Firstly, let me preface this post by apologizing for my delay: I’m more than an hour late by now, due to not being able to get home fast enough. Destiny has arrived, so have I, and so has the first teaser trailer for The Witcher on Netflix!
My first impressions are a mix of chaos and confusion: I’ve never read the books or played the video games that this series will be based on, so I have almost no idea what the plot is – I am slightly familiar with the main characters like Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) and Ciri (Freya Allen), mostly because I watch a lot of videos by BookTubers who are devoted fans of The Witcher series: specifically Elliot Brooks – go check out her channel, it’s great.
But for right now, until she publishes her own review of the trailer, which will undoubtedly be far more intelligent than mine, I must work from what I know: very little. Okay, let’s dive in. Let’s see, we’ve got Elves, beautiful dark-skinned Elves for a change, and we get a tantalizing glimpse of the paradise they created long ago in this strange world, known as The Continent. These Elves were sorcerers, and taught the arts of chaos magic to humans – only to have the humans rise up against them and massacre them. From what I gather, that is a core theme of the series, both in book format and TV – humans are horrible, despicable creatures, little better than the monsters that populate their myths and dark imaginings. This trailer shows off just how wicked people can be, through some montages of them killing people…wait a second, for a moment there I thought this was Game of Thrones.
Netflix wants this to be Game of Thrones for a new audience dissatisfied with how that show ended, and so they’ve gone to elaborate lengths to make sure this show looks incredible. The production values are insane – beautiful costumes, realistic CGI, and mostly good wigs (there was a lot of worry about that last point, after Henry Cavill had shared a picture of himself wearing one depressingly-cheap set of platinum extensions). The only thing that indicates this show has to work on a somewhat smaller budget than your average movie studio is the general absence of top-notch talent – Cavill is the biggest star by far, and his co-stars are virtually unknown actresses. But thankfully, they do a pretty good job, in this trailer at least, of being mysteriously magical. Magic is one of the trailer’s big attractions, in my opinion: it’s always been an element that fantasy films and TV shows are wary of, because it can easily look and feel slightly ridiculous. Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones both steered clear of depicting much magic onscreen, unless they absolutely had to: magic is something that usually finds its way into more light-hearted fare, such as The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. But The Witcher doesn’t shy away from fancy lights and displays of sorcery and enchantment: we have glowing trees in the desert, plenty of monsters (including giant spiders, can’t go wrong with those), catastrophic explosions of uncontrollable power, and even people throwing lightning from their hands. When was the last time you saw that in mainstream fantasy? It’s actually been a while since we’ve seen anyone but superheroes and psychic teenagers harness supernatural powers like this. At least, it’s been a while since I’ve seen anything like this.
Overall, it looks really good, definitely something that I’ll want to binge-watch when it arrives on Netflix this…Winter? I don’t know, the trailer doesn’t inform me. Well, whenever it comes out, it looks like it will be really good. Fingers crossed, people!
Trailer Rating: 8/10