So this article popped up and according to former Witcher writer Beau DeMayo, there are writers in the Netflix series writers room that actively dislike the source material and CDPR games of the witcher (so the thing that made the series popular enough for a tv adaptation in the first place).

https://www.cbr.com/netflix-the-witcher-writers-room-disliked-books-games/

According to DeMayo, "some of the writers were not or actively disliked the books and games (even actively mocking the source material.)" and pointing out the obvious that "its a recipe for disaster"

It does make sense given that the Netflix series is a terrible adaptation of the Witcher and goes off the rails with season 2. Hell, fans criticize the show for its poor writing with the praise really being limited to Henry Cavil for being a huge fan that is trying to be faithful to the series.

To be fair, we dont know the whole story but the showrunner did also talk about how she didnt want "hardcore fans" as writers and wanted people who wanted to "question" the franchise (has she never been in a fandom? Thats all fans do) and given how easily the writers killed off canonically important and fan-favorite characters, I do think this has some legs.

Having worked in Hollywood, I can tell you that a number of executives in charge of production(s) and showrunners -- instead of making product that honors the source material -- are purposely "undermining" the properties they are making. And when I say "undermining," I do not mean they are purposely trying to destroy the IPs... but I am meaning they are seeing the chance to take an established, beloved property (IP) -- which they often dislike -- and twisting it to their own ends. The unfortunate outcome of this "subversion" often is damage to the IP.

While I do not know the situation around this particular production, I can tell you Hollywood is rife with this ATM.

Back when I started, most wanted to work on projects that they loved and looked to do justice to the IP and original creator, author, etc. Now sadly, it's very, very different.

I actually was in charge of protecting an IP from a company that many here would know. Didn't go well. Terrible, soul-crushing experience.

So, hiring writers who dislike source material result in adaptation that twists source material in a way that is despised by fans? What a shocker!

A lot of things in that article that really really irk me. The central one:

Beau DeMayo is trying to advertise his own writers room philosophy. Naturally, according to him, all the other writers' rooms he was in were run by morons. So in half a sentence, he talks a bit of smack about the Witcher's writers room.

It should be clear that there is some form of exaggeration in that half sentence. What "actively dislike" means, only that dude knows.

The Witcher's writers' room setup seems reasonable to me actually. The rule was "We need writers who are close, but not too close" (it was NOT: "writers who don't know/like the source material"). Hardcore fans tend to write hardcore fanfiction. This is the writers room that DeMayo is setting up right now.

For "X-Men 97", a Disney series.

Anyone who criticised that last Star Wars stuff as badly written, extremely repetitive fan fiction will begin to see a pattern forming here and can make a contexualized judgment about what authorial philosophy yields the better results. For Disney, the recipe has been to copypaste, to reference, to put on a pedestal, and to fossilize the process of adaptation.

Sure, if you're trying to tell an actually new story with the source material, you are going to make some bold steps that can go wrong. But I'd rather watch a series that tries something new and fails than one that just tries to mimick a book or even a computer game. You don't even need writers for that. I could do it. You could do it.

And it's worth the risk. "Children of Men" is e.g. one of the greatest movies of all time and has almost nothing to do with the book of the same name. If you read "Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep", you will only see a loose connection to "Blade Runner". I'm still desperately waiting for a Hitchhiker's Guide movie or series that's actually great because the connection to the source material is kept at arm's length.

Having seen what they did to Resident Evil, no surprise.

And Lost in Space, but at least that was checks...passable, which to some might be an upgrade from a weird reboot movie and a corny TV series.

And really, I don't know what drugs Hollywood is on anymore, having bastardized so many franchises in introducing incongruities that are out of step with the rest of the continuity or simply rejumping the shark. (Star Trek Discovery managed to do both.)

Or Ghostbusters 2016.

I presume the writer(s) didn't feel the source material was woke enough? Not enough non-white lesbian fluidgenderers in the books and the games? Not to mention Starship Troopers, which was quite different from the book.

I preferred the movie though, I didn't find the book particularly interesting in any way. Then again I did see the movie first, that may have affected my judgment as well.

I don't know if I buy that. Why on earth would you get involved in a series if you hate ALL of its source material? Moreover, I know articles like that tend to stretch the truth or take things out of context. It's clear that, at the very least, Hissrich admires the books and knows her stuff.

That's just his way of saying "Out changes are improvements. If you can't see that, you are not worth of my attention."

To use the notoriety of the source material to push whatever agenda or simply advance your own career (or to stroke you own ego e.g. The Last Jedi).

I don't see why the games should even be relevant. The Witcher author famously harbours certain sentiments towards games and gamers that are not exactly popular. And his writing ... I mean, I have two friends who are heavily into the witcher books (and were even before there were video games), one of them's a linguist, the other one studied history and politics. I can see where their fascination is coming from, but I find it difficult to share it.

I presume the writer(s) felt the source material was a little too dry and fixated on political shenannigans.

If anybody understood that reference here, I'd say that they should have treated this whole thing like William Goldman treated the works of S. Morgenstern, but ... I guess I'd just see a lot of shrugs instead of laughter.

I did. And that's why I think the movie is inferior to the book, at least in terms of the story and exploration of the "what makes us human?" topic. Westwood's game, which actually did borrow more things from the book, makes a better job.

Yawn, just more "culture war" bait.

The question is valid though: How close should you stick to the source material when you're adapting a work of literature etc. to the big or small screen?

I think it might be the best opportunity to discuss this basic question without any connection to the raging culture war.

I mean, think about it. This Beau dude is filling his Disney/Marvel writers' room with fanboy nutjobs because he thinks those make the better writers than he saw in a Netflix writers room. If people screamed HESRIGHTITSBECAUSENETFLIXGONEWOOK here, they'd be pleading for Disney.

Which would be hilarious.

i dont know about the rest of the team but the showrunner clearly dont like The Witcher, she probably like the universe and it's potential but she clearly hate the writing. She changed it in a way that only Geralt is a little bit good (and it's probably because of Cavil and not her). She also said that she want to let her children by creating a show for younger audience. I'd like to know how a universe with peoples killing monsters and with this much politics can be adapted for children without killing it.

Too bad Sapkowski only care about the books as it sees the rest as non official but there is a lot of peoples that will enter to his universe with the show and if they are disapointed by it they will never buy his books and for those who liked the show and will read the books they also can be disapointed as it's darker and a completly different story.

Having just played through the Halo series, my morbid curiosity got the better of me and I checked out the first episode of the Halo TV show. One episode was good enough to cure me and I won't be continuing. The surface details are mostly spot on - stuff like hardware designs and even sound effects from the games - but the philosophy is directly opposed to the games in that characters who were good in the games are much more morally and ethically cloudy and the UNSC is effectively a straight up Nazi regime (like, "execute an innocent child for specious reasons" bad). They took a relatively light-hearted, crowd-pleasing work of military sci-fi (as light-hearted as a story about humanity losing ground in a genocidal war could be, I guess) and tried to make it a mopey, misanthropic piece. (It's also just dumbly plotted and characterized.)