The Witcher is getting a Netflix series

[Syegfryed]

Your previous post already demonstrated you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm looking for DATA, not a random collection of single points without baseline comparison values or adequate sampling.

So ,basically, you are using an absolutist fallacy, understood.

Your methodology is "I don't know it therefore it doesn't exist", you have nothing useful to contribute to this.

No, i just say i didn't know and asked for examples that you didn't provide either.

[Biomega]

So ,basically, you are using an absolutist fallacy, understood.

In yet another stunning display of proving you have no idea what you're talking about, you got just about everything wrong in this sentence.

I'm demanding the absolute minimum for sound data: a good sample size and a baseline for comparison. If that's too much for you, cool, kindly remove yourself from the conversation.

[Syegfryed]

In yet another stunning display of proving you have no idea what you're talking about, you got just about everything wrong in this sentence.

I'm demanding the absolute minimum for sound data: a good sample size and a baseline for comparison. If that's too much for you, cool, kindly remove yourself from the conversation.

And did say some movies that made success by being faithful and said many more movies that became failures and were not faithful. For you, that isn't enough, you also can't point the reverse, when the movie made success while shitting on books

And its funny that you want someone removed from conversation when in the first place, you did not want to have a conversation about the subject, because like you mentioned yourself, you don't know one way or another, you just raise a point in a tentative to be something that can't be checked, and ignored the examples that are given, saying they are not enough, because ~~reasons~~

So yeeha, people can make the claim that being more faithful to the source the movie will be more successful, we do have example of this happening. and examples showing otherwise. If this is factual or not? then we would ned to check every single adaptation made, but the claim can be made just fine, because we have examples of happening.

[Biomega]

And did say some movies that made success by being faithful

PROVE IT.

You have a movie that's successful. That movie is also faithful to the source (to some degree).

Now prove it was successful BECAUSE it was faithful, and not because of other reasons.

That's my entire point. That's WHY you need DATA and not just people making wild assertions about correlation vs. causation.

QED yet again that you didn't understand a thing.

For you, that isn't enough, you also can't point the reverse, when the movie made success while shitting on books

Didn't someone literally bring up The Shining a few posts ago? A film that is considered a cinematic classic and was financially successful (with a higher per-screen average gross than Empire Strikes Back), yet goes in a wildly different direction than the book, to the point where the author said he hated it.

And don't tell me an example like that would just disprove your entire claim; I wouldn't believe you if you did. And it 's not how any of it works to begin with.

[Syegfryed]

PROVE IT.

Lmao, if the book is successful because the story told is good, and the movie that follows the same story is also successful, you still want to claim it was not because it was faithful? not even a bit of it? Then because of what? production value? budget? Rings of power had all of this and did not make a success, and the pivotal point is the shit writing telling a different story.

You have a movie that's successful. That movie is also faithful to the source (to some degree).

Now prove it was successful BECAUSE it was faithful, and not because of other reasons.

Basically, your claim is that this is just a coincidence, its good because other reasons, and it just happens to be faithful, the success is not related to retelling in a different media the story that made success, ok.

Didn't someone literally bring up The Shining a few posts ago? A film that is considered a cinematic classic and was financially successful (with a higher per-screen average gross than Empire Strikes Back), yet goes in a wildly different direction than the book, to the point where the author said he hated it.

Pretty sure the first Bladerunner was also very different from the first novel, still made success. too, this no way shape or form disregard the claim that movies that don't shit on the source are more successful compared to movies who don't.

Like, if we go for fantasy genre only, there is many movies based on books, many, the ones who are failure ignored most of the sources - books that made success - you can't possibly say those are just coincidences

I think is something rly easy to understand this dilemma:

- if the book is good, and tell a good story, if you take this good story into the movie, it will be a good movie, therefore, succesful.
- If the book is good and tell a good story, but you ignore most of it and make another, there are two options, either the story you tell is 1.bad(worse than the books or shit on the source) Or 2.still is good, even with the changes.

I find number 2 being rly rare and require a rly good writer, something that did not happened with those countless book franchises said in other posts, with ultimately brings the point, as long it is a good story, it will be good, it happens that movies being faithful to a good book story will end up having a good story themselves.

If also find the option 1.5 - a movie being faithful to the books and becoming a failure - something even rarer. But im pretty sure it exists

[Biomega]

you still want to claim it was not because it was faithful? not even a bit of it?

AND AGAIN you prove you don't understand this.

I'm not saying it's NOT because it was faithful. You even quoted me saying I'm not saying one way OR another. I'm not making ANY claim in that respect. YOU ARE. So prove it.

