for now that it's even happening.

I followed closely all the news and drama regarding this. They promised something (the showrunner itself). They parade the gospel "following the books as close as possible", "consulting" the author and all that PR fluff. They shit on the games but meanwhile took cues on the visuals design of it.

There's far more contradiction from the books in this, rather than with the games, so I think accepting this whole-fully as its own thing is a better proposition. If they're gonna be different, make it interesting and enjoyable enough, but most importantly make it clear that was the intention from the start.

The whole author 'consultation' and 'respecting the books' are all BS, and from what I see (I know these anecdotes are useless), the receptions by most Europeans especially Polish people who knows what the books are, either they're polite enough by not commenting rude but with little to no excitement, or they're just pissed off.

Lauren, from her twitter:

Will I move through the book and start changing people’s cultural heritage or ethnic makeup or gender because I’m feeling really “liberal” that day? No. That’s ridiculous and contrary to what ANY writer would do, because we are storytellers. Story comes first.

BS

Also Lauren, from Hollywood Reporter:

One of the things I feel most strongly about is people being afraid that we're going to strip out the cultural context of The Witcher, to remove its Slavic roots, the very thing people in Poland are proud of. That couldn't be further from the truth. What I've always wanted to do is take these Slavic stories and give them a global audience.

'Global audience'. This is an American production through and through, with some bits of 'wokeness' sprinkled in. Not that it can't be enjoyable but hey. Let's just say that I will still want to watch this just for shit and giggles.

It's hilarious and sad at the same time.