On December 25, the miniseries “The Witcher: Origins” – a prequel to “The Witcher” starring Henry Cavill – was released on Netflix. The new project was received very poorly, so the evaluations of the Western press turned out to be quite low. Our series also got nuts, but there are several positive points in it. Details, as always, in the review below.
“The Witcher: Blood Origin” / The Witcher: Blood Origin
Genre fantasy, adventure
Director Sarah O’Gorman, Vicky Jewson
In roles Lawrence O’Fouran, Sophia Brown, Michelle Yeoh, Mirren Mack, Lenny Henry, Jacob Collins
Premiere Netflix
Graduation year 2022
Site IMDb
The events of the series “The Witcher: Origins” take place 1200 years before the plot of “The Witcher”. In those days, only elves and dwarves lived on the Continent. They had magicians, but there were no humans, no witches, no ghouls, no monsters of any kind yet. After centuries of warfare, the three elven kingdoms decide to make peace and unite. But Princess Mervyn (Mirren Mack), the royal magician Balor (Lenny Henry) and General Sindril (Jacob Collins) stage a coup and kill all three rulers and their followers.
Each of the rebels has his own goal: Merwin dreams of discovering and colonizing new worlds with the help of ancient dwarven monoliths, Balor seeks to conquer the magic of chaos from another dimension and become the most powerful sorcerer on the Continent, and Sindril simply keeps in his hands the power that the general would definitely lose after the coming of the world
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Not everyone likes the mutiny and the newly created Empire. But only the former bodyguard of the queen, now a bard, Aila (Sophia Brown) and the former lover of the princess, Mervyn, and now a warrior in exile, Fjal (Lawrence O’Fuorain), decided to openly oppose the self-proclaimed rulers. The heroes go to the capital to kill the rebels and take revenge on their friends and relatives. Along the way, they are joined by five more who also have their own questions for the new government.
On the back of the super popular series “The Witcher” and before the release of its third season, Netflix decided to continue to expand the universe of the project and put into production the miniseries “The Witcher: Origins”. Declan De Barra, who worked on the series “Firstborn”, “The Vampire Diaries” and “Iron Fist”, was appointed as the showrunner. He also wrote the script for one episode of The Witcher and recorded vocals for four tracks of the soundtrack.
Unlike the fairly popular and well-made anime The Witcher: The Wolf’s Nightmare, which also aims to give fans more content and expand the universe of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books, Bloodline went awry during the development stage.
Most likely, the showrunner and the team realized already then that it was a failure, so they decided to reduce the number of episodes from six to four. Thus, you can release the show, save money, and not torture the audience for so long while watching this very strange and incomprehensible project.
The new series was supposed not only to expand the television universe of “The Witcher”, but also to answer many questions about lore, the appearance of witches and the connection of worlds, the arrival of people on the Continent, etc. In fact, all this really exists, is explained and mentioned, but it is presented in such an unprofessional manner that it is almost completely incomprehensible. And there are many discrepancies with the books and even with some perverse facts from the main series.
Before I start a long list of disadvantages, I will try to mention the positive points. There are not many of them here, but they do exist. The series has good humor. Much of it passes the viewer and is annoying, but there are quite a few good jokes and really funny situations.
It is worth noting high-quality combat scenes, beautiful, but completely soulless graphics. I single out the dwarf Meldof, performed by the English dwarf actress Francesca Mills. She is still far from the level of Peter Dinklage, but compared to the game and screen incarnations of the other actors of the project, she performed her role very well and became almost the biggest decoration of the series.
I also emphasize super inclusiveness when creating characters and when casting actors. It turns out that there were not only black elves on the Continent, but also Asian elves and Arab elves. LGBT people were also not left out, so the series has characters’ love preferences for every taste.
“The Witcher: Origins” is characterized by several main problems. The first of them is an illogical convoluted plot with many grand pianos in the bushes and constant Deus Ex Machina both on the side of the main characters and on the side of the antagonists. The second is flat and drawn-out characters that seem to have been taken out of a secondary fantasy novel that copies the Dungeons and Dragons universe.
The team of heroes here is represented by classic races and classes, although it did without people. All of them are almost not revealed, and when the plot tries to do this with the help of dialogues and backstories, then the most boring moments in the entire project come out. Evil here is conditional and flat, thieves evoke sympathy and irritation, not respect and horror.
In “Blood Origin” they also failed to properly show the appearance of the first witcher. It’s there, but it also feels like a cheap fantasy movie from the 90s with bad visuals, terrible makeup, and mediocre acting.
The latter, by the way, perform their work seemingly conscientiously, but the terrible scenario probably prevents them from opening up better. I do not rule out just their bad game. The most professional in the general background looks the most famous person from the whole caste — Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh (“Everything everywhere and at once”). I already mentioned the gnome performed by Franceschi Mills above.
Pros:
good graphics, a bright gnome character performed by Franceschi Mills, impressively staged fights and battles, humor, short timing (yes, this is a plus here)
Cons:
the most clichéd plot and flat uninteresting characters, a chaotic poorly thought-out story, the illogicality of the characters’ actions and many grand pianos in the bushes, the overly important events on the Continent and the spoiled appearance of the first witcher, boring dialogues
Conclusion:
“The Witcher: Origins” is the most failed project in the world of “The Witcher” and a completely optional series to watch. It’s a clichéd and maximalist Netflix TV show in the worst sense of the term. The TV show is annoying with flat characters, mediocre villains and an illogical plot. It’s made to the highest standards of inclusivity, it’s full of contradictions and Deus Ex Machina. There are also positives in it: well-staged fights, modern graphics and a bright character of the gnome Meldof