You make a claim, you need to prove it - or we can all just dismiss it. If your claim is that the film was successful because it was faithful to the source... PROVE IT, or we can all say "cool story bro" and ignore you.

Basically, your claim is that this is just a coincidence

No. I'm not making any claim whatsoever as to why it's successful.

Which you would know if you understood what my point was. But you very clearly do not.

this no way shape or form disregard the claim that movies that don't shit on the source are more successful compared to movies who don't.

If that's your claim, prove it. It's not my claim, nor is the opposite of it my claim.

you can't possibly say those are just coincidences

I'm not. I never did, and never will. You invented this whole "it's just a coincidence" shtick in a misguided attempt to put me on a claim I'm not making and never have made.

I don't know how faithfulness plays into the success of an adaptation. That's WHY I'm asking people to provide data. Or stop claiming THEY know how it works, if they can't prove it. I don't know. I want to know. That's why I'm asking for data.

Is that really too difficult for you to comprehend, or are you just, like, intentionally refusing to follow the conversation?

EDIT: Oh, and, my larger point isn't about one particular movie anyway. So even if you could prove that, say, Harry Potter 1 was successful because it was faithful to the source, my question is whether or not being faithful results in more success IN GENERAL. There'll be examples for and against it, but I want data that denotes TRENDS.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

- Lord of the rings
- Harry Potter
- First Narnia Book
- Sandman(not from books but still)
- Does invincible count?

There is also tons of other who are not fantasy but adapted from books, that became successful by being faithful like No Country for Old Men, Silence of the Lambs(?), soooo, there is data to back up, maybe not much, but it exists.

Gotta ask because you keep mentioning LoTR, how are you defining faithful?

Like the Jackson movies cut a ton of content added in stuff that was never in the book and completely changed the themes and portrayals of major characters. Like all movies are going to change some things but as far as your list goes the Jackson movies are heads and trails above some of the other.

[Syegfryed]

AND AGAIN you prove you don't understand this.

I'm not saying it's NOT because it was faithful. You even quoted me saying I'm not saying one way OR another. I'm not making ANY claim in that respect. YOU ARE. So prove it.

You make a claim, you need to prove it - or we can all just dismiss it. If your claim is that the film was successful because it was faithful to the source... PROVE IT, or we can all say "cool story bro" and ignore you.

I made a claim and i gave examples, you think they are not enough or are not valid, you are seeking for an absolutist fallacy here when its not needed.

It's not my claim, nor is the opposite of it my claim.

So, why did you raise the point then? your point is that both cannot proven, so, we should not discuss or talk about it or make claim even hen we can see an obvious pattern? what is the point of it? basically to say "no you can't prove, drop the subject"?

I don't know how faithfulness plays into the success of an adaptation. That's WHY I'm asking people to provide data.

And people provided you enough movies that were faithful and were successful and provided tons of more movies that were not faithful and were failures... If that is not data, what it is? thats why im saying absolutist fallacy, you want people to verify all the movies made from books that exist to be able to make that claim, even when we can see a clear pattern of how key the faithfulness is on those franchises.

In the end of the day faithfulness DO play a role, wanting to compare how much would be the key question and that is another subject to discuss for sure.

EDIT: Oh, and, my larger point isn't about one particular movie anyway. So even if you could prove that, say, Harry Potter 1 was successful because it was faithful to the source, my question is whether or not being faithful results in more success IN GENERAL.

And like i said, seeing how many franchise of fantasy books were ruined, and all of then have the same constant variable (not being faithful), compared to the ones who were successful with the same variable(being faithful) we can make a claim that it does more success in general, at least in the fantasy genre.

To factually make things clear we would need to check every fantasy movie made from books and compare, maybe someone will do that when they have a free time

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Gotta ask because you keep mentioning LoTR, how are you defining faithful? .

We both know the movie does not need to be a copy page by page from the books, but it does need to, at least, tell the same story.

There is a fine gradient and how much you can push for the line until it breaks, but as an example, changes in the level of Lord of the rings are acceptable, changes at the level of rings of power are not.

Like, there is changes in rings of power that are acceptable, like shrinking the timeline, making Galadriel more of a warrior, but Stuff like Magic mithril and two durins, by example, to me are where you crossed the line too much.

And im not trying to be biased here, there is some changes in lord of the rings that are rly bad, but this gets overshadowed by the good things that happen in the movie that are faithful to the book, not just Easter eggs or references

[Lorgar Aurelian]

We both know the movie does not need to be a copy page by page from the books, but it does need to, at least, tell the same story.

