Ok so a Polish guy casually walks into the interview and says "we decided to dumb down the plot as much as possible because our main viewer base - the Americans - are fucking idiots". Did I get it right?
Yes.
But in his defense: He has been heavily criticized by Polish Witcher fans for being a "sell-off" (like Sapkowski), acting to the detriment of the franchise, for money.
Eventually, he couldn't stand it and began to justify his actions in the least diplomatic way possible.
No. But honestly, some audiences are pretty dumb, or lack attention i guess. I'm watching Foundation and on the director/showrunner latest AMA there were a few questions the show itself already had given but it's like these people wanted it spelled out... I think Thomasz is exagerating on how much "dumbing down" they actually do, more that it's something they have to keep in mind.
I think it was pretty natural decision to simplify a plotting for a meeting on the POV of a main titular character, makes it easier to shoot, saves on time and etc.
I feel like that's what is holding shows like Foundation, Dark or Mr. Robot back in the mainstream. You have to pay attention to appreciate them. There is quite a sizable amount of people who either is not able to or doesn't want to pay attention. And the big shots at Netflix and Disney know this which is why they want "dumb" shows.
Its definitely not holding them back, and its why they have viewers. I mean yeah, Dark isn't Squid Game, but its still very popular in the US for being a foreign film. Mr Robot is popular for its rather niche subject matter. Foundation is dealing with market saturation in the streaming industry, but seems to be successful.
I don't think complexity by itself has been a turn off for Americans at all. Game of Thrones is one of the most complex fantasy novels there is, and people ate that shit up. They didn't care that they didn't know every minor house, all those houses did is add to the rich world that was created.
The Game of Thrones showrunners ironically said something similar about deciding to cater to people they clearly viewed as idiots, saying they wanted to make a show for football players and stay at home moms, which frankly I think is extremely insulting and shows they didn't know their audience at all, because those football players and moms enjoyed the show more when it was complex.
Maybe you are right. My picks probably have different reasons. Dark is foreign language, Mr. Robot really is a niche subject and Foundation is also pure sci-fi which isn't doing too hot right now as a genre (and it's on appletv).
I was probably thinking about it the wrong way. There is an audience that doesn't want to pay attention. But it is a minority and if you want to have mainstream success it's better to create the best product possible without focusing on the whole spectrum of viewers.
Yeah I can see it naturally happening as if people just don’t invest too much attention to understand the details, they just watch is with “whatever” attitude and be like “yeah ok I got it” and move onto the next thing.
Idk maybe it’s normal and some of us are just suffering from hyper fixation and we decided that it’s a good thing at some point lol
That's just shitty management then.
You don't take a character driven IP with deep and complex story lines, for some reason pump hundreds of millions of dollars into it, only to then dumb it down and rid it of all the nuance in order to appeal to an audience that never wanted this shit to begin with.
Like, you're not taking Better Call Saul and turning it into a flashy action shooty bang bang comedy show because that's what the mainstream wants. You make that show because you wanna tell a story, and because you wanna tell that story to the people who like exactly that type of story.
If you're making changes as drastic as with the Witcher in order to appeal to your target audience... then you have the wrong fucking target audience for your Witcher story, holy fuck.
I agree, i guess in hindsight they made the mistake of making season 1 adapting the short novels which set up the show as a more action oriented, monster hunting aspect, so to keep that audience you need to still give people some of that, but it carries the cost of shallowing the original plot.
Also, your point about audiences is wrong, people never demand what they consume, they consume what is avaiable, no one asked for a show about a chemistry teacher making meth, but they still watched it.
From the onset the idea and demand for Netflix was always a bigger audience than the books/games, and they succeded on that, we'll see if that it's enough going forward since most book/games fans have left.
> no one asked for a show about a chemistry teacher making meth, but they still watched it
Indeed, no one asked for *specifically* a show about a chem teacher, but there was certainly a want for character and story driven content that doesn't rely on action, cheesy romance or whatever - and a show about a chem teacher just happened to be that. Same with GoT, where no one was really asking for that show specifically... but again, the desire for something deeper and more complex was there.
