March 11, 2025 • 56 mins
The murky depths of adaptation choices are on full display as we dive into Netflix's animated Witcher film, Sirens of the Deep. Based on "A Little Sacrifice," a beloved short story from Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher saga, this underwater adventure takes Geralt of Rivia and his bard companion Jaskier into conflict between humans and merfolk.
Our exploration reveals a fascinating divide in perspective between those familiar with the source material and newcomers experiencing the story for the first time. While the animation quality stands as a universal high point – with fluid combat scenes and dynamic underwater sequences that couldn't be achieved in live action – the narrative changes prove more contentious. The film's unexpected similarities to Disney's The Little Mermaid, including the introduction of a sea witch character and significant alterations to the merfolk appearance, raise questions about the necessity of these creative decisions.
We dissect how the film reverses a crucial character choice at the climax, fundamentally changing the thematic weight behind the original story's title. The streamlining of Essi Daven's poignant storyline represents another significant departure that longtime fans may find particularly disappointing. Yet for viewers without prior attachment to the books, these changes may go unnoticed while the core adventure remains entertaining.
Through our varied entry points into The Witcher franchise – whether through games, books, or the Netflix series – we offer multiple perspectives on how adaptation choices impact audience experience. Is faithful adaptation necessary for success, or should creative liberties be embraced? Join our discussion and decide for yourself whether Sirens of the Deep represents a worthy addition to The Witcher universe or a missed opportunity to bring one of its finest stories to life.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome one and all to our 112th episode of Project
Geekology.
Today, we will not be throwinga coin to our witcher, but we
will be talking about Geralt ofRivia, as well as Jaskier, or
Dandelion, if you prefer on anadventure that has recently been
released on Netflix.
It's an animated film calledSirens of the Deep, and we have
(00:20):
a lot to say about it.
I've got a lot to say about it.
My name is Dakota.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm joined, as always , with Anthony, and I know that
you say we weren't going to betalking about tossing a coin to
the Witcher, but are we going tobe talking about O Valley of
Plenty?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
If by O Valley of Plenty you mean like the
coastline and you know, like theocean, then yes, yes, yes, and
joining us as always, now, asalways is.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Rich, I'm excited here, despite the siren songs
that you may have heard to startthe show, I think that we will
all navigate these waters andcome to an accord at the end.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We better, we sure as hell better.
Yeah, we have a lot to talkabout today with the Netflix
film the Witcher Sirens of theDeep, adapted from my personal
favorite Witcher story, which iscalled A Little Sacrifice,
which is featured in the firstWitcher novel, sword of Destiny.
I'm excited to talk about someof the pros and cons of how it
(01:22):
was adapted because, yeah, Ireally love that story.
But before we get into any ofthat, let's talk about what
we've been up to this past week.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Anthony, we'll start with you what have I been up to?
I have been up to playing, youknow, our topic of last week,
marvel rivals.
I've been playing more of that.
I don't play it like crazy allthe time, so like my rank isn't
super high but like I'm almostin platinum, I've made it to
(01:52):
gold one, so I'm getting upthere, but I've been doing that.
I talked to you a little bit inthe beginning, like before we
started recording that I havebeen, you know, kind of full
steam on another like stint ofwatching one piece.
You know like I'll watch awhole bunch of it and then like
I'll start taking a break, whichI don't want to take like as
(02:12):
long of a break as I did likethis last time.
But there are some, some animethat like I want to watch this
time around.
I think the second season ofsolo leveling finished up, so I
definitely want to watch that.
The first season was awesome.
I heard that the second seasonjust kind of ups the ante, so
I'm really excited about that.
(02:33):
And I also talked about I alsotalked to like rich and dakota
off of the recording, but like afew months back I had applied
for a remote position.
It's an it position for thebank that I work for and I did
not end up getting it that firsttime around.
(02:55):
The position opened up againlike five months later and I
applied and this time I got it.
And I start at the end of thismonth that's awesome, dude.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm happy for you.
I was like depressed when yousaid that you didn't get it the
first time.
I was just like, oh, but theyleft, they kept your application
right and yeah, so it's.
It's good that they kept itbecause they clearly liked you
yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The hiring manager was the one that reached out to
me when this position opened upand he was like, hey, we have a
position opening up, applied now, and so so that's what I did,
and they ended up hitting me upand they, yeah, they kind of
like brought up points aboutlast time.
Like you know that you knowwe're really impressed about
(03:37):
this and you know it wasn't likefully there like choice to like
choose the last person.
I think that, like as acollective, they chose the
person, but they were, like youknow, last time you really did
make it hard and it felt alittle unfair that we weren't
able to pick you too, but we'reglad that we get to pick you now
.
I'm really stoked about thatand excited to kind of grow and
(03:59):
learn a lot more.
And so, yeah, man, like bigmoves, I feel like I'm
progressing and whatnot.
I'm excited about that.
But, yeah, how about you,dakota?
What have you been up to?
I know that you haven't beenfeeling so well.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
So yeah, I, I got like really sick yesterday.
I don't know what happened Idon't think it's the flu or I
don't know if it is the flu butI got like a really bad cold
where I just had like chills onand off for the past two days.
I almost like.
I almost canceled the recordingtoday because earlier today I
(04:33):
was.
I was having a hard timetalking, but as of right now I
can manage an hour ofconversation on and off, so
that's not too bad.
As far as what I've been up to,I watched a little bit of
Daredevil the new marvel seriesthat is on disney plus, oh same.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I watched the first episode.
What'd you think it was?
I feel like that there'sdefinitely they've got something
going there.
They definitely shock you, likepretty quick.
In the beginning there wasdefinitely some sort of
symbolism that was happeningthere in the meta, though like
not really inside the show.
Happening there in the meta,though like not really inside
the show, but like in the meta.
But you know, I I feel likethat's something that we could
probably you know, I don't wantto divulge too much.
It's fresh, it's new and I wantto let it kind of, you know,
(05:18):
release before we actually liketalk about it.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
But you know, like oh yeah, in a sidebar I was trying
to figure out what you weresaying about yeah, yeah, yeah,
like, like the first, like 16minutes, you know okay, yeah so
yeah, I enjoyed it as well.
It was kind of weak compared tothe original show in terms of
the cinematography and thewriting, but it's good to see
(05:43):
these characters again, evenonly for a couple minutes I will
say I mean the cinematographymight not be as strong, but it's
still stronger than a lot ofwhat has been coming out
recently for disney marvel stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
But it was nice seeing charlie cox again.
You know it's hard to like seeanybody else in that role and
I'm glad that he's, so, he's,he's.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
He's fantastic in that role, yeah rich.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Did you give it a shot?
Oh yeah, I mean, my bar ispretty low for superhero and
star wars content.
I think I have to be fair, kindof say that.
So I really loved it.
I mean, I think the only thingthat you, you know, I had heard
that I guess earlier versions orearlier shoots of this were
more mainstream accessible, youknow.