There is a fine gradient and how much you can push for the line until it breaks, but as an example, changes in the level of Lord of the rings are acceptable, changes at the level of rings of power are not.

Like, there is changes in rings of power that are acceptable, like shrinking the timeline, making Galadriel more of a warrior, but Stuff like Magic mithril and two durins, by example, to me are where you crossed the line too much.

And im not trying to be biased here, there is some changes in lord of the rings that are rly bad, but this gets overshadowed by the good things that happen in the movie that are faithful to the book, not just Easter eggs or references

So would you say for example the hobbit movies were more or less faithful because they hit all the key story beats of the book and told the same story even if they had some not great added fluff?

My go to for faithfulness would be Harry Potter as beyond just the story the characters are mostly how they are in the book and a lot of key events play out the same way, unlike the PJ movies were some characters are vastly gutted and things like Sauron’s death and abunch of other key points play out vastly different.

[Ivanstone]

Isn't the "unfaithful" Witcher one of Netflix's biggest successes? Even the "shitty" second season is in Netflix's top ten viewer numbers.

[Syegfryed]

So would you say for example the hobbit movies were more or less faithful because they hit all the key story beats of the book and told the same story even if they had some not great added fluff?

the hobbits are definitly off, they took the story and add stuff that didn't exist, that were shit

I don't think the movies told the same story from the books with so many changes though

My go to for faithfulness would be Harry Potter as beyond just the story the characters are mostly how they are in the book and a lot of key events play out the same way, unlike the PJ movies were some characters are vastly gutted and things like Sauron’s death and abunch of other key points play out vastly different.

HP is probably the winner in terms of how well adapted and faithful a movie can be especially the first movies, i don't remember another who can top that out.

One of the reasons i think most fantasy books should be adapted to shows/tv series, the movie format is a trap, 1 to 3 hours to adapt those many pages is a challenge that few can pull out, a show you have like 6-8 hours at minimum to cover most of the key points

I woul def like a reboot of Lord of the rings following the book in a tv show, showing things like Tom bombadil, and i think with the produces value and budget they can pull off nowadays it would be even better than the movies

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Isn't the "unfaithful" Witcher one of Netflix's biggest successes? Even the "shitty" second season is in Netflix's top ten viewer numbers.

I remember season 2 didn't perform as well as season 1, but i don't have the numbers to say it was, personally i think the show only sustained themselves because the popularity of the game and Henry Cavill.

[Ivanstone]

I remember season 2 didn't perform as well as season 1, but i don't have the numbers to say it was, personally i think the show only sustained themselves because the popularity of the game and Henry Cavill.

Season 2 didn't perform as well as Season 1. It still murdered almost everything else.

Love it or hate it, its a big success.

You are vastly overestimating the importance of faithfulness. The Witcher is a good product. Its full of horrible violence, black humour, people fucking and last but certainly not least, a hawt hunchback lady!

Oh and that Cavill guy. I guess he counts. I recently found out that the main reason there was a decline in viewership is because Yennefer is no longer a hawt hunchback lady. Proof. Never underestimate the power of a good kink.

[Syegfryed]

Season 2 didn't perform as well as Season 1. It still murdered almost everything else.

Love it or hate it, its a big success.

You are vastly overestimating the importance of faithfulness. The Witcher is a good product. Its full of horrible violence, black humour, people fucking and last but certainly not least, a hawt hunchback lady!

I think people are underestimating faithfulness actually, cause i think its more challenging making up a good story for movie with the book as guide than just use the good story from the books

Oh and that Cavill guy. I guess he counts. I recently found out that the main reason there was a decline in viewership is because Yennefer is no longer a hawt hunchback lady. Proof. Never underestimate the power of a good kink.

Lmao, that is interesting, i actually know a lot of people who said she was cuter that way, she kinda became a bit of bitch after turning pretty

[Flurryfang]

Can someone help me here, why are people so mad at the writers/show runners on this show?

Like i get that it is bad, that Cavil is going away, but why the sudden avalanche of critique down on the rest of the show? I do not remember hearing people coming that hard down on the show when season 2 ended?

Im really confused here....

[Ivanstone]

I think people are underestimating faithfulness actually, cause i think its more challenging making up a good story for movie with the book as guide than just use the good story from the books

Its challenging making a good anything. Anything I watch I assume its going to be only adequate. Exceptional is an anomaly.