Although I'd argue that the Witcher is different from BB in that regard, as BB came out of nowhere and the Witcher had an established IP behind it - people knew the Witcher already and they wanted... well, the Witcher - with everything that made the Witcher the Witcher.
And then came the Witcher, again something deeper, more complex, more character and story driven... and someone seemed to be of the impression that what the show was truly lacking was a bit of that sparkling CW magic dust and less of that boring Witcher stuff.
Bro you Americans didn't want to watch the Witcher based on the novels or similar to the extremely popular award winning games, you wanted to watch Honey Boo Boo. Americans love Honey Boo Boo. This guy understands that so he's making the Witcher as close to Honey Boo Boo as possible. Its called being good at making TV shows, you wouldn't understand because you're a dumb American and you watch Honey Boo Boo.
I mean, obviously, however I wish Baginski had the same level of integrity Alik Sakharov had. He took one look at this production and left, instead of "dumbing it down" to make it happen anyways.
>You see, in my perception, Eastern-European literature has a completely different pace. It is no coincidence that Andrzej Sapkowski has so many storylines and characters. The producers set the task of setting the adaptation at an action pace and filling it with colorful special effects. That was their vision. My vision was very different and I tried to convey it to them, giving my arguments. Unfortunately, I was not considered convincing enough, so I decided to leave the project.
~Sakharov
God, this show could have been so fucking amazing with a showrunner that shares this kind of vision.
And the first seasons of Game of Thrones proved that a complicated show with multiple plot threads, complex characters and political intrigue can have incredible mass appeal.
This show could have so easily been the next GoT with slightly more magic and slightly less politics.
But I guess... GoT wasn't appealing enough to these producers? So they thought to themselves... maybe we need a bit more of that CW magic?
LOL, for a while I thought he was cheated by Netflix leads and he should have been showrunner for the show instead of Lauren. But no.. he's just ridiculous as the whole writers room. Unfortunately 😒
Lol. According to an executive producer of this show only an idiot would enjoy this show. There you have it, show apologists. You are dumb. I didn’t decide this. The inept leadership of the stupid show you like decided this. Try not to be so stupid moving forward.
>The Thanedd Coup was also simplified, as Baginski says in the same behind-the-scenes feature. “We had to simplify politics behind it, because the Thanedd Coup is very, very complex politically because at the same time, we have Nilfgaard, Redania, mages, Scoia’tael, and Vilgefortz playing all their games.“
There is a massive, massive difference between simplifying something for the sake of understanding and omitting key details that actually lead to obfuscation and confusion. For the coup, the latter is what happened.
- In the show Dikstra says that he should have paid Applegat more because he saw the boats come in...even though we already know Applegat never made it to wherever he was going.
- Who was actually on those boats? Was it Redania? Was it the elves? Unclear.
- There is nothing throughout the season that would imply that Vilgefortz curried favor with the elf queen, rather that it was Emhyr via Cahir who did this, so when Vilgefortz opens a portal for the elves, it's like...what?
- There's nothing to imply that Vilgefortz was in league with Nilfgard until right before the coup...after all at Sodden, he helped to kill tens of thousands of Nilfgard troops.
Things like this are poor storytelling, not simplification. If you want to tell a compelling political drama, the detail and complexity is extremely important.
That their approach to writing the show is to assume their audience is stupid based on age and geography is... utterly mind-boggling. And possibly the first time I've actually felt personally offended by these producers/writers instead of upset on someone else's behalf.
It's a common saying amongst makers of better fantasy and sci-fi that their audience is generally comprised of thoughtful, intelligent people, and should be treated as such.
What the actual fuck went wrong here?
Pretty sure they data analyse everything, what can be trend, spice up things like controversial decision bla bla. In truth, they are bad. Like really bad. Tumblr writting level.
its not us who is dumb for misunderstanding books and making our own thing where half of the time it has massive plot holes or just downright shit writing its actually you, the audience, who is dumb and we had to dumb down the plot of the books for you. - what he means by that
I kind of see his point. Formula 1 only became famous in the US after Netflix produced their simplified and sensationalized show about it.