(06:31):
So you know, when Charlie hearshe's 10, he hears about a
series like, oh you know, I wantto watch it.
And when I heard aboutDaredevil I was like give me a
sec.
I got to check it out, you know, and I remember with dr strange
multiverse of madness, he, heheeded my warnings and just, he
basically watched new rock starsanalysis but he didn't see any
(06:55):
live action clips of, of, of dr,you know, of scarlet witch
going crazy and I'm watchingthis and even two episodes, and
I know that he can't watch it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know, it's just, it's like he's yeah, they're not
holding back, he'll watch it.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
He could watch deadpool, because deadpool is
kind of being ridiculous and italmost seems like it's not
really it's cartoon.
Yeah, it's cartoon, cartoonymurder.
Also, my wife fell asleepduring the movie, so that helped
a lot.
Uh, but this is like a littletoo serious.
You know, I'm just like I don't.
I don't think I'm cool with it.
I really liked it.
(07:31):
I mean, if only to see thecharacters back.
Definitely, I love d'onofrio'skingpin.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
It's just he's so good it's unbelievable, like.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know what's weird is he like, for example, lost
weight, you know, and they docomment on that in the first two
episodes, yeah, but withanother person it would feel
like, oh man, they're not incharacter now, right, but for
him it legitimately feels likepart of the psyche of the
(08:02):
kingpin in this moment, right,like he's leaner, he's healthier
, but he's weaker.
You know, he doesn't, he's notas aggressive and I think, right
, yeah, it's interesting, I justI love that.
I'll just say that vanessascares the bejesus out of me.
(08:22):
I, I, she is.
Wow, I mean right right now,for me, two episodes in just a
villain that is understated andthat makes it all the more
distressing okay, so I, I reallyI liked, which is which is
(08:42):
weird, because she wasn't thatcharacter in the original show.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yep, like she evolved into that character for this
show.
Yeah, so that's cool.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
So I think it's.
You know.
Look, I try to give all of thema pretty good shake going in
and it did not feel like a.
I'm not going to say it wasseason four, but it's not
terribly different.
So if this is a multiverse,this is the universe right over.
(09:12):
You know, it's just a littleoff.
Okay, sure, yeah, all right, youknow it's like your favorite
dish but you get it at adifferent restaurant.
So it's still really good, butyou know it's not the same as
the other one got it well andthat that's exactly what they're
going for.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
They're not trying to make it a season four, they're
really like leaning in on thewhole rebirth, like name, and
they're not going based off of astoryline but more of it being
a rebirth of the daredevilseries.
You know, without themcompletely, you know reworking
it and those like first, youknow the like the beginning is
(09:51):
them trying to like kind of moveon from that.
You know I feel like they couldhave maybe done that a little
bit better, but it was stillshocking enough.
But you know I don't want tolike reveal too much and dig too
deep.
You know.
I know that eventually we'lltalk about it at some point.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, I'd love to dedicate an episode or two to
Daredevil Born Again, becausethe episodes are long.
The first episode is an hourlong, which is unlike Disney+.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was excited man.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I was excited when I saw that.
That gave me a little bit ofhope.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
And also, like you know, something that disney is
and this is a crime to me islike they'll put a show.
It'll be like 30 to 45 minutesand like six of it's like
credits.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Oh man, oh yeah, that's a crime.
Dude, like I'm like dude, I seewhat y'all did.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
We didn't need to see all this yeah, I don't need to
know who the icelandictypecaster is like, please right
, it's so crazy like theircredits are.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
It's really insane before I cede my time over to
rich in terms of what I've beenup to this past week, I want to
talk about a couple books that Igot that I'm excited to jump
into all of them avatar relatedthe code of the book guy.
Book guy.
I start with Avatar Legends,the role-playing game, uncle
Iroh's Adventure Guide.
Ooh yeah, it's the latesthardcover booklet or adventure
(11:16):
guide for the Avatar Legendsrole-playing game.
It's been out for a couplemonths now.
This is the first I've pickedit up and given a look at.
Couple months now.
This is the first I've pickedit up and given a look at.
But yeah, it expands on thelore of the Avatar universe as
well as giving you like fiveunique stories from different
eras, starting from Kyoshi toRoku, to Hundred Year War, to
Aang and then Korra, all takingplace within a unique setting.
(11:38):
So, yeah, I'm excited to jumpinto that.
Next up, another Avatar bookAvatar Frontiers of Pandora,
solex Journey.
It may not be the Avatar thatyou guys were expecting to hear.
I was a big fan of Frontiers ofPandora, the video game.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, it was pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
That came out a couple probably about a year ago
at this point, and thecharacter in it that they made
an overarching narrative withfor this comic series.
It's a Dark Horse comic series,six issues and I don't know
anything about what's in thisbook besides that it ties in
with the video game Frontiers ofPandora, so I'm excited to jump
(12:16):
into that.
And just this past week thefirst one-shot comic graphic
novel for the Legend of Korracame out.
It's called the Mystery ofPenquan Island and I'm excited
to jump into it.
It follows Mako and Bolin asthey get a tip about something
going on with Penquan Island andon the cover it kind of hints
(12:38):
at, you know, like we willprobably learn more about their
early life with their parents.
So there's a mystery there andI'm excited to jump into that.
So yeah, some some avatarcontent for me to read this week
nice other than that.
Yeah, I think I'm gonna cede mytime to rich rich.
What have you been up to thispast week?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I mean, I just got some work stuff going on, so
that kind of takes over a littlebit, but other than that, I
finally finished outlaws.
Well, I've completed the mainquest and everything, and I'm
doing like one of the dlcs nowthat they came out with I think
there's another one on the way.
Actually, if I'm readingeverything correctly, just kind
(13:17):
of in a holding pattern to mlb,the show is downloaded.
That would be, uh, exactlyeight days from now I will come
home from work and I will be ahappy man.
Baseball will be in full swing,so stuff ready for that yeah,
it's, it's it's uh springtraining right now, right oh
yeah, I'm making my family watchmeaningless games taking place
(13:43):
in this tiny little stadium inflorida yeah yeah, they're, yeah
it's.
They're just like what already,like we're getting started like
these don't count so, but it'sright around the corner it's
still fun to see the the playersyou know warming up yeah, so
that's.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Oh yeah, I did, I'm sorry, go, I was going to say
like, with us being on the topicof video games, dude, I
completely forgot.
It's probably because I'mfeeling like pretty sleepy right
now, but I completely forgotthat, like I've also been
playing Monster Hunter Wilds.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Oh yeah, how is it?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Dude, it's awesome.
Yeah, it's awesome.
The the world is like prettyopen.
Now there's definitely likespots where you kind of load in,
but it's nowhere near howmonster hunter used to be, where
like every zone was like youknow, like you would have to
load in and load out.
Monster hunter world took awaya lot of that.
(14:42):
But now, like the, the homebases that you go to you can go
straight to like the zone fromthere.
Like you don't load in fromthere.
