The Comic Con trailer has cemented every fear I had concerning Netflix Original based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s “The Witcher”.
Earlier this week Netflix has finally revealed the trailer of an upcoming series “The Witcher”. The news concerning the series started circling around some time in 2017, to the appeal of most of the fans. Only in 2018, however, solid facts concerning the cast and other details were revealed.
Who are the fans of “The Witcher” mostly?
The first massive group were, quite obviously, die-hard fans of the book series by Andrzej Sapkowski. The series goes as deep as 1986, when Sapkowski made a debut in a science fiction magazine “Fantastyka”. It has been also successfully forged into a game, one of the most critically acclaimed, worldwide loved titles in recent years. And Netflix took over from the point where expectations were going through the roof.
One last thing worth noting is that due to the discrepancies between the game and written word, these two groups had a pretty rough time finding an equilibrium.
Before I go into details, watch “The Witcher” trailer here:
Thoughts?
If you ask me, “The Witcher” trailer looks like the kind of movie that Syfy Channel could easily call their upper-level production.
Let’s start from the fact that it screams “Game of Thrones” so hard, it’s repelling. Instead of going for its own understanding of fantasy, the scenes shown in the trailer look as if taken from another season of HBO’s hit. While I get that Netflix would cherish a series as popular, “The Witcher” should really push its own, unique agenda.
And while we’ll still have to wait, these 2 minutes ain’t promising.
Then, there is our dear Henry Cavill, a.k.a Geralt From Rivia.
It’s enough to say that Cavill’s a really cool, down-to-earth guy as it could observed during multiple interviews, but this choice to be Gerald from Rivia deemed rather bold. Neither Superman nor Guy Ritchie’s comedy or war movie hero aren’t exactly dark characters. And when Superman did go nuts for a second, Cavill’s only tool to get attention was the infamous un-CGI’ed moustache.
But hey, didn’t we all go nuts when Heath Ledger was cast as the next Joker? Yes we did. And Cavill, like anybody else, deserves a shot. The trailer, however, reveals that Superman’s Superstill is pretty much rooted in Cavill’s acting manner, which calls for a red card here.
The Witcher trailer is just a tiny sneak peek
I’m far from judging Netflix’s “The Witcher” yet, but I gotta say – this trailer didn’t turn me into an ardent believer of its success. Much more than that, it channels the vibe of “hey guys, at least we tried, right?“.
At the end of the day, it’s still Netflix. When the streaming giant wants, it can bring some serious stuff to the table. “The Witcher” is a safe win given its enormous popularity, but riding the wave can only last as a season, maybe two at best. Sapkowski’s world is gigantic and there is material to span across many great seasons. All it takes is a firm hand that will deliver a quality much higher than the trailer they have produced for now.
