American test audiences literally said that for I Am Legend which combined with studios unopinionated cowardice caused them to ruin the ending, amongst many, many, many other times that test audiences have given bad artistic feedback.
His anger should probably be focused at the showrunner / studio, but I’m guessing he’s not risking burning those bridges so is instead blaming the only other party in the decision making process, the test audiences.
You do have a 20% illiteracy rate, and the response is that American test audiences have ruined very obviously good plots with their stupidity many times before.
I know everyone thinks I'm a brittle American, but I'm kind of sick of everyone blaming Americans for choices that are made by people who think poorly of Americans.
My point is your original comment said you were sick of people blaming Americans for something that is literally being done by Americans.
The bland media algorithm designed to maximize profits, the “MCU formula”, comes straight from the top. People who see media simply in terms of investment vehicles for thier quarterly shareholders reports are the ones who lay down this law, and those “people” are overwhelmingly American business interests.
I know what you meant. There is such a thing as self-hatred, or thinking you're the only exceptional member of a group. And there's also such a thing as don't trash the majority with the actions of a small minority, particularly a small minority that thinks they are better than the majority.
My point is that the reason this was dumbed down is that movie execs THINK Americans need that, not that Americans need that. Movie execs just think the average American is dumber than a movie exec.
@masterspace All right, so I was interested in the statistic so I looked it up and 20% of Americans are at Level 1 literacy or below according to Wikipedia... which means that actually a lower number than that is functionally illiterate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
Being creepy by stalking my past conversations instead of arguing the point at hand, and ironically furthering my point by mistakenly using a study on Canada from 1989.
Stalking your past convos? No. I saw you were from lemmy.ca and therefore Canadian. Then I did a search for the 20 percent statistic and of course Wikipedia came up.
I don't feel bad. I know our school system sucks because of a lot of systemic problems. I do think your education is not as great as you think it is if you simplify the 20% statistic to full illiteracy and if you think a random person on kbin needs to set up a new public school system before she can have an opinion.
That's before we unpack the idea that literacy=intelligence, which is not always the case.
I do feel a bit bad about the stalking accusation. I didn't realize the ability to see your server in the automatic kbin reply setup combined with the esoteric knowledge of how to use Duck Duck Go would frighten you, Mr Better Educated Than Me. We can stop if this is too much for your heart. This weather can be tough on the body and I know you guys aren't well-versed in heat safety.
if you think a random person on kbin needs to set up a new public school system before she can have an opinion.
You’re allowed to have an opinion, if your opinion is that you feel like America is picked on for being too dumb in this context then I would suggest that you need some strong evidence to persuade people that literacy is not a proxy for education, or more specifically, the ability to hold more complicated medieval fantasy plots together.
And I am well aware of our flaws, our literacy rate is 1.25x the OECD average which is shameful. I’m just not false equivalencing that with America’s 6.33x. In fact if you remove America as the outlier dragging the OECD stats down we look even worse.
@masterspace And there we get to why I'm such a brittle American. See, the immense privilege of the powerful in our country, our military prowess, and the export of the my of American exceptionalism have CONVINCED a lot of people across the world that if they bash Americans it is punching up.
It's not. See, we do HAVE a bad public school system and the richest in our country have spent 40 years sabotaging it in some scheme to fund private schooling. Not only that, school funding is partly by federal and state funding--which is sabotaged by those bastards--but MOSTLY by local taxes so the people in the rich areas get the good schooling with arts, extracurricular activities, foreign language studies and a pool while the people in the poor areas get a whiteboard, an untrained Army veteran as a teacher, and the requirement to buy their own school supplies.
As Americans we have to fight constantly against this sabotage, WHILE working full-time jobs with greater hours and fewer benefits than any other Western country just so we can afford to go to a doctor--as we are called by not just the privileged in our country but the entire WORLD lazy, stupid, complacent and undeserving.
So when you make fun of the average American and call them stupid because their public school system which they need to fix before they complain about people making fun of them? You're punching down.
