The Witcher Showrunner Doesn't See "Rabid" Fans As The Enemy

Why do I think this will get political and dissapoint me?

@Juma009 Just don't get your hopes too high and you'll be fine

@Juma009 Just trust in the force. It will not lead you astray. Hehe

I don’t think the rabid fans are going to be the problem here.

They are basing it off the books and not the game, so that gives some creative freedom away from the game.

Since it is going to be on Netflix it will get a high distribution. Most people watching will be fresh to the franchise and judging it for what it is and not what they want it to be.

As long as it’s good the rabid fans will be muted. If not, the criticism will be from everyone and not just the rabid fans.

As someone whose never played the games. Looks decent enough to me.

@Juma009 Unfortunately it seems Netflix can't help themselves with that kind of crap,along with Disney and everything Hollywood churns out over the last few years. But I'll give them a chance with The Witcher. I'm not too informed with regards to the material in the books so its new for me,but hopefully it'll be worth watching

@Juma009

Probably because this same showrunner has repeatedly used the Witcher name to support various political agendas on twitter.

She has said that she won't force her own agenda into the show though.

@Juma009 thats what happend to watchmen. It still is somehow a good show but seeing a „modern" problems put in it every now and then kinda feels forced and breaks the immersion for me for some reason. I just wanna watch a good show, if I'll have a mood for political stuff, I'll turn on the news.

I havent played the game or read the books, so to be fair I'm going to come in to this completely un-biased and I can't wait

I'm just hoping for a stuffed, life sized unicorn...

@Vepra It seems the majority of the comments here has made this political in advance. Whoever is familiar with the books knows that it covers many themes that could be considered political, and why not!? If contemporary media and arts are not supposed to address current issues (as they have also done in the past, this is not necceseraly "woke culture") then we might as well submit to mind numbing distractions to pacify ourselves from the world around us. Of course, if escapism is all we're looking for, I'm pretty sure the show will have plenty of badass monster hunting to satisfy that need.

@tameshiyaku I disagree mate. I love the witcher books, its a good old fantasy, just pure fun. I expect the same from the show that is based on those books tho some changes are to be expected of course. I don't want to have current issues shoved down my throat when I just want to relax watching something after a long day of work I do have a different sources for these things as do many others, noone really educates themselves on current issues via entertainment. If there is a great show about these things, not a single problem with that (the only thing I can think of of the top of my head is Black mirror that is toying with the idea of how destructive modern technology could eventually be to us) but I do go into those shows expecting that. If I go into a show like the witcher, I just don't want it to be too "woke" to make it feel artifical just for the sake of having it there, even tho it doesn't really make much sense from the plot point of view.

I imagine being positive about fans will pay off for the show. No brainer really.

Claiming that you love interacting with fans, while calling them "rabid". Hmm...yeah...

Oftentimes this is not about a political agenda but about representation. Those irked by political agendas don't want to be irked but those seeking representation want to be represented and see parts of themselves onscreen/games etc. as it matters to them. How to make that representation obvious enough to appeal to one group and not enough for the other to get irked about? I don't think this is truly possible so someone will end up disappointed - those not represented will feel left out (as they usually have been) or those irked will get their mindsets challenged at a time when all they want is to not be challenged. Producers who will have cracked it, though, will win.

How refreshing, for once

Going in with a "fighting the herd" mindset does absolutely nothing good in the end

@Juma009 Well the witcher is a very political story so it should fit right in.

@Zuljaras Modern Agenda? Do you have any examples?

@Zuljaras

I'm not the one who'll talk about homophobia here. Although I think that, more often than not, it's not as much an "agenda" as it's just taking creative freedom with a character to somehow add more "diversity" to the whole thing, just in an extremely awkward manner.

It all depends on context too. If the intent of a show is clearly to do a reinterpretation of existing characters, well, then that's fine by me. But if a show more or less tries to insert itself into some sort of cannon, it should be extra careful with changing some aspects of those characters.

What I hate most, isn't having gay characters in a show. Frankly, I don't care about the sexual orientation of characters. What I hate, is when shows are using their sexual orientation as some sort of plot device. For instance, one thing that turned me off of Star Trek Discovery (one among many), is how in one early episode, the "big reveal" of the episode was that one character was gay. The show was litterally using homosexuality as a "surprise" element, and thus by doing so, made homosexuality something worth highlighting, as if it was something "special", you know? It felt artificially forced in the scenario for no reason. Like being gay still has some "shock" value!!! OMG! He's GAY! That CHANGES EVERYTHING! No. Doesn't change a thing. Sorry. He's gay. So what? Being gay isn't something weird or anormal.

And while that was happenning, you have another show called The Orville, in which you have a crew member being part of an "all-male" species, and its relation with its mate is treated like it's a completely normal thing (the comedy aspect comes more from their cultural difference than other things). But I never felt that this show was disrespectful towards homosexuality. On the contrary. While on ST:D, their attempt to integrate homosexuality felt so awkward that it ended having the opposite effect on me. Using it a a plot device makes it exactly what it shouldn't be: something special, not something normal.

