this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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The Witcher
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Sounds like Netflix writers are a little too eager to make this work their own.
But this begs the question: why didn't they just write an original series instead of seemingly doing everything "wrong"? (quotes because artistic works technically are entirely subjective, but objective categories of 'right' and 'wrong' probably should supercede this).
It's clear the public wants a faithful portrayal, but that's the one thing the writers just aren't willing to do for some reason. I can't help but wonder why
Because there's no built in fan base with original work. They wanted quick easy money.
That's the answer anytime people do this with existing IPs. They're just using the already built in fan base for fast cash.
IP abuse.
You answered your own question, friend:
They basically character assassinated and/or completely changed everyone, including the female characters they were trying to prop up as being strong (Yennefer in the Netflix show is a screaming whining mess who can’t do anything on her own and dicks over Ciri while Yennefer in the books and games takes shit from nobody, especially when it comes to Ciri and Geralt). They even (surprised I am even saying this) blackwash Fringilla in the Netflix show, whose entire point in the books is that she looks and is extremely similar to Yennefer during a time when Geralt and Yennefer were broken up. Them expanding on Istredd (except for the weird pedophilia with a young Yennefer) and the head teacher of ~~Hogwarts~~ Aretuza was pretty cool, but the writers literally shoehorned their own issues and takes on the show with no respect to the original material.
Fwiw, they also bullied the hell out of Cavill on set for trying to keep things faithful to the books and playing the games because A) he’s a Witcher fan and 2) it was helping him get into character.
These people don't care about the material, medium or the consumers - they care about the money. Nothing else. So if someone has an unique and brand new idea for some fantasy series that doesn't have an already established fanbase, it is a gamble to actually produce it ... will it flourish or flop? You simply don't know beforehand, because the public hasn't reacted to the idea yet.
Buying the rights to an already existing franchise with an already existing fanbase and then producing a series about it, that's a lot more likely to make money - plus free advertisement as the already existing fanbase will make sure to share and discuss the upcoming series, internet tabloids will churn out articles about rumors and leaks and the like, and especially when you then do something outrageous like deliberately butchering the story and/or characters or shoehorning your own shitty ideas into the series, you will get even more media coverage for free: angry fans sharing their opinions online, people watching episodes because they couldn't just believe how bad everyone else said they were (or watching them so they could join internet discussions about how bad it was), memes, blogs, discussions ... you get the gist.
To those people, there is nothing "wrong" with that. On the contrary - it makes money, so it must be right. Fuck the source material. Fuck the author. Fuck the fanbase. Their opinions don't matter als long as they stay agitated and keep consuming what we dish out - that's their mindset, and producing deliberately shitty shows even helps with that, as paradoxical as it may sound at first.
This just can't make sense to me. Wouldn't they make more money if they didn't piss those fans off? Wouldn't the easy way out be to stick to a script that's already written and just adapt it?
Angry outrage = free advertisement = more people hear about it and might be willing to throw money at them. Especially if there is already a huge existing fanbase.
Just a random example:
Avatar - The Last Airbender: The version of M. Night Shyamalan, not the upcoming movie. Widely regarded as one of the worst ever adaptions of an existing franchise, hated by fans to the point that it's become a meme to outright deny this movie ever existed. But it was spread far and wide across the internet just HOW incredibly bad the movie was. Box office: $319,713,881 worldwide.
13 Assassins: Came out in the same year (2010) and is praised as a faithful but very polished and pleasing adaption of an older movie, generally favored by critics and fans alike. High ratings everywhere. But that story didn't spark public outrage, and most people today won't even remember that this movie exists, unlike the shitty AtLA movie. It is a well-made movie overall, faithful to the "source material", loved by fans, but only grossed $18,689,058 world wide, roughly 17% of what the Avatar movie made in the same time frame.
Note that I am not saying that pissing off the fanbase is guaranteed to yield good results, and neither is it sustaineable in any way - but the execs aren't interested in building something that will make them money in the long run. They're only interested in quarterly profits and immediate results they can present to their shareholders and investors, and creating outrageous bullshit is more likely to make a bunch of people aware about what you created (albeit in a negative way). Once the public starts to lose interest again, they can just grab the next franchise and repeat the process.
Because Netflix doesn't pay for the writers to solve problems. Have something that doesn't translate well to screen? Don't try to figure out to how to make it work—get rid of it. Have a character arc or plot point that moves "too slow" for modern audiences? Good news, that's an action scene now, and there's a gun, or a sword... or a gun-sword!
Sure, the writers can be blamed sometimes (especially when they are also the show runner... cough Davis S. Goyer cough), but a lot of the time, it's studio pressure to make something quickly and that follows a formula that some exec believes is the golden ratio of shit to slick.
On the flip side of this, I wish Peter Jackson and co had been given the proper time to do the hobbit justice.
I at least agree with the 3 movies approach. In an effort to make it a kids book, Tolkien naturally rushes over scenes that aren't kid friendly. Like how the battle of the five armies is like a paragraph and can be summed up as "holy hell that was crazy and amazing, the giant eagles even showed up and carried the day. Too bad you were unconscious the whole time, eh Bilbo." I'm not sure Hollywood audiences would appreciate that kind of climactic fight bait and switch.
To be fair, if you did a faithful adaptation to the Witcher books, you'd end up with a story where Geralt and Ciri barely have any scenes, he's constantly chasing and never catching her for 5 seasons.
Changes needed to be made for the book translation to work, I just think they made too many