[Mardux]

the hobbits are definitly off, they took the story and add stuff that didn't exist, that were shit

I don't think the movies told the same story from the books with so many changes though


HP is probably the winner in terms of how well adapted and faithful a movie can be especially the first movies, i don't remember another who can top that out.

One of the reasons i think most fantasy books should be adapted to shows/tv series, the movie format is a trap, 1 to 3 hours to adapt those many pages is a challenge that few can pull out, a show you have like 6-8 hours at minimum to cover most of the key points

I woul def like a reboot of Lord of the rings following the book in a tv show, showing things like Tom bombadil, and i think with the produces value and budget they can pull off nowadays it would be even better than the movies

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I remember season 2 didn't perform as well as season 1, but i don't have the numbers to say it was, personally i think the show only sustained themselves because the popularity of the game and Henry Cavill.

That's convenient considering "the numbers" contradict your claim. S2 recieved *far more* awards and nominations than S1 and had much higher critic scores than S1. Unfortunately, it also had a higher number of bandwagoners who wanted to downvote it because they didn't agree with Cavill.

[Syegfryed]

That's convenient considering "the numbers" contradict your claim. S2 recieved *far more* awards and nominations than S1 and had much higher critic scores than S1. Unfortunately, it also had a higher number of bandwagoners who wanted to downvote it because they didn't agree with Cavill.

Did they won anything? a lot of things get nominated for stuff

[Koriani]

I wouldn't call Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining "borderline faithful." The central character Jack is fundamentally more changed than, say, Idris Elba's Roland in the Dark Tower.

Well as I said in my first post about this subject back to Biomega - "And then you get those arguing about what "Super Faithful" or "Faithful" Adaptation mean =D. And here we are - as to why I called it 'borderline" Faithful. That would be words one would use when you're hedging the bet whether some might consider this a faithful, or not, movie adaptation. (And that yes, I agreed, it was a success even if it wasn't as-faithful as other adaptations of books. But also not an entirely UNFAITHFUL adaptation as most of it outside of Jack was the book.)

I don't want to sidetrack this further into a discussion of how off the mark or not Kubrick's Jack character is from the book, or how Nicholson played him. Just in my eyes, I consider Kubrick's Shining to be "pretty /close/" to "Faithful Adaptation" , but that might be a relative comparison due to the fact that so many other 'adaptations' are even LESS Faithful than this one for this book. =D If we wish to get into further discussion on King, in any fashion though, we need to take it to another thread.

Yet the former is considered a timeless classic, and The Dark Tower adaptation had a huge shitfest surround it by casting Idris as Roland. Now, the Dark Tower adaptation was a bad movie, but it had nothing to do with Idris being cast as Roland. If anything, it was Matthew McConaughey's The Man in Black who was a cartoonish caricature of the book character, and made the movie bad. But the movie isn't a faithful adaptation either, so that's no evidence of anything - I just wanted to point out how fundamentally different the Jack Nicholson character was from the book - and the movie was still successful.

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That is an interesting very narrow viewing of The Dark Tower adaptation, as basically very little outside of the names was similar to the books. So yes, The Shining was A LOT more faithful to the story as a whole, even if individual characters varied from the story compared to The Dark tower.

See and this is where I start to stand on the other side of the reception and "reality" of The Dark Tower, as a movie and as an 'adaptation'.

ALSO SPOILERS For the Dark Tower (book series) Ending below so if you don't want to know how King finishes it, ignore the rest--


Because while no it isn't at all an adaptation of the novel titled "The Dark Tower" - it was never meant to be and even King made statements to this effect. That I guess no one wanted to listen to. That this was NOT "The Dark Tower" the novel he wrote but that it WAS another turning of the Wheel of that Story.

Which for Dark Tower World and Lore is entirely World and Lore appropriate and fits just fine as another turning of the Wheel. That if you had a collection of short stories about the World of the Dark Tower after the end of the last King written book, you'd have multiple story like this - retelling aspects of Rolands journey with different 'events' and people. Offshoots of the story that is, per King's own writing and ending, *turning around and repeating the Story again with different aspects in different ways but still repeating the Conflict* And in THAT form of an 'adaptation' of the World itself and the story King wrote - it fits just fine.

I think this movie suffered most from what really ALL Book Adaptations can suffer from and IS relevant to this thread (I think) is that Audience Expectations can, more than anything, make or break a book adaptation. If King fans and general audiences (not sure if that would be possible without reading the books lol) had better understood that this story was meant to be another Turning of the Wheel *tm* of the Roland/Flagg ETERNAL STRUGGLE then it would have been better received. One has to understand that Mid-World was always a part of a multi-verse of possibilities and that the story King wrote was *one version* of a story that has repeated its play multiple times, with different events. Viewed in those lines you've got the adaptation of a story that still fits with the original, because the original is also understood to be one version among many repeats.