I mean there is loading, likeyou know, when you go to hop
into a hunt to like helpsomebody else with a hunt, then
like you'll like load into theirgame and then like you'll kind
(15:02):
of of join them there.
But it's been fun, like it'sreally cool.
I feel like they definitely alot of the like almost like all
of the weapons.
They've done a lot of TLC overthe years of like certain
weapons, like especially likethe hunting horn and stuff, and
this is like the culmination ofthat.
You know I like monster hunterand that's why I had asked you,
(15:26):
I think last week or like lastoh yeah, last episode.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
If my brother was excited, yeah if he was gonna
get it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And yeah, man, it, it was worth it.
The weight was worth it.
I've been, you know, monsterhunter.
Like to me is is like you MLBthe show to Rich.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I heard that, depending on the weapon that you
choose, your gameplay stylecould be Devil May Cry or Elden
Ring.
Yes, which is so funny.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
For a long time it's kind of been like that, when
you're fighting with somethinglike a long time, it's kind of
been like that, like when you'refighting with something like a
long sword or like a great sword, you're going to be doing a lot
of like slower swings.
The long sword is faster thanthe great sword, but yeah, like
it that does feel like a littlebit elden, ringy or dark souls
like.
But then you like you use thedual swords and like it's a lot
(16:25):
of like hack and slashing andyou're like, you know, just a
lot faster yeah, a lot faster.
And then sometimes there's likethis ability that you can use
with the dual swords that allowsyou to do this crazy combo that
, like you like attack, go intothe air, use your like the, the
like not grappling hook, butit's like a, you know, it's like
a kind of like a grapple to,like you know, pull yourself
(16:47):
back to the monster and then,like you do this crazy like
windmill, attack down the backof it.
So, yeah, that's definitelylike devil may cry.
And then then you have a lot oflong-range weapons like bows
and and bow guns.
I actually have been using alot more bow guns this time
around.
I dabbled with it in MonsterHunter world and rise, but I
(17:10):
usually stuck with the insectglaive or even like the dual
swords.
I used to play a lot of gunLance before that.
But yeah, like I've beenmessing around the bow guns in
this one.
But yeah, it's just beenfantastic.
I don't know if you've heardanything about it from austin.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
I know austin I haven't spoken to him in a bit,
yeah, so I haven't heardanything but he's probably
enjoying it too oh, I'm sure heis yeah, so knowing my brother
rich, we kind of cut you off.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah, sorry about that oh, no, no, no, I've heard
of this monster hunter.
I'm not there yet.
Like I said, I since I have theuh, what's baseball?
Listen, let me put it this wayI played 1408 hours mlb the show
last year, from release to youknow, as a few weeks ago, where
I just couldn't take the factthat the rosters weren't updated
(18:00):
, because I'm a petulant childand I, it feels, honestly, the
problem is they've got mebecause it feels wrong, like
even if a team has just threeplayers that are different, I'm
like that's team chemistry, baby, that's different.
I can't play.
I cannot play.
(18:20):
I wish I was that person whocould just keep a copy of a game
and play it, because you knowthe truth is how many changes
they're going to be?
Probably none.
I paid an absurd amount ofmoney.
I got the digital early releasebecause I'm a crazy person.
So that's, I'm going to getthat.
I'm going to get digital cardsthat I get to open early because
that'll be awesome.
(18:41):
So I have shiny cards in adigital game but it'll, it'll
have.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
It'll have the, the rosters that are correct so I'm
telling you, you know what.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
You know what it comes down to the reason I play
that game and nobody reallyknows this.
I only do the baseball part soI can get the cards right.
Like I play this diamonddynasty mode and I just want to
get the cool cards like they.
Just they come out with like adifferent version of francisco
lindor, that's like a hologram,and I'm like, oh, that's nice,
(19:11):
so like they really have you,this is a card collecting game
where you have to play baseballto earn more fancy cards.
That's kind of cool, so that'sreally all I'm doing right is
like mindlessly grinding.
It's a collection, I get it Imindlessly grind against only
the computer, basically onRookie.
(19:31):
I don't want to challengemyself, I just want to enjoy
myself, and then I just earnthese cards.
So that's the secret, is all mygames.
I'm either just playing pokerin Red Dead or playing Sabacc in
Outlaws or Gwent in Witcher.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
We've learned some new lore today Anthony about
rich.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
The rich lore.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
The rich lore.
Yeah, it's very rich lore thatwe gain once a week, it seems.
Last week we learned about LadyLuck and his old car.
Now we're learning about cardgames in a baseball game.
Love it All right guys, Shouldwe jump over and start talking
about the Witcher?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Let's start by talking about our experience
with the Witcher franchise overthe years, where we first jumped
into that, how deep intowitcher lore we got.
And yeah, I'll start with richall right, let's see.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
So I think, yeah, my first exposure was the witcher 3
.
I just looked like a cool game,read, read a couple, you know,
watched some reviews or whatever, and just got it, loved it
right away.
I mean, that's my kryptonite.
I mean you know the amount ofside quests.
I mean it's paralyzing, butit's the kind of game I love to
(21:00):
play.
You know, it takes me foreverto get through because I'm very
meticulous and I but I enjoythat meticulous and I but I
enjoy that so much.
And then you give me some magicand you let me ride a horse,
you know, like you're really.
That's it, I love it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
So I started I.
So then I I really enjoyed it,and then I heard that they were
making a series, so I decidedthat I might start reading the
books.
But so I decided that I mightstart reading the books, but I
guess caveat is that I decidedto read all of those books in
spanish.
So just you know, it's not my,it's not my strongest language,
(21:36):
right?
So I'm not sure if there'sstuff, if there's like innuendo,
that I may have not kind ofpicked up on in in my read it's
an interesting choice, though.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Why did you?
Why did you?
I know it's not like an englishfirst book.
It's originally a polish book,so it's translated into english,
so I guess the translationwould probably be just as strong
into spanish.
But why did you choose?
Uh?
Speaker 3 (21:57):
just because I figured, if I'm going to push
myself to read more in spanish,then I should do it with
something that I'd really likethat's fair, so I've only I've
only really read fantasy inspanish, essentially like yeah
like dragons, almost involved ineverything.
So I really, you know, but I did, I did really love, love all
(22:21):
the you know.
I did notice, obviously, how,like, the game is different than
the story that you're presentedin the book.
And then the netflix series.
I was very excited for that andI will say I watched all of it.
I was confused.
There were times where I wouldjust like finish an episode and
I would go on wikipedia and golike that's not what I remember
(22:43):
I was, because I thought it wasthis language thing.
I was like maybe I just read itwrong in Spanish, so let me go
to the wiki in English.
And sure enough, there werejust wholesale changes that I
didn't like, because for me it'sthe game and then the books
that's my headcanon.
So the series deviated so muchfrom that that I I really
(23:07):
disliked it.
Well, that's why cavill left.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I respect that yeah, ultimately yeah yeah, yeah, they
were making changes.
You know, the thing Iappreciate about henry cavill a
lot is that I mean he is a nerdand when he does something he
will like full send into it andlike he will.
