New The Witcher series without Henry Cavill has been drastically cut and that’s a blessing and a curse at the same time

Can a The Witcher series work without Henry Cavill? Starting today, fans can make up their own minds. Because the prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin has started on Netflix, which 1200 years before the adventures of Geralt and swaps out the grumpy witcher for 7 new main characters – including action goddess Michelle Yeoh.

The Witcher: Blood Origin tells the Story of seven heroes, who set off together to Xin’trea to overthrow the ruler of the Elven kingdom. Their path of revenge eventually leads to the creation of the first witcher and a cosmic catastrophe that merges several worlds together.

With a term of less than 3.5 hours Blood Origin is a refreshingly entertaining fantasy binge for the holidays. But that wasn’t originally planned and you can tell.

That’s why so much was cut from the Netflix series The Witcher: Blood Origin

The Witcher prequel was originally supposed to have 6 episodes, but only 4 are now available on Netflix. Why the epic fantasy adventure was cut by 2 whole episodesco-creator Declan De Barra reasoned with better narrative flow: “I wanted it to be a slap in the face, so you can’t take your eyes off it.”

Speaking to Polish pop culture site Naekranie (via Redanian Intelligence), co-creator and The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich elaborated:

There was no point in taking many breaks in these stories. Declan had actually written some nice scenes where the People around the campfire sit and take it slow. But once we got into editing, it became clear that we needed to keep the momentum going so the series could be watched in one go.

It wasn’t just quieter character moments that were deleted, though. Also the structure of the series and the introduction of the seven main characters has been fundamentally rethought:

Originally, we got to know the characters much more slowly, so to speak a new character in each episode. But we realized that these characters are at their strongest when we see them working as a team, and we didn’t have the whole team together until much later in the series. We realized that we wanted to speed this up.

But was that a good decision? Does this really make the series more fun? Well, there’s no clear answer to that.

Positive: The fantasy series dispenses with lengthy filler material

The Witcher team wanted the storyline don’t stretch it out too much. That in itself is not a bad attitude. Because nothing is worse than a series artificially inflated by too many throttling filler scenes – a problem that plagues many Netflix shows. If there’s one thing you can’t fault Blood Origin with, it’s that it’s too long.

The fact that the characters are introduced differently is also positive at first. In fact, one of Blood Origin’s strengths is the dynamic between the main characters. because all seven main characters already assembled at the end of episode 2 interesting constellations and areas of friction within the group arise much earlier than originally planned.

And the sooner we meet the last member of the squad, the better. the rough one Dwarven fighter Meldof (Francesca Mills) is the secret star of Blood Origin and wears the funniest and most emotional moments of the series. Part of what makes her so interesting: With her banger “Gwen,” she shares a similar relationship as The Walking Dead bad-boy Negan does with his Lucille, even speaking to him.

Cons: The cuts make The Witcher: Blood Origin feel like the trailer for a better series

Unfortunately, the cuts to the Witcher miniseries have more downsides than upsides. Yes, Blood Origin is entertaining and fast-paced. But she’s too fast. with dizzying forward drive the characters and we viewers are rushed through the plot. For example, the series establishes a complex elven society only to bring it down completely just a few minutes later.

For comparison: This is how The Witcher stages the complex fantasy world with Henry Cavill

Most of the main characters don’t get much more than a real scene in which we can really get to know them. Their background stories are often only dealt with in brief subordinate clauses. That is enormously frustrating. The characters of such an epic story deserve more – and so do we.

The most obvious is the speed problem in the relationship between the elven bard Eile (Sophia Brown) and the outcast elven warrior Fjall (Laurence O’Fuarain), who hate each other at the beginning and fall madly in love with each other two episodes later. When exactly did these feelings arise? No idea.

Perhaps the creative minds behind Blood Origin have taken on too much. On the one hand we have an adventure reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. On the other hand, a Game of Thrones-like political intrigue has to somehow fit in at the elf court. In the end, the Witcher prequel often looks like one long trailer for an actually better series. That’s a shame and can be done best described with a sentiment that Henry Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia has already summed up perfectly:

Hm.

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Are you watching The Witcher: Blood Origin?