So it doesn't matter that Elba is black, because guess what, the way King wrote it, the in world lore allows for the fact that during some of these Story Timelines, Roland could be black (because it never stays the same.) And in this timeline he never runs into those other characters in King's timeline, and that's ok because again, this is a different timeline to the same (repeated) story. And Flagg's a bit different and does things differently and that's ok, because again, this is a story that repeats, over and over again, every time it 'ends'. The character lore, the Mid-world lore, all of the 'feel' of that to me hits spot on awesomely for a Mid-World Story -you just have to drop the expectation of this movie being adapted from ONE BOOK and realize instead its just staying in-world/in-lore but giving you another version. This 'alternate-verse' version of Roland, Flagg, Mid-World, Jake - actually works in that view. IMO.

And really - please create a Dark Tower Thread if we're getting into that because I already feel like I need to delete all this because it just doesn't belong. But I have a soapbox about that movie and really felt the negative reception it got was unfair (even if justified). Just sucks it means we won't see another attempt at a Dark Tower media anything...for who knows how long. Because they really did NOT push the right narrative on fan/audience expectation.

*gets down off soapbox*

On Topic -
(Though it blows my mind anyone could watch both season and come away with the idea this is Ciri's or Yen's show or that Witcher has less screentime than either. I didn't have to go find the math to know that's a confirmation bias. I watched both seasons, Witcher had more screentime for sure, no question.)

IMO S2 of Witcher goes off rails not necessarily (or not only) because it doesn't focus on Witcher or Witcher/Ciri's relationship as much. While I do think that is PART of the reason, honestly, the bigger reason to me is because they attempted to flush out and play in this over-arching world that they did ZIPPO Development with in the first season. And THAT sudden turn of plot - set in names countries and parts of the world barely even mentioned in the first season - is what helps 'seal the nail in the coffin' of general viewers enjoying S2.

Because I played Witcher 3 between S1 and 2. I Spent 150 hours in that game and DLCs and loved it But I still struggled to even understand and put into context of WTF the Mages/Leaders/Queens/King's were talking about and why any of us, as viewers, would give a shit. They took it from S1 tone of a single or "family" of characters and their individual adventures, to a GOT World-"Political" stage plot dynamics in S2 with almost no bridge in between. They wrote assuming their audience already had some base understanding of this world stage and the politics behind it all, as if their audience already played the games/read the books - spending no real time educating the audience on the greater world political stage and 'why we care' (given our family of main characters in s1) before wanting the audience to be Engaged by that same political stage. I watched every episode in S2, after 150 hours of playing the game, constantly wondering "If I didn't play the game - would I understand why any of this matters to Witcher/Yen or Ciri in this show?" "If I didn't play the game, would I even know who these people are with what I've seen in the show?" The answer, time and again, was "no I would not."

They just didn't do the world-relative build-up in the show to make s2 work when it wasn't focused on Witcher/Ciri and Yen (only when she's involved in Witcher/Ciri plotline - no one cares when she's involved in random royal/mage political plotline). They didn't spend enough time giving those connections to the viewers and that, to me, is what really caused the show to take that nosedive. Nothing to do with whether its book accurate or even game accurate - but more to do that even in the world of the show - they didn't spend the time to develop the world-stage context fully before jumping full force into S4 of GoT. =D

[Twdft]

I didn't realise this whole "they hate the books" thing came from an ex-writer lol But of course certain people just ran with it.

In a world of 140 characters there is simply no time to confirm with a second source before bleating your opinion into the void.

[Airlick]

I didn't realise this whole "they hate the books" thing came from an ex-writer lol But of course certain people just ran with it. And I'm sure those same people would just not trust a single word anyone has to say otherwise because they're all just lying, or need good PR after Cavill left or whatever (they could be, who knows?). Good grief, consuming media in 2022 is so tiresome if you involve yourself in anything online about it. Anyone remember when you just watched a thing and then moved on to the next one? Good times.

Is this true he's the one who wrote the tree Eskel episode? Because it's pretty ironic if the guy who wrote the episode that butchers the story by far the most (if I recall this is the same episode that has Vesemir turn Mengele on Ciri, which is just as true to the books as tree Eskel) is now accusing the other writers of mocking the books. Even so, he may not be lying even if he was by all means a part of it.