Like you know, he'll make surehe does his homework and he
wants to stick with the storiesand the books.
(23:35):
But with the adaptation ofGeralt from the game and so,
like I thought he did prettywell and then they want to start
to deviate and so that's why wehave Liam coming out sometime.
I don't even know, like I feltlike that was supposed to be out
like a long time.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Are they still doing that?
Are they still doing a seasonfour Dude.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I want to know, like I think that like now they're
probably like, ooh, I don't know.
I mean, even Henry Cavillillwas like, trying to be like,
yeah, just give him a chance,you know.
But even then, like you know,most of us are like, no, we
(24:17):
don't want to, but but yeah, Ifeel that a lot I've wanted to.
I don't.
Well, before I say anything,rich, you got any more tidbits
or anything that about yourconnection no, that's, that's
kind of just yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
When I suggested the Netflix, this show that we're
going to talk about today,honestly I didn't see a trailer.
I had no.
It was like I had just putNetflix on and I don't normally
surf Netflix, so it's rare thatI even go to my home screen on
(24:44):
it.
If we're watching ArrestedDevelopment, I even go to my
home screen on it, Like if I'mwe're watching a particular,
we're watching, like you know,Arrested Development.
I go to exactly to that.
So I opened it and one day itwas just right there and I was
like Whoa, where did that comefrom?
I have not heard anything aboutthis.
So I, just before I even took alook at it, I was just like,
hey, you know, we should, let'stake a look at this.
And as we'll see, I think, asthe episode progresses tonight,
(25:10):
I think a common theme withNetflix seems to be making
changes for no apparent reasonwhatsoever.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, it doesn't mean that it was a bad movie, but
yeah, there were really randomchanges, I will say.
But we'll definitely talk aboutthat more in a bit.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
anthony, let's jump over to you so mine is pretty
much similar to riches.
I mean me being a gamer.
I played the game.
I I didn't play the first orsecond witcher, I think I had
heard about them before, but Ihad had seen the Witcher 3, the
(25:48):
Wild Hunt and like, I think atsome point it was like the, the
version that had all the DLC andit was on sale.
So I got it and, you know, Itook the dive into it.
I feel like they do a prettydecent job with explaining
things that have happened beforein the game.
I still think that it would beinteresting to play the first
(26:11):
two, but that was like prettymuch like my first experience
with it.
I absolutely loved the game.
The world was reallyinteresting.
I liked the idea of you know,this mutated being that's like a
monster hunter that has thesemagic abilities.
And then I hopped onto the show.
I watched the first season,which, for the most part, I did
(26:36):
enjoy.
I started the second season andimmediately fell off.
I was just like there's justsomething not right about this.
Fell off like.
I was just like there's justsomething not right about this
and I've always wanted to hopinto the books but I've never
had the chance to, but they'relike in my purview, you know
totally yeah so I.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
I have a little bit of a different introduction to
the witcher because I neverplayed through witcher 3.
Um, I've only played a couplehours into it.
I think you know enough to giveme like a good like vibe of the
game.
I think at the time that I wasdoing I just didn't have a lot
of time to devote to video games.
But I would like to jump backin eventually.
But prior to that, prior tohaving played the Witcher 3, I
(27:21):
had jumped into the novels.
I was really big into thenovels leading up to the release
of Netflix's show.
I was excited to see how theywould adapt it.
Getting such a big name asHenry Cavill on board was very
exciting for me.
So I think I read the firstfive books.
The first two books are shortstory compilations, then the the
(27:45):
other.
I think there's five othernovels.
I read three of them.
They're like actual novelspertaining to the life of
gerald's, yennefer, siri and andso forth.
And yeah, I enjoyed them, butnot as much as I enjoyed the
first two novels, which areshort story compilations.
For some reason I felt likethat was like the pinnacle of
(28:07):
how good the witcher can be, youknow, in terms of like.
It's a short, all-encompassingstory.
It has a moral lesson that ittries to teach you by the end of
it and it's always just likeshort and snappy, but it's
always pretty cool because it'sa different monster hunt of
episode every single short story.
So I like those first twonovels the best.
But uh, yeah, I did not like thenetflix series.
(28:29):
I tried to, I really tried to,but after the first season I
think I watched the firstepisode of the second season and
I I fell off.
Yeah, like I couldn't watchanything past that point.
But yeah, so I'm excited totalk about this because
unfortunately, I think Netflix'sshow which is why I was like
(28:50):
reading the novels was so bad tome that I stopped reading the
novels.
So I still have like two orthree novels left and I think
there's a new novel that justcame out by Andre Sapkowski,
like another Witcher novel Again, again, I have no idea what the
chronology is between thenovels into the witcher game.
I know that there is probablysome differences there, but I
(29:14):
don't know how much yeah, Ican't tell you that I know.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I mean, I think that there were things that from the
game that I definitely saw onthe show, but in terms of how
it's laid out I don't reallyrecall.
I do know that the beginning ofwitcher 3 they give you an
opportunity to make decisionsthat you would have made at the
(29:42):
end of witcher 2, I believe, andit kind of gives you like a
history of the, of the, the gamefranchise.
But how that plays with thenovels I'm not really sure yeah,
I don't know we'd have to.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
We have to, like, do some more research and get back
to you guys on that.
But what did you guys think ofsirens of the deep anthony?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
we'll start with you I thought that sirens of the
deep was pretty good.
I I enjoyed my watch.
I don't know, I haven't readthe short story like you have,
dakota, so I don't know.
You know what the major changeswould be from that, but for the
most part I really did enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
There were some aspects of it that were
derivative of the little mermaidI guess that's kind of the like
, the the joy of those firstshort stories with the witcher,
because like there's a beautyand the beast short story,
there's a snow white short story, you know like.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So this was the clear derivative of the little
mermaid, right, right, like youhave this human prince that is,
you know, in love with thismermaid princess, and you know
they even have a sea witch thatyou know comes up with this like
potion to like turn her intohuman.
(31:05):
Like there's a lot that I'mlike bro, this is like the
little mermaid with a monsterhunter in it.
Like I'm not saying it was bad,though like I enjoyed it.
You can always take a story andlike put your own spin on it,
and this was the spin with thewitcher on it, right, and it was
cool, like I I really I reallyliked it.
I felt like Geralt was very muchso the one that I remember from
(31:29):
like the video games.
You know he's this like monsterhunter, but like he's very
awkward and just like socialinteractions.
You know that's just not histhing.
You know his social interactionis with swords and that's it.
Well, not that's it, but likethat's really what he is, like
that's his job.
His job is to kill monsters andyou know, just do his thing.
(31:52):
So seeing his, his socialinteractions in the show reminds
me of a lot of the socialinteractions from the game.
A lot of it like made me likechuckle because his awkwardness
is funny.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah.
So let's break down the story alittle bit of Sirens of the
Deep and I'm going to try not toget it blended too much into
the short story A littlesacrifice.