Meanwhile, you accuse me of punching down but I have spent this thread mocking you for living in a country with a vast abundance of natural resources and wildlife, and living in a country where it's common to ACTUALLY learn a second language rather than learn some grammar rules and tick off boxes, which as I say above, is a privilege in the US afforded to the better schooling that you get by virtue of living in a rich area.
Now, if you'd say Americans are stupid because we invaded the wrong country... Well, then you'd be punching up. But instead you're making fun of something that we are actually at a disadvantage in.
Except that I didn’t make fun of anything, I merely pointed out that it’s plausible that Netflix felt like they had to dumb the Witcher down for American audiences.
As Americans we have to fight constantly against this sabotage, WHILE working full-time jobs with greater hours and fewer benefits than any other Western country just so we can afford to go to a doctor–as we are called by not just the privileged in our country but the entire WORLD lazy, stupid, complacent and undeserving.
And yeah, I recognize that sucks, but you don’t have to do that because of external forces, you have to do that because many people in the group called “Americans” repeatedly vote for politicians who put those systems in place. So when people call Americans stupid, there’s a reason for it. Many are stupid and vote for stupid shit that goes directly against their interest. I’m sorry if you don’t like to hear that or be associated with your fellow countrypeople who do, but it’s the reality of the situation when we’re talking about “Americans” as a whole.
You weren’t just making fun, you were saying you’re sick of us being bothered when people made fun of us.
Except that the context in which I was replying was not one where someone felt picked on because they got made fun of, it was one where someone felt picked on because someone said that it’s plausible they dumbed down the Witcher for Americans.
@masterspace Yeah, but YOU are the one who brought public school into it and you did it in a clever little jokey way.
If you had said "Well, that's what you get for attacking the wrong country", it would be one thing. But you went and made fun of the public school system. You punched down. And now, for your sins, you are stuck in this conversation.
Yeah, but YOU are the one who brought public school into it and you did it in a clever little jokey way.
Because the quality of education affects intelligence, or more specifically, the ability to hold more/less complex witcher plotlines together in your head, so it is a rationale thing to bring up when discussing whether or not Americans are actually capable of holding more/less complex witcher plotlines together in their heads.
You punched down
No, I merely held up a mirror and caused you to have a temper tantrum
I'd hate to see how you'd react to an actual temper tantrum.
No, man. You're mocking people who don't have access to a high standard of learning. You're trying to rationalize that away so that you don't have to feel bad about it.
The Witcher 3 is one of the best selling games ever, and is considered by critics and fans alike to be one of the best games of its genre ever. This guy is a fucking clown.
Yes, came here to say this. Thank you for your services. American executive never own any failures. Claw back their bonuses, fucking brain piece of shits can't even do their jobs anymore.
Yea but that’s only because the game has lots of pretty, moving pictures. And the books have pretty covers.
I’m American, so I can’t even read. I noticed some symbols in the show that could be conceived as trying to impart words or ideas, and it just turned me right off.
You might be asking yourself: “If I can’t read, then how did I understand and respond to this topic?”, and I would then respond: “SHUT UP VOICES IN MY HEAD!”
Great comment, but could have used a more realistic scenario of using a screen reader/dictation software to comment. It’s okay though, I get that you needed to simplify it for the American audiences.
Look at this clown! First, they came out saying they weren’t even fans of the material. You have Henry Cavil in the lead role who is a super fan of the source materials arguing with you and the writers about the show. And then you finish it off by blaming the audience for your decisions. Mind you, the audience you have ultimately attracted is largely influenced by the decisions you have made throughout the production of YOUR show. The audience didn’t make this show, YOU did
If you're the executive producer, it's your fault that your team members fucked it up. If you cannot find a competent writer to properly express nuance on the screen, it's still your fault. You hired the wrong person to adapt the books. You are the boss, the final say, the one-ass-to-kick when things go wrong. The Witcher is not some nuanced story about regional distinctions in low-visibility communities told in short form, which seems to be his only acclaimed experience, followed by several production failures.
This entire interview comes down to "those lazy zoomers don't know how to appreciate good film." From the description of his past, massive failures it appears to be a problem with his process and ability, not an audience problem.