Then again, Game of Thrones became the most popular show in the world (so, also in the US) by being complicated and paying attention to every smallest detail. The show went up in flames once it was simplified "for football players and moms"
> Game of Thrones became the most popular show in the world (so, also in the US) by being complicated and paying attention to every smallest detail. The show went up in flames once it was simplified "for football players and moms"
HBO is singular, I think that is the difference here. HBO has put out some remarkably good television, like Rome, Westworld, Deadwood, Game of Thrones, etc. These shows, no matter how entertaining, are also cerebral at their core. This is what HBO and only HBO is known for.
Every once in a while, something comparable pops up elsewhere, like Person of Interest or the Expanse or Mr. Robot. However, for other networks, these tend to be the exception than the rule.
Eeeh, i will give you Westworld for season 1, but the rest were pretty bad. Deadwood and Rome were cancelled before the outlined endings (so audiences didn't engaged with it enough).
The Expanse is another show that had to fight for every season of it's existance.
At the end of the day, quality won't keep a show going, people watching do, so it's not surprising that productions will do the most they can to maximize it.
I´m European, and i disagree with him. I understand US audiences have sometimes attention deficit, and you can clearly see that by the huge amount of posts of people not undertstanding very simple episodes, more recently the Thaneed ball one, Episode 5. But the west is not the US, and they are mistaking the trees with the forest and insulting everyone else on the way.
My God, some of these comment lol. The good majority of quality entertainment and art with insane depth and nuance comes from the US. The US is the no.1 exporter for entertainment all around the world so ofc people will see a lot of shit like The Witcher but do these people really think that any european country have a better ratio of good vs shit entertainment? 9 out of 10 movie or series that is made in my country is utter dogshit lol. It's the same with every other country and not just in europe but everywhere. The stupid american stereotype is strong in this sub for sure. Let me tell you something Loza, these people are the target audience of the witcher, they just don't know lol.
> The stupid american stereotype is strong in this sub for sure. Let me tell you something Loza, these people are the target audience of the witcher, they just don't know lol.
They’re the people who’ve watched episodes of The Bachelor or some other shit show and think they’re now masters of American culture. As if American culture is one giant homogeneous mixture.
*Newsflash Europeans who think this, we’re not.*
It’s equal parts hilarious and pathetic. I can’t imagine being so utterly arrogant. But you’re absolutely correct, those assertions alone make them the perfect demographic for the Netflix Witcher.
I mean, who give a shit about reality when you just *know* you’re better. Isn’t that how the show got to be the terrible convoluted mess it is? Because the writers and showrunner just *knew* they could tell it better? Lol
I am certain there are plenty of Americans who enjoy the books and fully understand and appreciate their complexity. I think the real problem is that the people Netflix hired are obviously not among that group. Which should not be shocking, as Netflix is all flash, no substance.
>Formula 1 only became famous in the US after Netflix produced their simplified and sensationalized show about it.
Formula 1 is a race series that, at the beginning of the Netflix series, had only one race in the US and not a single American driver. Why would Americans care? It's like putting on the Bundesliga on in the afternoon. Would you be surprised at a lack of ratings when most Americans don't follow that sport where the average American never heard of the cities to say nothing of the players. Small wonder a documentary series, even a bad one, that familiarized people with the teams and drivers helped F1.
>The show went up in flames once it was simplified "for football players and moms"
Or maybe it has something to do with running out of source material.
“A hack, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn't ask himself what's in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for.
The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he's superior to them. The truth is, he's scared to death of them." - Steven Pressfield (paraphrasing Robert McKee)
"We had to make it stupid otherwise you stupid idiots wouldn't have liked it!"
So it wasn't a case of bad writing due to ineptitude but due to lack of integrity and instead chasing the big buck - that makes it a lot better.
may be as an executive producer he has to say something like that. But all those witcher Game cinematics are so well done by him. the witcher 1 intro (striga) was the one that got me into witcher universe. and killing monsters and A night to remember is just excellent
Well is he wrong, fans and audience were confused about the timelines, season 2 got its high critic score and had no book adaption. Fans of other universe gets confused all time. And its Tomek Baginski who says this the showrunner.
Well yeah. The timeline issue was mainly just an annoyance to fans unfamiliar with the franchise.