There's the Witcher and Jaskier, or Dandelion if you follow the
short story.
Actually, is he Dandelion inthe game?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yes.
Yeah, he is yeah, yeah, he isokay yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So the witcher is tasked to come and visit a small
seaside town, basically, wherethere's been a series of attacks
on human fishermen who are likepearl divers and stuff by
mermaids and other merman-likecreatures that the mermaids are
in cahoots with.
(32:49):
And we find out that there's aprince named prince aglaval who
is in love with the princess ofthe merpeople named shianuts not
ariel, it's different, it'sshea nuts and yeah, so that that
kind of just start starts a,not like a.
(33:10):
That doesn't necessarily starta war, but it does.
It's something that aglaval'sfather, the king, is incapable
of getting behind.
It's a marriage that wouldnever work.
So he's doing everything in hispower to stop that from
happening, and he does.
He goes so far as to basicallystart a war that he knows isn't
(33:31):
true, so that he can break thesetwo individuals apart and
eventually love persists.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
That's an excellent rundown, and the one thing I
guess I want to start with is Idon't really understand why
anything from the original storyhad to be changed.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Right, yeah, so there's actually quite a bit of
stuff that they changed from theoriginal story.
There are some beats that arestill there and there's enough
beats where it's just like well,why not just keep the rest of
it?
And there's enough beats whereit's just like well, why not
just keep the rest of it?
So in the short story, anthony,it's not a prince, it's a duke,
it's Duke Aglaval.
It doesn't really follow likeShianauts and the merpeople at
(34:18):
all in the book.
So they definitely give a muchmore heavy focus to the mermaids
in this one.
Yeah, there's definitely a lotmore of a focus towards the mer
people in this.
You know like they actually gointo the water and show you like
what they're dealing with underthe water.
They don't do that at all inthe book and there's really not
(34:41):
that much of a.
There is a sea witch, but it'snot half as like.
They basically made this moviemuch more in line with the
little mermaid than the actualstory is basically.
Would you take that to like bethe case?
Speaker 3 (34:59):
which that's.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I just in terms of like there was no real Ursula
character in the short story,but they definitely turned it
into a Ursula, you know, takinghuman form and corrupting the
royal line, basically, yeah, Iwas watching it.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I ended up watching it because you know what I do.
So I watched it three times.
The first time I just watchedit too late and fell asleep.
The second time I'm watching itand I remember I had flashes
because I late and fell asleep.
The second time I'm watchingand I remember I had flashes
because I'd been falling asleepthe night before and I'm going
man, this is, this is like thelittle mermaid, you know, and I
don't remember feeling thatagain, I read it in spanish.
(35:38):
So, you know, then half of me islike maybe I just didn't pick
up on it.
You know, I don't know, likethat doesn't make sense to me.
I can read it well enough.
So, yeah, you know, by the end,you know, I obviously it dawned
on me that it was reallysimilar in a way that I don't
understand.
I mean, there was enough of aveiled reference to it right in
(36:03):
the story, the way it wasoriginally written, that I think
you didn't need to, kind oflike hammer home.
I mean I'm surprised theydidn't have a singing crab.
I'm just surprised, right, likethey actually.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
They did give the ursula character a singing role
in this movie uh, which is veryfunny, I, I enjoyed that at
least, but but there's really noreason for that.
I don't know.
I actually didn't hate it, butyeah, anyway, continue.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah, and that's the thing, and this is what bothers
me.
I mean, I hate it pains me asan English teacher by trade to
say this aloud, but this is oneof those scenarios where the
Netflix stuff makes me wish Ihadn't read the books right like
I wish I was.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yes, I wouldn't I agree, because I agree, I don't
know why.
Then I'd be like hey, you knowwhat?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
I love this content related to this game that I have
no knowledge of outside of thegame.
But no, I went ahead and readand I have spoiled it.
So I thought this was just arandom thing because, dakota, as
you know, there's nothingcalled Sirens of the Deep in any
(37:14):
of the books, right, yeah?
So I am like, oh, this israndom new content.
And then, as I'm watching it,I'm like wait, this is like part
, like the last little sacrifice, and I'm like you, you, you
probably like realize short,like, probably like 20 minutes,
in that, like this sounds veryfamiliar.
Yes, and you know but and thenthe little mermaid stuff, and
(37:37):
I'm just sitting there I'm going.
I'm really confused.
I thought this was somethingdifferent, but it's something
that's already been done.
But they're not doing it thesame way and I, you know, I will
say look, I really enjoyed mytime with gerald, like anthony
was saying yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
So, anthony, they changed quite a few things, like
there was no king in theoriginal short story.
Zeleste is just a character inthe story.
He's not like the half brotherof prince aglaval in again in in
the story Aglaval is just aduke and he's kind of a jerk to
like.
So the basic premise of ALittle Sacrifice is that there
(38:15):
are a bunch of differentcharacters that need to
basically do a little sacrificeif they're ever going to either
get along with the people thatthey're trying to get along with
.
Or, you know, prince Aglavalwith the people that they're
trying to get along with, orPrince Aglaval, who's kind of a
snooty duke, not Prince Aglaval,but Duke Aglaval is not as
chivalrous as he's portrayed inthis movie.
(38:37):
He's actually a real jerk andhe's very bratty.
Why isn't the mermaid willingand able to come onto land?
And Sheenot says why aren't youwilling to give a little
sacrifice of your own?
The whole thing is about alittle sacrifice, even from like
side characters to sidecharacters, and in the movie
they actually do mention theterm a little sacrifice two or
(38:58):
three times, so they aren't likeshy about hiding.
That is the adapted work thatthey're trying to get to, but
they conflated some stories likea lot and then like diluted
some stories a lot like the SEDavin character is like one of
my favorites ever, like she's sogood, like the way that she's
(39:21):
written in the book.
Se Davin here is just, she'sjust a character that you know
the wisher beds, basically.
Another thing that they changedis yaskir, or dandelion.
I don't think they evermentioned that he's from this
town but they made a very bigdeal about how you know
bremavort was like the placethat he was from, that he
(39:43):
decided to leave in this movieand they made that a huge plot
point that could have been usedfor other things.
But I mean, I get it.
They want to make yaskier seemmore important to the story
overall and the witcher mythos.
So yeah, rich.
What do you think is the changethat most bothered you?
(40:04):
Or, if there's a change thatdidn't bother you like, why?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
well, like all right, so you know at the end, when
you have who has to make thesacrifice, the prince ends up
making it, which I?
I don't know.
It's just a weird.
I think it's a needlessflip-flop.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I think it's right, because in the book it's
sheenots who decides to chooselegs and come on to land, but in
this story it's the princegoing into the water.
Yeah, I mean it.
He gave a little sacrifice,like it's Huge sacrifice.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
It's not the same.
In a world where monsters arediminishing, right, and you know
, you have literally a monsterhunter, right, becoming human
while leaving all you know isdifficult, right, it's not a bad
step up, right, in terms of youknow, you're kind of going from
(41:01):
a close to extinct race RightTo now part of a race that is
thriving.