He's really blaming the execs and showrunner between the lines I think. Saying she had to "make tough decisions" means "she fucked up". It's Netflix and the showrunner who think they need to go to the lowest common denominator with scripts to appeal to Americans, especially hard fantasy/sci-fi. So he's kinda pissed at both groups really not just audiences.
It's a shame because other works like GOT 1-5 show the opposite. Go for complex, go for the source material, and audiences will be patient for it.
Then blame execs and showrunners, not the audience. American audiences are savvier than he thinks, just because he had one pitch that didn't fare well with American audiences doesn't mean that they won't embrace more complicated elements of The Witcher.
Plus it just sounds sad; blame audiences for something you, as a producer, can't effectively produce.
Simplifying is really different from what they did which is completely alter characters, unnecessarily kill off characters, introduce new plots that didn't exist, etc. The Lord of the Rings movies, and the recent Dune movie both did a lot of that but are considered fantastic adaptations. Even Game of Thrones was an excellent adaptation for the first ~5 seasons and had huge mass market appeal while still being complex.
man the dune movie was so interesting sounding and watching it was such a … idk… it was an experience. There was so much stuff that seemed so loosely strung together to the point of feeling almost baffling. I wouldn’t think LoTR or early GoT are comparable?
You might need to go back and watch it again. I had a completely different experience, and I found the plot rather cohesive. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen in my opinion.
I felt like Dune needed some prior knowledge of the books to really follow the plot. Not because the plot wasn’t cohesive, but because so much plot was condensed into a movie that was already 2 and half hours long. It’s not the fault of the movie, the book is just dense. But it does end up disorienting for the average viewer who can’t instantly adjust their understanding of the universe to fully follow the plot.
That's fair. I never read the books or even watched the original movie, but I do have fans in my circle that have given me a bit of an indirect knowledge of the Duniverse. Even still, the acting, the cinematography, the music, everything in this movie is just amazing to me.
Right… It’s the audience’s fault and not the show runners who outright refused to follow the books and games leading to the star of the show leaving. 🙄
Season 2 (“Book 1” in the US), I agree made some TERRIBLE changes, especially around Yennifer’s relationship with Ciri.
Having just finished Season 3, however, I feel like they mostly pulled back into following the book’s major plotlines. Sure, a TV show makes some concessions on content, but overall I felt it followed the books “okay”. Everything that happened in Thanedd was close, and everything after that too, in the final 3 episodes. Rience was the strangest change to me, since that doesn’t happen for several books and it’s Ciri’s doing.
Does the general public agree? Or are we still so mad about Season 2 that we refuse to see Season 3 positively?
This. I see no point in investing any more of time in this show. Netflix needs to fire everybody, pull every episode from existence, and just start over with people who actually care about the source material and are willing to invest the time, effort, and respect to do it right.
Yeah, fair, but I didn’t like the first season, either. Cavill was perfect, Joey Batey as Dandelion was… fine… and that is where the positives stopped. The show was a mess from the start and you can’t just erase those seasons if they did happen to do a little better on 3… and knowing that Cavill is out for season 4… there is just no point. I’d rather replay Witcher 3 again than ever watch another minute of that show.
oof, you just reminded me - Dandelion in season 3 was… not as good as Season 1/2. Even down to the detail that every time he came on screen, my wife demanded to know what they did with his hair. That, and the strangely unnecessary sex scenes with another male.
ok ok, season 3 wasnt perfect either. but I was “surprised” that the big events at Aretuza and the major events afterward all followed the book rather closely…
Yeah, it looks pretty bad from that list. It may not be quite as bad in practice - some of them may have their name attached because, for instance, they co-own a production company where only person is involved but all three co-owners get their names on the credits. And some of them may be involved on the technical side, some for the story side, some just for financing, etc.
But even so, that looks like far too many names to have any kind of coherent vision.
“we want to make more money so we dumbed down the plot to idiot level and blame it on americans being dumb. Also we changed everything to be more emotional because that’s what tiktoks kids want, more emotion and less plot or something”
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