It was obvious to most that the fourth season of the Witcher would amass criticism. Even before the series began, fans were ripping the series to shreds. But it seems that there were even more complaints from viewers, now that the season has come out. This has prompted a person from the production team to speak up, who is not quite willing to accept how the sentiment towards the series has developed.
The Witcher: New Netflix Season Sparks Frustrated Rants
The person in question is Lauren Schmidt-Hissrich, who has served as the showrunner for The Witcher since its 2019 debut. In an interview with Dexerto for the release of season four, she spoke out about the new episodes’ reception. While it’s faring acceptably with professional critics, fans are showing more significant disappointment. This is evident, for example, from the community score on Rotten Tomatoes of just 20 percent.
The change of the actor playing Geralt is something a lot of fans have focused on. Henry Cavill previously portrayed the Witcher, but he stepped down from the position after season three and passed the torch to Liam Hemsworth. The view that the role is not as well-suited to Hemsworth as it was to his predecessor, is quite widespread.
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Deviation of Source Material Seen as an Issue by Fans
Not only the casting, but also the general adaptation of the story, has been critiqued as well. The Witcher is based off the book series by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, and some believe that the show has deviated too far from the source material. However, Schmidt-Hissrich believes the show is not making a mistake.
She justifies the deviations by time constraints. In a season with an eight-hour runtime, it’s impossible to tell everything from the books, and therefore changes have to be made, so the plot can move forward. But she believes that this isn’t tragic, since the Netflix series isn’t meant to replace the full story, “No one is taking the books away. No one is taking the video games away. I think everyone can have their version of The Witcher and this is this version.”
It is interesting logic, but it seems that most fans of The Witcher do not think her points are correct. As mentioned already, the direction of the show hasn’t particularly enthralled fans and there will likely be more backlash in the future.
Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, Dexerto
This article was originally published on futurezone.de / 4P.de and has been carefully translated.