Just on those merits alone, theswitch makes no sense and I
think it was just like somethingto do because you know it's
2025, so they just flip-floppedand I think that it's sloppy.
If you're going to changesomething, then it still needs
(41:22):
to be logical, and I just thinkthat the prince, he would.
I mean he's essentially leavinghis royal line, right, I mean,
like that's it, that's the end.
I mean he's going to the ocean.
I mean he's not having a humanbaby after that.
It doesn't.
It's just frustrating.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
They also change.
They also change the look ofthe mermaids.
I don't know if you caught thatfrom the story, but like
they're very human-esque in thebooks, I think in like the first
, like two or three lines of theshort story.
It explains that She-Anot haslike the most magnificent
breasts that Geralt has everseen, or something like that.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you know you're right, these
were not the most attractivemermaids I've ever seen.
You know, yeah, it doesn't sellit.
Like honestly, I was like thatlooks like I don't know, I don't
know fish that well, but like I, I it's.
It made it a little it did.
It definitely made it lessbelievable.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
I mean it definitely made it less believable I mean
the only thing, that that thatthe prince would fall in love
with.
Yes, the only thing that Ithink makes sense.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
I guess right is that it like when you, when the
other people are like disgustedby it, right, you're like yeah,
no, I get it right, like you can, you can better understand the
opposition to it, but I justdon't, I don't understand the
change.
I mean, even in Greek mythology, like the sirens, they were
(42:52):
attractive, but the point wasthat they were able to lure
sailors because of their songand because they were attractive
.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
And also it is kind of a weird stylistic choice on
Netflix's part, because theyaren't shy about making it like
a rated r product, you know likethey curse plenty.
There's so much gore it's likecrazy.
Lots of violence.
They really I don't know.
I mean it's weird that theychose that to be their siren,
(43:23):
but yeah, so let's talk a littlebit about essie davven, because
her character while it was niceseeing an adaptation that
included her, it really missedthe mark on what made her so
great.
I guess I don't know if thatmakes sense, or just some of the
backstory in regards to Essie,she ends up falling in love with
(43:46):
the Witcher and there's a longback and forth between the
Witcher and her as far as, like,what they're willing to
sacrifice for their relationshipand ultimately she realizes
that the Witcher is not capableof a little sacrifice for her.
That is something that is notpossible and I think that is
like part of the heartbreak ofthe story.
(44:08):
A little sacrifice is that, youknow, like she realizes that
what she wants from Geralt isnot something that he can give.
So she takes a gift given toher by Dandelion and Dandelion
told her that this pearl wasgiven as a gift for her birthday
from him and Geralt and shetakes that as like his only
(44:29):
sacrifice really to her andthroughout the story she's she
says that like, the thing thatshe fears most is dying to some
illness.
And then, like the narrator ofthe story, which is Jaskier, he
tells us that, like he'll, he'llnever tell Geralerald the true.
You know how, you know, severalyears later, after this a
(44:53):
little sacrifice story tookplace, he carried her to her
grave because she died of likesome smallpox or something like
that and she, she like, wantedto be buried with this pearl
that you know she believes isfrom gerald.
So it's, it's just such a sadending that like goes completely
(45:14):
, like undone I'm not undone,but like it just they, they
ignore it completely in this, inthis film.
But yeah anyway, all that beingsaid, I do like the movie.
I think it was a fun movie but,like rich said, I wish I hadn.
Rich said.
I wish I hadn't read the story.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
It's honestly fun.
It really is.
I actually, if I just take thatprevious knowledge, I like the
Little Mermaid ties.
It actually made it fun.
I thought to myself hey, youknow what I it fun, yeah, yeah.
Actually I said I thought tomyself hey, you know what?
Like I might be able tore-watch this with my wife and
(45:53):
she'll catch those vibes rightaway and go oh, I like this
right.
Like it might actually make itmore enjoyable for her too.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
So what's frustrating about it is just that they're,
I don't know, like if I couldsee rich is like silently fuming
over there, just like he'strying to like be as positive as
possible, but he seems to bemore upset about the changes
that they made to this storythan I am, and this is like my
favorite Witcher story, but Ifeel you, man, it wasn't bad,
(46:21):
like it's a fun movie, and Iliked that they added all that
stuff about the mermaids.
I liked the inclusion of like asea witch, slash kraken.
That was a cool like sea battle, and they definitely took it in
their own direction, though,and that's that's kind of what
bothered me, and I think thatthat's why they didn't call it a
little, a little sacrifice,just because they took that
(46:41):
concept and cherry picked whatthey wanted, and went another
direction.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Basically, this isn't hamlet right.
I don't need your reimagining.
Yeah, actually this is recentmodern literature.
All right.
You know it's not even 50 years.
If you're going to adaptsomething that is recent in
media, then you need to make itmatch.
That's the problem.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
They would never get away with this if this was like
Lord of the Rings, exactly.
Oh no, yeah, there match that'sthe problem.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
They would never get away with this if this was like
lord of the rings exactly.
Oh no, yeah, there'd be riots.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
They'd get strung up.
Yeah, it'd be so crazy, justlike all these gandalfs walking
down the street.
Just like you shall not passthe cars on bridges.
There'd be crazy yeah,everybody, nuts.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Anthony, you got any final thoughts on Sirens of the
Deep?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
The Sirens were in the deep, they were.
There were other animals, likesea animals that were down there
, that were humanoid, which Ithought was interesting.
But yeah, I'm coming into thiswithout you know, reading that
(47:49):
short story, so you know, Idon't know, like what changes
were made.
I mean, you know how I feelabout changes being made.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
I guess I'm most curious about what you think,
because Rich and I have our ownopinion based on some
pre-existing knowledge.
What do you feel about themovie having like forgetting
everything that we said today?
Basically, right, right.
What are your?
Speaker 2 (48:09):
thoughts I I enjoyed it, you know.
I I liked it, even though, yeah,like I said, there was
definitely a lot that was rippedfrom the little mermaid the sea
witch yeah, that musical numberwas interesting because I mean,
anytime that there was singingin this show, it made sense like
it was like you know, jesshere's, he's a bard, you know,
(48:31):
and so like that's his thing.
But the sea witch, like it waslike something completely out of
disney, like she's singingwhile all this magic is
happening.
It was like very like I waslike, okay, this is interesting.
But yeah, like you know, I, Iall, I I saw ursula.
You know I saw Ursula.
You know I saw Ariel.
It was, you know, veryinteresting.
Just, yeah, you had Witcherthrown into it, but you know, I
(48:55):
did enjoy it.
Do I feel like I might havefelt differently had I read the
short story?
Probably, I mean, you know howI feel when they make changes to
anything I enjoy.
You know, I semi-ripped theAvatar Netflix series, so I
probably would have feltdifferent.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
I will say that the Witcher series is much further
from the books than the Avatarseries is from the animated
series.
So yeah, so yeah yeah how abouty'all?
well, I will say that I enjoyedit for the most part.
