Most of the book fans I talked to don't care for it and the changes they made. As well as some of the casting choices. I thought it was fairly good for the most part and I think people tend to overrate the novels. The last few books in particular are really, really convoluted and all over the place. The saga grew more and more ridiculous after the big incident on Thanedd. The ending to the novels was immensely unsatisfying.
shareI think the English translation is not very good. I've only read the first few stories but they felt kind of dull when compared to the Russian translation which, by all accounts, was a lot closer to the original. Might have had something to do with the fact that Sapkowski speaks perfect Russian and was able to supervise the process.
So English Witcher is a lot more plain and dull, the atmosphere, the insane variety of speech styles are gone. Postmodernist meta-humor is flatter and most of black humor comes out as a dud.
Most Russian-speaking viewers who read the books tend to be very negative about the show for that very reason. It's too ordinary and doesn't do the books justice.
I can only suspect what do the Poles think.
I don't think it's the translation at all, I'm talking about the plot.
Ciri's big important fate is to visit Camelot? Nilfgaard keeps Cintra and Ciri loses her birthright? The Emperor is her dad? Geralt and Yennefer die due to some random contrived violence done by peasants? And that's just the ending, not the last few books with side missions and Ciri planet hopping to get there. Honestly, the more I think about it, the last few books are pretty horrible.
The English translation is not very good. I compared the English and the Spanish translations, and the last one was way better.
share