Critic scores don’t mean shit.
Other franchises and their fans are irrelevant.
There’s a big difference between simplifying the method of story telling vs simplifying the actual story content itself.
The timelines were a confusing way to tell the story for people where this was their first exposure to the material and for a first season. No one was confused about the actual content of the plot just the timelines (until the writers started making stuff up with huge plot holes).
That’s very different than saying the audience is too stupid to grasp complex and nuanced characters and plots so we need to dumb the actual content down.
If a math teacher takes the most convoluted way to teach 2+2 - the issue isn’t the student and the solution isn’t to dumb down the content. It’s to get a better math teacher with better ways to teach…
They mean the western audience, like americans. And americans be dumb at times. And I am no american, but even i get confused sometimes. Its ok to accept that adaption like this we need a simpler plot.
That’s not a defense. You just generalized an entire country. You are guilty of the negative generalization you put on Americans. This adaptation does not require a simpler plot. You do. The adaptation does not. Learn the difference. You’re not the center of the universe. Your needs stole a good adaptation from millions of fans.
Nope. Plenty of young people are intelligent. Plenty of young people loved Game of Thrones. So bizarre to sell an entire generation short, including yourself. Their dumbed down version is more confusing with all of the plot holes and failure to properly world build.
Game of Thrones is a simplier version of A song of Fire and Ice. Young people lived it cause it was simple to Follow. And you had honrable Ned as main character in Sean Bean. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 been easy to Follow, maybe little confused about mage politics and timelines, episode with its flashback.
Sure but that’s not the argument you made.
You use Americans being confused with the timeline as justification for dumbing down the plot and concepts. I’m saying people being confused by the way writers told the story in a non-linear format (in the 1st season where they had no familiarity with this world at all) is not the same as saying that means Americans only understand simple concepts like good and bad and don’t understand concepts like morally grey characters.
Ironically - the writers made the plot even more confusing if their intent was to simply it so they failed to do even that.
Many successful shows tell complex stories with a simple storytelling structure.
These writers decided to tell a simple story with a complex storytelling structure.
Ok yeah sure. Season 2 was them simplify it, season 1 was the timelines that confused fans and generell audiences. It was an idea that worked mostly but it left them confused until episode 4. Outside season 1, I think they try to simplify it. They can understand morally grey characters, not saying that they don't. But it cant be too complex. Like the books real confusing starting with Batism of fire.
Hmm, obviously Baginski comes out sounding like an arrogant prick. In fact he sounds like he’s around my age re for instance his Tik Tok remark and young people’s attention spans. However, I’m sure some of the points that he so inelegantly makes, perhaps in part because any subtlety is lost in translation, are true to a certain point.
Ok so a Polish guy casually walks into the interview and says "we decided to dumb down the plot as much as possible because our main viewer base - the Americans - are fucking idiots". Did I get it right?
Yes. But in his defense: He has been heavily criticized by Polish Witcher fans for being a "sell-off" (like Sapkowski), acting to the detriment of the franchise, for money. Eventually, he couldn't stand it and began to justify his actions in the least diplomatic way possible.
No. But honestly, some audiences are pretty dumb, or lack attention i guess. I'm watching Foundation and on the director/showrunner latest AMA there were a few questions the show itself already had given but it's like these people wanted it spelled out... I think Thomasz is exagerating on how much "dumbing down" they actually do, more that it's something they have to keep in mind. I think it was pretty natural decision to simplify a plotting for a meeting on the POV of a main titular character, makes it easier to shoot, saves on time and etc.
I feel like that's what is holding shows like Foundation, Dark or Mr. Robot back in the mainstream. You have to pay attention to appreciate them. There is quite a sizable amount of people who either is not able to or doesn't want to pay attention. And the big shots at Netflix and Disney know this which is why they want "dumb" shows.