So I didn't fully remember thestory, but I knew that they had
(49:40):
made some changes because, likesome stuff wasn't clicking in my
head from like.
You know, when I watched it Iwas like, man, this seems a
little off.
But you know what, I'm enjoyingit.
I'm just gonna like go for theride and see how this compares
to the, the short story later.
And then I read the short story.
I was like, oh, actually, thisis like completely well, not
completely different, but youknow there's there's quite a bit
(50:03):
of like change.
That just didn't need to happenbut it happened dude.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
So dakota said maybe I shouldn't have gone back to
read that I know I should have.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
I should have just enjoyed stayed the story.
What I will say?
I loved the animation style.
I thought that was like itreally really strong animation
style.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
I did too.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
The animation was really well done, especially in
the combat scenes like oh itlooks so good to my seat and you
never like didn't know what wasgoing on on screen, which was,
you know, that's rare for likesomething where there's like 20
plus people on screen.
Very good animation.
I was really pleased with ityeah overall, I would say maybe
(50:44):
seven, seven and a half out, youknow, on its own.
You know, having that, havinglike foregoing my knowledge of
what it's based off of, but yeah, I enjoyed it.
What?
Speaker 3 (50:55):
about you, rich?
I think I'm in the same boat.
I did really like the animation.
I thought that the voice actingwas really well done.
I thought that whoever voicedGeralterald, just the writing
and the delivery was perfect.
It made me feel like I wasplaying the game or, to henry
(51:17):
kevill's credit, the show.
You know, he was excellent aswell, so I thought that was
great.
I remember there wasspecifically one sequence, but
gerald is like running upsomething.
It's a monster, he, and he'sjust like running up the steps,
like like the back, like if hewere going up like a stair, like
(51:37):
a kind of an oval star, a roundstaircase, just the way.
He's like pitter patter, andthey were cutting back and forth
, back and forth, back and forth, and I was thinking about how
you know, this is somethingthat's really cool.
That wouldn't be done the sameway if it were live action and
in that moment yeah I kind ofsaid to myself they're doing a
(52:01):
really good job of not making ananimated movie but using the
medium of animation to tell astory which I thought was really
cool.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
No, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
Yes, it's not just, it's not just anime, it's not
like okay, so we couldn't getthe actors, we're gonna do this.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
You know, it was actually like they played with
it, so I I enjoyed that andwhat's actually interesting is
they did get some of the actorsback from the TV series on
Netflix.
Like, the character who playsJaskier on the TV series is Joey
Batty and he's playing Jaskieragain here, and I think there's
a couple scenes with Yenneferthat they actually bring back
(52:44):
Anya Chalatra from thelive-action series as well.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
I thought they sounded good, so that's awesome,
I mean it was not Henry Cavillas the Witcher.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
That was a guy named Doug Cockle.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
Could have fooled me.
Could have fooled me.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
He's got a good Cavill impression.
I guess he just thought, youknow he thought of Henry Cavill
and Cross Between Him and maybeChristian Bale's Batman.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Love it cavill, and cross between him and maybe
christian bale's batman and loveit guys.
Thank you so much for listeningto us here for our 112th
episode of project geekology.
Next week we have a fun showrich.
You don't know what we'recovering yet because we haven't
told you, but anthony and I weretalking pre-show and we've
decided to cover Dungeons andDragons.
Honor Among Thieves.
It's on Netflix and I'm excited.
(53:32):
I really like that movie.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Same.
I'm actually very excited.
I've seen that and I actuallywas thinking I was going to ask
you guys if it was worth a watch, because I figured you guys had
seen it already, you know.
And then I was like ah, youknow what, they've probably
already talked about it and itslipped my mind.
So this is, uh, really cool.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
I'm excited, yeah I actually had to ask dakota that
if we covered it, because Iforgot if we did or not.
I know we did talk about it?
Don't think so like in thebeginning, you know yeah, I
don't think we did not like afull discussion?
Speaker 1 (54:05):
yeah, yeah, but we shall make an episode of Honor
Among Thieves next week, episode113.
Yes, guys, thanks so much forlistening to us here for our
112th episode.
If you'd like to check out anyof our socials, be sure to click
into our show notes down below,where you can find any of our
links for other social sites.
(54:25):
For other social sites Whileyou're here and while you're
listening, and if you'd want tocontribute something positive to
our day and to the show, besure to crack open a nice juicy
Slim Jim.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yes, a Slim Jim makes a return.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Give us a five-star juicy review as you enjoy that
Slim Jim, you will thank uslater, basically.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Oh, my gosh One of the driest meat sticks.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Oh my gosh dude this is, I guess, juicy sizzling slim
jim.
All right, uh, all right, guys.
We'll see you in the next onealready y'all gerald of rubia.
Welcome one and all to our 112th episode of Project
Geekology.
Today, we will not be throwinga coin to our witcher, but we
will be talking about Geralt ofRivia, as well as Jaskier, or
Dandelion, if you prefer on anadventure that has recently been
released on Netflix.
It's an animated film calledSirens of the Deep, and we have
(00:20):
a lot to say about it.
I've got a lot to say about it.
My name is Dakota.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm joined, as always , with Anthony, and I know that
you say we weren't going to betalking about tossing a coin to
the Witcher, but are we going tobe talking about O Valley of
Plenty?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
If by O Valley of Plenty you mean like the
coastline and you know, like theocean, then yes, yes, yes, and
joining us as always, now, asalways is.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Rich, I'm excited here, despite the siren songs
that you may have heard to startthe show, I think that we will
all navigate these waters andcome to an accord at the end.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We better, we sure as hell better.
Yeah, we have a lot to talkabout today with the Netflix
film the Witcher Sirens of theDeep, adapted from my personal
favorite Witcher story, which iscalled A Little Sacrifice,
which is featured in the firstWitcher novel, sword of Destiny.
I'm excited to talk about someof the pros and cons of how it
(01:22):
was adapted because, yeah, Ireally love that story.
But before we get into any ofthat, let's talk about what
we've been up to this past week.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Anthony, we'll start with you what have I been up to?
I have been up to playing, youknow, our topic of last week,
marvel rivals.
I've been playing more of that.
I don't play it like crazy allthe time, so like my rank isn't
super high but like I'm almostin platinum, I've made it to
(01:52):
gold one, so I'm getting upthere, but I've been doing that.
I talked to you a little bit inthe beginning, like before we
started recording that I havebeen, you know, kind of full
steam on another like stint ofwatching one piece.
You know like I'll watch awhole bunch of it and then like
I'll start taking a break, whichI don't want to take like as
(02:12):
long of a break as I did likethis last time.
But there are some, some animethat like I want to watch this
time around.
I think the second season ofsolo leveling finished up, so I
definitely want to watch that.
The first season was awesome.
I heard that the second seasonjust kind of ups the ante, so
I'm really excited about that.
(02:33):
And I also talked about I alsotalked to like rich and dakota
off of the recording, but like afew months back I had applied
for a remote position.
