Video game

Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’ Is The Best Live-Action Video Game Adaptation Ever, And It’s Not Even Close – Forbes


It took me a few days longer than I thought due to the holidays, but on Christmas Eve I managed to finish out all eight hours of Netflix’s new The Witcher series, which is already proving to be one of Netflix’s highest rated series among fans, even if some critics disagree.

I am not one of those critics. I loved The Witcher and all its madness and monsters and muscles and confusing timelines (that do make sense by the end). And at this point, I am willing to declare that Netflix’s The Witcher is without question the best live-action adaptation of a video game ever.

Yes, yes, I’ll stop you right there. I understand that at its core, Netflix’s series claims to be adapting the original books by Andrzej Sapkowski. While that is where it has gleaned most of its plotlines, the fact remains that the show is essentially a live-action adaptation of a bunch of characters that 40 million people have gotten to know from the video games, as that’s the total sales of the Witcher series, last I checked, which almost certainly outpaces the books. 40 million have met Geralt, Yennefer, Triss, Ciri, Dandelion and others through the games, with only a portion of them having read the books.

And past that, it’s clear that the show is influenced by the games right down to its central star, Henry Cavill, who may be talking some direction for his Geralt from the original source material, and yet we know that he’s a big fan of the CDPR games and a huge gamer in general (Cavill famously missed the call from Zack Snyder about taking on the role of Superman because he was in a WoW raid). And if you’ve watched the series and also played the games, particularly The Witcher 3, it’s easy to see how Cavill has been influenced by Doug Cockle’s voice performance as Geralt. It’s one of the reasons Cavill works so well in the role, because he’s not vastly different than the Geralt everyone already loves from the games.

So yes, technicalities aside, I am counting this as a live-action adaptation of a video game. Lord knows we badly need a win in this genre, so just let us have this, please.

The second best video game adaptation, albeit not live-action, is also on Netflix, the animated Castlevania series. But after that, it’s all extremely bad movies that are at best, niche hits among certain crowds (Silent Hill), or at worst, some of the biggest disasters to ever grace cinema screens (DOOM). As of late, we have seen an increase in attempts at more “prestige” video game films, whether that’s an Oscar-caliber director taking on Warcraft (Duncan Jones) or Oscar-caliber actors taking on Tomb Raider or Assassin’s Creed (Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender). None of it has worked. Not really. These films are forgettable and dull, if not outright bad, and before that we have commercially successful attempts like the baffling Resident Evil franchise, but I would still argue we have yet to see a truly good video game movie, one based on an existing video game franchise (Wreck-It Ralph doesn’t count)

And we may not see a hit there in a very long time. If there’s one thing that Netflix has made clear between Castlevania and The Witcher, it’s that the best format for video games may in fact be a longer form TV show, rather than trying to jam some 10-100 hour game into a two hour movie. After watching The Witcher, it’s nearly impossible to imagine how this would have worked as a film instead.

While I do think the plot of the first season is a bit too disjointed for its own good between its time skips and non-aging characters, I can’t speak highly enough about the two leads, Cavill’s Geralt and Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer, who has so much screen time she is practically the main character of the season. The Witcher is just as bloody, sexy and compelling as either the books or games, and despite the traditional “gamer controversies” that emerged ahead of the show due to the unfortunate questioning of the qualifications of its female showrunner, it now seems to be that very crowd that has now turned to defend the series against its critics, claiming it’s exactly what they hoped the series would be, and others just don’t “get” The Witcher if they don’t like it. And showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich accomplished what the CDPR games famously did not by integrating a lot of characters of color into the story. Surprise, it doesn’t make it feel “inauthentic” in the least, and it’s only helped by the additions.

I’ve already written a fair bit about the show, and I’ll write a fair bit more I’m sure, but yes, now that I’ve seen it through, I am willing to declare that this is the best live-action adaptation of a game to date. There are more contenders coming. Showtime has its full cast ready for a Halo show, and the success of The Witcher is probably going to inspire a lot of imitators, so I’d expect fewer films and more streaming series in the future. For now, enjoy these eight episodes as the best the genre has to offer.



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