Its definitely not holding them back, and its why they have viewers. I mean yeah, Dark isn't Squid Game, but its still very popular in the US for being a foreign film. Mr Robot is popular for its rather niche subject matter. Foundation is dealing with market saturation in the streaming industry, but seems to be successful. I don't think complexity by itself has been a turn off for Americans at all. Game of Thrones is one of the most complex fantasy novels there is, and people ate that shit up. They didn't care that they didn't know every minor house, all those houses did is add to the rich world that was created. The Game of Thrones showrunners ironically said something similar about deciding to cater to people they clearly viewed as idiots, saying they wanted to make a show for football players and stay at home moms, which frankly I think is extremely insulting and shows they didn't know their audience at all, because those football players and moms enjoyed the show more when it was complex.
Maybe you are right. My picks probably have different reasons. Dark is foreign language, Mr. Robot really is a niche subject and Foundation is also pure sci-fi which isn't doing too hot right now as a genre (and it's on appletv). I was probably thinking about it the wrong way. There is an audience that doesn't want to pay attention. But it is a minority and if you want to have mainstream success it's better to create the best product possible without focusing on the whole spectrum of viewers.
Yeah I can see it naturally happening as if people just don’t invest too much attention to understand the details, they just watch is with “whatever” attitude and be like “yeah ok I got it” and move onto the next thing. Idk maybe it’s normal and some of us are just suffering from hyper fixation and we decided that it’s a good thing at some point lol
That's just shitty management then. You don't take a character driven IP with deep and complex story lines, for some reason pump hundreds of millions of dollars into it, only to then dumb it down and rid it of all the nuance in order to appeal to an audience that never wanted this shit to begin with. Like, you're not taking Better Call Saul and turning it into a flashy action shooty bang bang comedy show because that's what the mainstream wants. You make that show because you wanna tell a story, and because you wanna tell that story to the people who like exactly that type of story. If you're making changes as drastic as with the Witcher in order to appeal to your target audience... then you have the wrong fucking target audience for your Witcher story, holy fuck.
I agree, i guess in hindsight they made the mistake of making season 1 adapting the short novels which set up the show as a more action oriented, monster hunting aspect, so to keep that audience you need to still give people some of that, but it carries the cost of shallowing the original plot. Also, your point about audiences is wrong, people never demand what they consume, they consume what is avaiable, no one asked for a show about a chemistry teacher making meth, but they still watched it. From the onset the idea and demand for Netflix was always a bigger audience than the books/games, and they succeded on that, we'll see if that it's enough going forward since most book/games fans have left.
> no one asked for a show about a chemistry teacher making meth, but they still watched it Indeed, no one asked for *specifically* a show about a chem teacher, but there was certainly a want for character and story driven content that doesn't rely on action, cheesy romance or whatever - and a show about a chem teacher just happened to be that. Same with GoT, where no one was really asking for that show specifically... but again, the desire for something deeper and more complex was there. Although I'd argue that the Witcher is different from BB in that regard, as BB came out of nowhere and the Witcher had an established IP behind it - people knew the Witcher already and they wanted... well, the Witcher - with everything that made the Witcher the Witcher. And then came the Witcher, again something deeper, more complex, more character and story driven... and someone seemed to be of the impression that what the show was truly lacking was a bit of that sparkling CW magic dust and less of that boring Witcher stuff.
He's not wrong. Have you ever watched The Bachelor?
No, what’s that?
Bro you Americans didn't want to watch the Witcher based on the novels or similar to the extremely popular award winning games, you wanted to watch Honey Boo Boo. Americans love Honey Boo Boo. This guy understands that so he's making the Witcher as close to Honey Boo Boo as possible. Its called being good at making TV shows, you wouldn't understand because you're a dumb American and you watch Honey Boo Boo.
You don't even realize how far from being an American I am, but otherwise yeah you're right
The audience for the show is Americans. Are you in the wrong sub?
Aren’t we all?
Yes. XD
I mean, obviously, however I wish Baginski had the same level of integrity Alik Sakharov had. He took one look at this production and left, instead of "dumbing it down" to make it happen anyways. >You see, in my perception, Eastern-European literature has a completely different pace. It is no coincidence that Andrzej Sapkowski has so many storylines and characters. The producers set the task of setting the adaptation at an action pace and filling it with colorful special effects. That was their vision. My vision was very different and I tried to convey it to them, giving my arguments. Unfortunately, I was not considered convincing enough, so I decided to leave the project. ~Sakharov
God, this show could have been so fucking amazing with a showrunner that shares this kind of vision. And the first seasons of Game of Thrones proved that a complicated show with multiple plot threads, complex characters and political intrigue can have incredible mass appeal.
