The Witcher: La pesadilla del lobo

Disclaimer- have read the books and played the games

As a stand-alone film,it's actually pretty decent,which I was not expecting. Animation looks pretty decent although a bit inconsistent in some places and the soundtrack added to the experience rather than subtracted from it. I found the pacing to be a bit rushed and I feel that the movie could have definitely used some extra runtime,but the story was enjoyable and I found myself liking Vesimir,but it's nothing spectacular.

However,the script needlessly changed events from the Witcher universe and It messed with the timeline a bit too much in my humble opinion. My biggest gripe is with the powers of the Witcher themselves as they (and especially their signs) are waaay too OP. And I felt as if the derive of Kaer Morhan was needlessly of the top. I could go on for a good while nitpicking all of the seemingly unnecessary changes. But alas,it doesn't matter too much and the movie is still enjoyable in my opinion.

Honestly I really liked the animation, soundtrack and fight scenes, but thats kinda it. I hated the ending and final plot twist, because it completely rewrites a really important plot point in the Witcher universe. If it was made somewhat well, I would be okay with that, but the way the writers did that was just bad. Story is kinda meh, and Vesemir is fun character, until you remember its Vesemir, so another rewrite. Some people coplain about diversity, honestly I did not care about that. Some parts of the story felt without any pay of. If this was made with a completely unknown witcher and completely different school of witchers, or be a completly different universe it would be 8, but the heavy disrespect to the most important parts of the lore really bumed me out.

It's honestly pretty good, but Netflix is rewriting some of the witcher lore and as a long time game and book fan it's just kinda sad.

(Edit: It may be best to treat this film's story as a re-write or alternative adaptation of The Witcher universe.) Any fans of The Witcher and its many works know and love Geralt, but we've rarely been given stories of his teacher. This movie resolves that issue by giving us a heart-felt, detailed, and beautiful, and I say again, Beautiful look at Vesemir's origins. Without spoiling anything, Nightmare of the Wolf shows us an emotional and epic telling of a critical event in Witcher history while delivering the tale of what led Vesemir to becoming the vaunted teacher to the "hero" we know. The writing was evocative. The characters were interesting and believable. The action was jaw-dropping. And holding it all together was some of the most brilliant animation to ever grace Netflix. It does have some instances of predictability and some of its pacing could've been worked out better if it were allowed more run time as a season instead of a movie, but none of it was to any significant detriment to the overall feel and enjoyment of the film.

I've spent the past two year's now studying, filmmaking, directing, and reading the entire Witcher Series, along with completing the Wild Hunt 3 times over.

This film was pretty damn great; a prequel that answered my questions about the sacking of Kaer Morhen, and the origins of Vesemir. I personally think the film would've made more sense if it was longer, but it was sped along nicely, sometimes a tad too fast. The animation was stellar, with the writing almost perfect. My issues: The voice acting felt a bit monotone-not a deal breaker, but frustrating. It took immersion away a bit.

Tetra's backstory and motivation was answered, but I could've used more info.

Vessemir's true light; hard men are made hard by circumstance-I hope that season 2 of Witcher 3 gives us more of his morally-good side. Kindness is a virtue, even if only ever shown at ones worst moments.

The directing seemed to "direct" this film to readers of the original book series; we forget, not all of us have invested hundreds of ours rummaging through the novels. Some people may be left in the dark to some extent *cough*, "season one of the Witcher Netflix series" All in all, a great prequel that does justice to the Witcher Universe.

Time to get back to reading, Winds Howling.