It's all about context and how it's integrated in a story.

Personnaly, I like when shows take a political stance. Be it in line or not with my own beliefs. Being challenged in your own beliefs is a GOOD thing. That's what make us evolve. And frankly, most things are political to some extent anyways. Problem is, I hate when shows or movies are forcing things because it often ends up having the opposite effect. But when done properly, I feel it often elevates it above the ranks of simple brainless popcorn chomper.

@Zuljaras Racism was a big part of the novels already. Although it wasn’t black and white morality, both humans and non-humans did some awful things to each other. Geralt gets worst of both, since he’s human and non-human at the same time and he doesn’t want to take sides.

Nice to see a creator not outright attacking the original fans or the work, not saying things like “the original sucked, we are fixing it” or calling the fans a bunch or -ists.

@SmaggTheSmug Yup, the Witcher books and games comment on racism in the ways the different species interact and even the way Witchers themselves are regarded.

This seems to be a common theme with fans who scream about how political things have gotten, they seem to have completely missed all the political and social justice themes in the past stuff they profess to love, no matter how unsubtle those themes are. When people claim that stuff like Watchmen or The Witcher or Star Trek or Star Wars was never political before now, I can only shake my head and chuckle ruefully.

@Donald_M Star Wars wasn’t political in a specific sense. It’s a good vs evil story with common themes (absolute power corrupts absolutely and using evil for good rarely works).
That said I didn’t see that much real world politics in the latest movies either. They were terribly boring on their own. Some kind of heavy handed Trump parody maybe would have made them at least somewhat entertaining.

@SmaggTheSmug We already got our heavy handed Trump parody in RotJ, it just took us thirty years to see it.

Seriously though, as far as I can tell the cries that the new Star Wars movies are "too political" seems to come down to some people not liking the efforts to diversify the cast. This is ridiculous of course. If the new Star Wars movies are mediocre, and they are (though I also concede that I'm no longer the target audience, a lot of kids seem to like the new movies and there's nothing wrong with that at all) it has nothing to do with the cast, who I at least think are all pretty great. I suspect some fans have picked up on the none to subtle parallels between Kylo Renn and toxic fandom and aren't too happy to see themselves portrayed as the bad guys they are. Mind you, that's all a minority. I think most critics of the new Star Wars movies, like me and apparently you, just don't think they're very good, but aren't really all that fussed about it. I mean, at least they're not as bad as the prequels.

Love and "fan love" are antonymous at the end of the day, but fans are most certainly not "enemies" either. Fans are just a mental phenomenon, a calamity that enslaves and corrupts audiences. On our part, it's something to suppress, oppose and overcome. On Fiction's part, it's something to survive, preferably dispel (by merit of doing what it naturally does because intentional and otherwise unwarranted counteractions are bound to leave their own dents) and ultimately outlive.

@Donald_M
The Emperor was more like Julius Caesar or Hitler (or any modern dictator like Assad or Maduro or the Belarus guy), abusing the election system to install himself as ruler for life. Like him or not, Trump made no move to extend his terms beyond what the Constitution allows and he’s more of an isolationist than conqueror. He’s criticized for withdrawing troops rather than deploying them. Emperor Trump would dismantle the Death Star and put funds into imperial border patrols instead.

There was nothing about new Star Wars that was subtle. Well, I guess Last Jedi was kind of it’s own parody, albeit one with very flat jokes and very boring sequences of nothing of consequence happening. W would also prefer if the “diverse” actor played better characters (Finn was great for the first half of TFA, but his character was ruined by the second half).

I don’t think anyone has been offended by Kylo’s race, the Empire was all white men so far and no one cared. It’s just that Kylo Ren is terribly written. Some people complain that Rei is a Mary-Sue, but IMO the opposite is true: it’s impossible to take Kylo seriously and the only reason the Resistance hasn’t been eradicated (despite them apparently trying to kill them selves for the entire movie) is because First Order is even more incompetent than them. That’s what makes Rei look so strong, she’s just not entirely brain dead.

Basically Last Jedi was a less funny Space Balls.

@SmaggTheSmug Trump is still in his first (and hopefully only) term. He hasn't had a chance yet to try to extend his time in the White House. I don't think it'll happen anyway, but I can understand the worrying that he might try. Anyway, when I said there's a Trump parody in RotJ I was referring to Jabba the Hutt.

Anyway, the First Order makes perfect sense to me as a dangerous but not actually terribly imposing echo of what's come before and I find Kylo Ren as nostalgia-driven, rage-fueled brat to be a fairly compelling and terrifically contemporary villain, its just that the movies never put any of these ideas to very good use and the chances that the last movie will redeem that any are pretty much nil. The fact they're apparently bringing back the Emperor in some form reeks of desperation. They created perfectly good villains in Kylo Ren and the First Order but never figured out what to do with them, so they're just throwing their hand up like, "Let's bring Palpatine back, why the **** not?"

@Donald_M I forgot 80s movies often had evil businessmen based on Trump. He wasn’t that well known outside US until 2016.