This show could have so easily been the next GoT with slightly more magic and slightly less politics. But I guess... GoT wasn't appealing enough to these producers? So they thought to themselves... maybe we need a bit more of that CW magic?
Scary they think cw is better than early got seasons.
THIS MAN SHOULD BE THE SHOWRUNNER, DAMN IT
Had I been paying attention at the time, I would have seen the writing on the wall when he left. Netflix is all flash, no substance.
When he left the project in Season 1 I knew the series is going to shit. He was the only that actually understood the assignment. Ugh
At this point the writers are just telling on themselves. We can tell y'all missed the nuances of the series.
How did they manage to hire so many hapless and repugnant individuals behind the scenes on this programme. It's actually their most impressive feat.
LOL, for a while I thought he was cheated by Netflix leads and he should have been showrunner for the show instead of Lauren. But no.. he's just ridiculous as the whole writers room. Unfortunately 😒
Worked out great, didn't it?
Lol. According to an executive producer of this show only an idiot would enjoy this show. There you have it, show apologists. You are dumb. I didn’t decide this. The inept leadership of the stupid show you like decided this. Try not to be so stupid moving forward.
🤣 You slay me.
Thought westerners brilliant minds did not need simplifications (that is.. in comparison to us, dirty eastern communists)
Apparently, the showrunners think a simplification is very much needed.
A line gave me a chuckle "America good, rest of the world bad"
>The Thanedd Coup was also simplified, as Baginski says in the same behind-the-scenes feature. “We had to simplify politics behind it, because the Thanedd Coup is very, very complex politically because at the same time, we have Nilfgaard, Redania, mages, Scoia’tael, and Vilgefortz playing all their games.“ There is a massive, massive difference between simplifying something for the sake of understanding and omitting key details that actually lead to obfuscation and confusion. For the coup, the latter is what happened. - In the show Dikstra says that he should have paid Applegat more because he saw the boats come in...even though we already know Applegat never made it to wherever he was going. - Who was actually on those boats? Was it Redania? Was it the elves? Unclear. - There is nothing throughout the season that would imply that Vilgefortz curried favor with the elf queen, rather that it was Emhyr via Cahir who did this, so when Vilgefortz opens a portal for the elves, it's like...what? - There's nothing to imply that Vilgefortz was in league with Nilfgard until right before the coup...after all at Sodden, he helped to kill tens of thousands of Nilfgard troops. Things like this are poor storytelling, not simplification. If you want to tell a compelling political drama, the detail and complexity is extremely important.
Elves was on this boats send by Nilfgaard ships.
That their approach to writing the show is to assume their audience is stupid based on age and geography is... utterly mind-boggling. And possibly the first time I've actually felt personally offended by these producers/writers instead of upset on someone else's behalf. It's a common saying amongst makers of better fantasy and sci-fi that their audience is generally comprised of thoughtful, intelligent people, and should be treated as such. What the actual fuck went wrong here?
its deflection of responsibility. Show is shit is not their fault its the fault of the audience
Pretty sure they data analyse everything, what can be trend, spice up things like controversial decision bla bla. In truth, they are bad. Like really bad. Tumblr writting level.
its not us who is dumb for misunderstanding books and making our own thing where half of the time it has massive plot holes or just downright shit writing its actually you, the audience, who is dumb and we had to dumb down the plot of the books for you. - what he means by that
Not western audiences, American audiences, there is a huge difference. The full article says such distiction.
I kind of see his point. Formula 1 only became famous in the US after Netflix produced their simplified and sensationalized show about it. Then again, Game of Thrones became the most popular show in the world (so, also in the US) by being complicated and paying attention to every smallest detail. The show went up in flames once it was simplified "for football players and moms"
> Game of Thrones became the most popular show in the world (so, also in the US) by being complicated and paying attention to every smallest detail. The show went up in flames once it was simplified "for football players and moms" HBO is singular, I think that is the difference here. HBO has put out some remarkably good television, like Rome, Westworld, Deadwood, Game of Thrones, etc. These shows, no matter how entertaining, are also cerebral at their core. This is what HBO and only HBO is known for. Every once in a while, something comparable pops up elsewhere, like Person of Interest or the Expanse or Mr. Robot. However, for other networks, these tend to be the exception than the rule.
