The Witcher 5 Reasons Why The Blood Origin Prequel Is A Great Idea (& 5 Why It Could Backfire)

The Witcher: 5 Reasons Why The Blood Origin Prequel Is A Great Idea (& 5 Why It Could Backfire)

Netflix’s live-action series of The Witcher has been a big hit but would a Blood Origins prequel be a good or bad idea at this stage?

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

Thanks, admittedly, in notable part to the massive popularity of the video games, Lauren Hissrich got together with author Andrzej Sapkowski and Netflix to create their own The Witcher live-action series. The show was a smash-hit for Netflix as it dominated in viewership. Having Henry Cavill star as Geralt of Rivia certainly helped. While more invested series fans have problems around pacing and book-accuracy, it was overall-received well.

It started off rocky with critics but made an impressive comeback to settle on a positive–albeit moderately so–score/reception on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s been busy in terms of building the franchise, as a second spin-off was recently announced. It’s clear they’re trying to capitalize on popularity, but it could pay off if handled well in the long-run. Here are five reasons the Blood Origin prequel is a great idea and five why it could backfire.

10 Great: More World-Building

Obviously the main series is working on achieving its own world-building, but presenting spin-off projects for a vast fantasy franchise is a fantastic opportunity for deeper world-building. The Witcher was unfortunately just eight episodes and while largely done well, it upped the pacing and also seemed to be an issue with some because of the frequent time jumps. However, it still did a mostly-effective job at setting the stage for the major players going forward.

The Witcher: Blood Origin is intended to explore a time 1,200 years before The Witcher. This could give the on-screen franchise a strong chance to broaden its scope and show the world of Elves/magic before the Conjunction of the Spheres, leading to the native people’s persecution by humans and how Witchers came to be. If done well, this can only complement the main series.

9 Backfire: Affecting The Main Attraction’s Production

While it’s great to think that professionals will know well enough on what’s most important when creating massive live-action franchises, this obviously isn’t guaranteed. Star Wars and Game of Thrones were both gargantuan franchises that saw ‘endings’ in 2019, but big figures behind the scenes didn’t take it seriously/got distracted by other projects and ended up breaking countless hearts and tainting legacies with their disastrous landings.

While the same main-series crew won’t all be involved/deeply involved in this, higher-ups may divert too much attention on creating (another) spin-off than The Witcher’s upcoming seasons.

8 Great: New Characters

Being a spin-off, and especially a prequel that’s set several centuries before the main series, a great asset to Blood Origin would be to explore entirely different characters. Sure, the series may not have the sheer star power that Henry Cavill carries with The Witcher, but there’s a great opportunity to cast and build on new faces that could create their own allure to the show that stands on its own.

The most exciting proposition this presents is the origins of the first Witcher. Couple that with the compelling premise of being set on a stage leading up to the most significant event for the Continent, and fans potentially have an enthralling story.

7 Backfire: Oversaturation

As briefly referenced here already, the announcement of this spin-off series is even more surprising due to the fact that there’s already a spin-off project in development. Like this one, it was announced this year as well, just much sooner after the premier of the main series. The project is an animated film titled The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf. Also a prequel, but it’ll be an origin story for Geralt’s mentor, Vesemir.

The potential issue this presents is one that Star Wars struggled with particularly in December 2017 to May 2018: oversaturation. Building a large universe-based franchise is one thing, but there is the risk of taking on too much far too soon.

6 Great: Contained Story

Something that could be used to the advantage of Blood Origin that could avoid the pitfall of oversaturation is the fact that this will be a limited series. Specifically, it’ll only be a single, 6-episode-long season. Given the fact that this is a spin-off meant to expand upon the world being built in The Witcher, a limited series can not only be an effectively told, contained story, but it should also be all that’s necessary.

It’ll (ideally) refrain from taking away significant attention from The Witcher’s production and leave the longer-form storytelling to it.

5 Backfire: The Scope

On the other hand, while limited series can be great tools to tell impactful, contained stories–and even better when they’re spin-offs designed to complement a parent project/series–the scope could be an issue. As mentioned, Blood Origin will serve as a major historical deep-dive into the lore of the Continent.

But the sheer scope of that premise (origins of the first Witcher, Conjunction of the Spheres) might be problematic for a single, 6-episode-long season/series. That’s around two hours less than season one of The Witcher, and some major, groundbreaking events to cover.

4 Great: Relevancy

Spin-off projects of major franchises are clearly ways to profit off the main attractions’ popularity, but they can also be used to keep those main attractions talked about and hyped up. Should Blood Origin release in-between seasons of The Witcher–a fair hypothesis–and both endeavors maintain high quality, then the main series along with the whole Netflix part of the franchise will be relevant for even longer.

Granted, as long as the main series is strong throughout, it’ll leave a great legacy, but people will continue talking about it online while it’s fresh, giving these shows longer lifespans in popularity.

3 Backfire: Potential Delays

Somewhat tying into the earlier point on the possibility of negatively affecting the production/quality is the other potential factor of series delays. And not necessarily delays of just Blood Origin, but of all the projects–and perhaps upcoming projects–in the Netflix part of this franchise.

Among the negatives could be, for whatever corporate reason, Blood Origin and its hypothetical delays push back Nightmare of the Wolf and, more importantly, upcoming seasons of The Witcher. Even worse is if potential schedule-reshuffling affects content quality and not just asking fans to be unnecessarily patient.

2 Great: More Franchise-Wide Demand

While already having touched upon the clear concept of spin-offs expanding interest and demand in the main series, another obvious pro if Blood Origin is executed well is that the entire franchise sees even more injection of demand. This also includes creating new fans as these productions release and prove to be good quality.

Meaning, people will–like with Game of Thrones–run to bookstores to buy Sapkowski’s books for years to come. Additionally, CD Projekt Red’s revered video games will see even more success, five years after the final entry (as if Wild Hunt wasn’t already acclaimed enough).

1 Backfire: Should Wait Until Post-Witcher

Releasing spin-off projects of the main series during/in-between seasons of The Witcher could be effective, but perhaps this also leads back in a different way to pumping out too much too soon. Like also referenced, Nightmare of the Wolf is already on the way as well at some point and given a second spin-off announcement in the same year for a budding on-screen franchise, there could be even more.

Like with House of the Dragon for Game of Thrones, it could be better to wait for a prequel series–limited or not–to release after the final season of The Witcher. This could potentially be a better strategy for prolonging franchise relevancy.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/the-witcher-reasons-blood-origin-prequel-great-bad-idea-backfire/

• Which Encanto Character Are You Based On Your Zodiac Sign

• Tick Tick Boom! The 10 Bravest Characters

• You 10 Of Joes Literary References Ranked LeastMost Pretentious

• XMen Cyclops and Wolverine Are Definitely Having Sex On The Moon

• The Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy Review Third Times The Charm

• TikTok Melding Real Life and Online Life with New Algorithm

• What Fast & Furious 10 & 11 Need To Do To Properly End The Fast Saga