Butter, witcher, and addictive. The story, drawn from the pen of Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, was a groundbreaking work in many ways, and it would have been a crime not to develop it as a big-budget series. (By the way, the Poles have tried to do this before, but the end result was not an undivided success.)
So everyone can understand: Vaják was so successful because its author was able to fuse the fantasy genre from Tolkien’s Anglo-Saxon world in Eastern Europe, all while creating a work for children, not least for children, while retaining the classic folk tale elements characteristic of the region.
Sapkowski clearly drew from Tolkien’s work, whose imprint can be found in every fantasy story (elves, dwarves, trolls, etc.), but he twisted it, sprinkled it with a Polish worldview and created the story, which is then properly laid out. to Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.
Now that we’ve properly covered the core business and what it means, we can turn to Netflix and how they’ve managed to adapt this masterpiece. (First of all, comparing the adaptation to the original work is not only unwarranted, but also incorrect, so this will not happen in the future. The above books and games are mentioned just to explain why the series is sufficiently anticipated by Vagak fans.)
In 2019, the Vaják series began its journey to conquer the world, as Netflix bought not only the rights to the original books, but also the option to add them, creating an opportunity to provide viewers with spin-offs between seasons, which we will return to later.
Briefly about the first two seasons
in the first season Netflix introduced the main characters, their motivations, and their encounters by jumping in time and space, and did it all with the right cast, visuals, and direction. It wasn’t until the season finale that the overall picture came together, which fit the series incredibly well, and the tension was palpable throughout.
in the second season Already tired of the series. Although in the early episodes we still get a little bit of the strength of the first season – that each episode is a separate story at the same time – this quickly gets lost and we’re slowly working towards the end. The season did not pass without positives: its greatest strength was that it showed the diversity of the world in which the events take place, the only problem is that the world is more interesting than the events that take place in it. By the end of the season, we’ve managed to get to the point where these particular events really seem to be set in motion. The third season has arrived, and the question is, have they started?
Spinoffs and news before the third season
the first show , which Netflix kicked out even before the second season Vagak: Nightmare Wolf It was titled In this one-act animated film, we learn the story of Geralt’s teacher: during Vesemir’s transformation into butter, they show the rise and fall of the Kaer morhen butter school.
The point of this movie was world-building, and it did all of that with great feeling. The film’s animation is impeccable: it draws a lot from the Japanese anime style, but doesn’t overdo it. I could mostly compare the visuals to the Avatar animated series, which were also excellent.
the second, already released, was also useful for world building, but not for anything else. This three-episode series was the first time she had the feeling that something was going wrong. In principle, the story would have taken us to the world of elves, who ruled the continent before humans appeared, but the creators managed to mold the elves as if they were just people with pointed ears. This should be taken to mean that the creators of the story have deviated from the path on which they began, namely that the wise, peaceful people – who were initially claimed to have become warriors only because people forced them to – are now just. Grimace and, above all, grimace before they appear.
After all this, the news came that Henry Cavill was leaving the series. The actor’s decision struck a chord with all fans, as Cavill’s performance was pretty much the series’ only indisputable element. He will be replaced by Liam Hemsworth as Geralt. And a change of actors is never beneficial in the series, especially if it happens in the lead role, and the ill feelings surrounding it are not directed at Hemsworth, who could even shine as the White Wolf.
third season
After many letters and introductions, we come to the third season, which has yet to be split into two parts by Netflix – although other streaming providers are distributing the parts one by one, so they’re still better than the competition.
For the third season, the producers realized that they should not deviate from the source material as they had in the previous season. In fact, it was surprising how much the producers tried to get back to basic work during the third act, which wasn’t really a problem – as we experienced in season two: they have no better ideas than Sapkowski. This season is definitely an improvement over the second season, it’s less drawn-out and you feel like something is really going on.
Our heroes (Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri) have truly become family, though rather than drawn-out character development this is presented in a montage, it works. This season, the connection between the characters is emphasized more than ever: we get to learn about their pain and grievances towards each other, which makes us finally believe what they’ve said so far: that Geralt and Yennefer aren’t just following Ciri like a hobby.
The cast presents the usual level in the first two seasons: this carries both negative and positive opinions. Henry Cavill (Geralt), Anya Chalotra (Yenifer) and Joy Batty (Cukorsin) continue to excel, but Freya Allan (Ciri) remains more of a hysterical teenager than a broken girl looking for her way.
In summary Season 3 brought people back to Vaják’s world, but the aforementioned ailments haven’t fully grown into the Netflix global build. Henry Cavill will make his last appearance as Geralt, next season already with Hemsworth, and hopefully the change will bring positive rather than negative change. Anyway, even though the series isn’t fighting to keep me, I’m not quite quitting just yet. The visual effects, atmosphere and music are still impressive, and we hope that the planned spin-offs and subsequent seasons will bring back the feeling of the first act.