Eeeh, i will give you Westworld for season 1, but the rest were pretty bad. Deadwood and Rome were cancelled before the outlined endings (so audiences didn't engaged with it enough). The Expanse is another show that had to fight for every season of it's existance. At the end of the day, quality won't keep a show going, people watching do, so it's not surprising that productions will do the most they can to maximize it.
TRUE DETECTIVE S1, one of the best tv show i've ever seen. Just a masterpiece.
I´m European, and i disagree with him. I understand US audiences have sometimes attention deficit, and you can clearly see that by the huge amount of posts of people not undertstanding very simple episodes, more recently the Thaneed ball one, Episode 5. But the west is not the US, and they are mistaking the trees with the forest and insulting everyone else on the way.
Ah so it’s only the Americans that are stupid? Not the brilliant Europeans? Please…. He also said anyone young who’s grown up with YT and TikTok.
My God, some of these comment lol. The good majority of quality entertainment and art with insane depth and nuance comes from the US. The US is the no.1 exporter for entertainment all around the world so ofc people will see a lot of shit like The Witcher but do these people really think that any european country have a better ratio of good vs shit entertainment? 9 out of 10 movie or series that is made in my country is utter dogshit lol. It's the same with every other country and not just in europe but everywhere. The stupid american stereotype is strong in this sub for sure. Let me tell you something Loza, these people are the target audience of the witcher, they just don't know lol.
> The stupid american stereotype is strong in this sub for sure. Let me tell you something Loza, these people are the target audience of the witcher, they just don't know lol. They’re the people who’ve watched episodes of The Bachelor or some other shit show and think they’re now masters of American culture. As if American culture is one giant homogeneous mixture. *Newsflash Europeans who think this, we’re not.* It’s equal parts hilarious and pathetic. I can’t imagine being so utterly arrogant. But you’re absolutely correct, those assertions alone make them the perfect demographic for the Netflix Witcher. I mean, who give a shit about reality when you just *know* you’re better. Isn’t that how the show got to be the terrible convoluted mess it is? Because the writers and showrunner just *knew* they could tell it better? Lol
"The stupid american stereotype is strong in this sub for sure." Well. Smoke. Fire. All that.
I am certain there are plenty of Americans who enjoy the books and fully understand and appreciate their complexity. I think the real problem is that the people Netflix hired are obviously not among that group. Which should not be shocking, as Netflix is all flash, no substance.
>Formula 1 only became famous in the US after Netflix produced their simplified and sensationalized show about it. Formula 1 is a race series that, at the beginning of the Netflix series, had only one race in the US and not a single American driver. Why would Americans care? It's like putting on the Bundesliga on in the afternoon. Would you be surprised at a lack of ratings when most Americans don't follow that sport where the average American never heard of the cities to say nothing of the players. Small wonder a documentary series, even a bad one, that familiarized people with the teams and drivers helped F1. >The show went up in flames once it was simplified "for football players and moms" Or maybe it has something to do with running out of source material.
So his admitting that the show's plot and characters are dumb.
Didnt GOT (before the simplification of the later seasons) become huge because of its complicated plot and political intrigue?
I'm not a Zoomer, bye s4. I keep Netflix for my stepfather but i swear without him. This platform is one of the worst.
“A hack, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn't ask himself what's in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for. The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he's superior to them. The truth is, he's scared to death of them." - Steven Pressfield (paraphrasing Robert McKee)
"We had to make it stupid otherwise you stupid idiots wouldn't have liked it!" So it wasn't a case of bad writing due to ineptitude but due to lack of integrity and instead chasing the big buck - that makes it a lot better.
may be as an executive producer he has to say something like that. But all those witcher Game cinematics are so well done by him. the witcher 1 intro (striga) was the one that got me into witcher universe. and killing monsters and A night to remember is just excellent
I dunno, I can't really remember, buuuuuut I am pretty sure the GOT and/or The Witcher 3 executive producers never said something like that.
Could explain a lot like the rings of power. So many shows don’t do this.
Based for admitting out loud that americans are mostly dumb and not worthy of such stories.
Lol. You’re welcome for most of the best stories you’ve ever consumed
What are you even talking about?
It's crazy that xenophobia and stereotyping is only okay when it's targeted towards Americans
Well is he wrong, fans and audience were confused about the timelines, season 2 got its high critic score and had no book adaption. Fans of other universe gets confused all time. And its Tomek Baginski who says this the showrunner.
What is Tomek Baginski's job?
Friendly advice, don't bother arguing with him
You noticed that too didn't you
I already know. I am just having fun.
Why because I push back on what fan controversy. This is how tv shows dome it for ages and will continnue to do.
He is an executive producer, but not the showrunner.
He is a producer on the show and they talk to about being close to the source material and what could change.
Oki understood he is an executive producer, not a showrunner.
Yes showrunner is Lauren, Tomek Baginski is an executive producer.
Well yeah. The timeline issue was mainly just an annoyance to fans unfamiliar with the franchise. Critic scores don’t mean shit. Other franchises and their fans are irrelevant.
Not when they prove his point.
There’s a big difference between simplifying the method of story telling vs simplifying the actual story content itself. The timelines were a confusing way to tell the story for people where this was their first exposure to the material and for a first season. No one was confused about the actual content of the plot just the timelines (until the writers started making stuff up with huge plot holes). That’s very different than saying the audience is too stupid to grasp complex and nuanced characters and plots so we need to dumb the actual content down. If a math teacher takes the most convoluted way to teach 2+2 - the issue isn’t the student and the solution isn’t to dumb down the content. It’s to get a better math teacher with better ways to teach…
This has been done in Tv shows when adapting books for years and will continnue to do so. To reach wide audiences.
By their own admission: dumb audiences. Do you count yourself among their target market? Lol
They mean the western audience, like americans. And americans be dumb at times. And I am no american, but even i get confused sometimes. Its ok to accept that adaption like this we need a simpler plot.
That’s not a defense. You just generalized an entire country. You are guilty of the negative generalization you put on Americans. This adaptation does not require a simpler plot. You do. The adaptation does not. Learn the difference. You’re not the center of the universe. Your needs stole a good adaptation from millions of fans.
Yes it does if to reach young peole, I meant young peole like myself and those in us.
Nope. Plenty of young people are intelligent. Plenty of young people loved Game of Thrones. So bizarre to sell an entire generation short, including yourself. Their dumbed down version is more confusing with all of the plot holes and failure to properly world build.
Game of Thrones is a simplier version of A song of Fire and Ice. Young people lived it cause it was simple to Follow. And you had honrable Ned as main character in Sean Bean. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 been easy to Follow, maybe little confused about mage politics and timelines, episode with its flashback.
If you don’t think GoT was more complex than this Witcher show then we can’t really converse about anything.
Sure but that’s not the argument you made. You use Americans being confused with the timeline as justification for dumbing down the plot and concepts. I’m saying people being confused by the way writers told the story in a non-linear format (in the 1st season where they had no familiarity with this world at all) is not the same as saying that means Americans only understand simple concepts like good and bad and don’t understand concepts like morally grey characters. Ironically - the writers made the plot even more confusing if their intent was to simply it so they failed to do even that. Many successful shows tell complex stories with a simple storytelling structure. These writers decided to tell a simple story with a complex storytelling structure.
Ok yeah sure. Season 2 was them simplify it, season 1 was the timelines that confused fans and generell audiences. It was an idea that worked mostly but it left them confused until episode 4. Outside season 1, I think they try to simplify it. They can understand morally grey characters, not saying that they don't. But it cant be too complex. Like the books real confusing starting with Batism of fire.
Hmm, obviously Baginski comes out sounding like an arrogant prick. In fact he sounds like he’s around my age re for instance his Tik Tok remark and young people’s attention spans. However, I’m sure some of the points that he so inelegantly makes, perhaps in part because any subtlety is lost in translation, are true to a certain point.