It's an it position for thebank that I work for and I did
not end up getting it that firsttime around.
(02:55):
The position opened up againlike five months later and I
applied and this time I got it.
And I start at the end of thismonth that's awesome, dude.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm happy for you.
I was like depressed when yousaid that you didn't get it the
first time.
I was just like, oh, but theyleft, they kept your application
right and yeah, so it's.
It's good that they kept itbecause they clearly liked you
yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The hiring manager was the one that reached out to
me when this position opened upand he was like, hey, we have a
position opening up, applied now, and so so that's what I did,
and they ended up hitting me upand they, yeah, they kind of
like brought up points aboutlast time.
Like you know that you knowwe're really impressed about
(03:37):
this and you know it wasn't likefully there like choice to like
choose the last person.
I think that, like as acollective, they chose the
person, but they were, like youknow, last time you really did
make it hard and it felt alittle unfair that we weren't
able to pick you too, but we'reglad that we get to pick you now
.
I'm really stoked about thatand excited to kind of grow and
(03:59):
learn a lot more.
And so, yeah, man, like bigmoves, I feel like I'm
progressing and whatnot.
I'm excited about that.
But, yeah, how about you,dakota?
What have you been up to?
I know that you haven't beenfeeling so well.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
So yeah, I, I got like really sick yesterday.
I don't know what happened Idon't think it's the flu or I
don't know if it is the flu butI got like a really bad cold
where I just had like chills onand off for the past two days.
I almost like.
I almost canceled the recordingtoday because earlier today I
(04:33):
was.
I was having a hard timetalking, but as of right now I
can manage an hour ofconversation on and off, so
that's not too bad.
As far as what I've been up to,I watched a little bit of
Daredevil the new marvel seriesthat is on disney plus, oh same.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I watched the first episode.
What'd you think it was?
I feel like that there'sdefinitely they've got something
going there.
They definitely shock you, likepretty quick.
In the beginning there wasdefinitely some sort of
symbolism that was happeningthere in the meta, though like
not really inside the show.
Happening there in the meta,though like not really inside
the show, but like in the meta.
But you know, I I feel likethat's something that we could
probably you know, I don't wantto divulge too much.
It's fresh, it's new and I wantto let it kind of, you know,
(05:18):
release before we actually liketalk about it.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
But you know, like oh yeah, in a sidebar I was trying
to figure out what you weresaying about yeah, yeah, yeah,
like, like the first, like 16minutes, you know okay, yeah so
yeah, I enjoyed it as well.
It was kind of weak compared tothe original show in terms of
the cinematography and thewriting, but it's good to see
(05:43):
these characters again, evenonly for a couple minutes I will
say I mean the cinematographymight not be as strong, but it's
still stronger than a lot ofwhat has been coming out
recently for disney marvel stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
But it was nice seeing charlie cox again.
You know it's hard to like seeanybody else in that role and
I'm glad that he's, so, he's,he's.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
He's fantastic in that role, yeah rich.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Did you give it a shot?
Oh yeah, I mean, my bar ispretty low for superhero and
star wars content.
I think I have to be fair, kindof say that.
So I really loved it.
I mean, I think the only thingthat you, you know, I had heard
that I guess earlier versions orearlier shoots of this were
more mainstream accessible, youknow.
(06:31):
So you know, when Charlie hearshe's 10, he hears about a
series like, oh you know, I wantto watch it.
And when I heard aboutDaredevil I was like give me a
sec.
I got to check it out, you know, and I remember with dr strange
multiverse of madness, he, heheeded my warnings and just, he
basically watched new rock starsanalysis but he didn't see any
(06:55):
live action clips of, of, of dr,you know, of scarlet witch
going crazy and I'm watchingthis and even two episodes, and
I know that he can't watch it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know, it's just, it's like he's yeah, they're not
holding back, he'll watch it.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
He could watch deadpool, because deadpool is
kind of being ridiculous and italmost seems like it's not
really it's cartoon.
Yeah, it's cartoon, cartoonymurder.
Also, my wife fell asleepduring the movie, so that helped
a lot.
Uh, but this is like a littletoo serious.
You know, I'm just like I don't.
I don't think I'm cool with it.
I really liked it.
(07:31):
I mean, if only to see thecharacters back.
Definitely, I love d'onofrio'skingpin.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
It's just he's so good it's unbelievable, like.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know what's weird is he like, for example, lost
weight, you know, and they docomment on that in the first two
episodes, yeah, but withanother person it would feel
like, oh man, they're not incharacter now, right, but for
him it legitimately feels likepart of the psyche of the
(08:02):
kingpin in this moment, right,like he's leaner, he's healthier
, but he's weaker.
You know, he doesn't, he's notas aggressive and I think, right
, yeah, it's interesting, I justI love that.
I'll just say that vanessascares the bejesus out of me.
(08:22):
I, I, she is.
Wow, I mean right right now,for me, two episodes in just a
villain that is understated andthat makes it all the more
distressing okay, so I, I reallyI liked, which is which is
(08:42):
weird, because she wasn't thatcharacter in the original show.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yep, like she evolved into that character for this
show.
Yeah, so that's cool.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
So I think it's.
You know.
Look, I try to give all of thema pretty good shake going in
and it did not feel like a.
I'm not going to say it wasseason four, but it's not
terribly different.
So if this is a multiverse,this is the universe right over.
(09:12):
You know, it's just a littleoff.
Okay, sure, yeah, all right, youknow it's like your favorite
dish but you get it at adifferent restaurant.
So it's still really good, butyou know it's not the same as
the other one got it well andthat that's exactly what they're
going for.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
They're not trying to make it a season four, they're
really like leaning in on thewhole rebirth, like name, and
they're not going based off of astoryline but more of it being
a rebirth of the daredevilseries.
You know, without themcompletely, you know reworking
it and those like first, youknow the like the beginning is
(09:51):
them trying to like kind of moveon from that.
You know I feel like they couldhave maybe done that a little
bit better, but it was stillshocking enough.
But you know I don't want tolike reveal too much and dig too
deep.
You know.
I know that eventually we'lltalk about it at some point.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, I'd love to dedicate an episode or two to
Daredevil Born Again, becausethe episodes are long.
The first episode is an hourlong, which is unlike Disney+.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was excited man.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I was excited when I saw that.
That gave me a little bit ofhope.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
And also, like you know, something that disney is
and this is a crime to me islike they'll put a show.
It'll be like 30 to 45 minutesand like six of it's like
credits.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Oh man, oh yeah, that's a crime.
Dude, like I'm like dude, I seewhat y'all did.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
We didn't need to see all this yeah, I don't need to
know who the icelandictypecaster is like, please right
, it's so crazy like theircredits are.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
It's really insane before I cede my time over to
rich in terms of what I've beenup to this past week, I want to
talk about a couple books that Igot that I'm excited to jump
into all of them avatar relatedthe code of the book guy.
Book guy.
I start with Avatar Legends,the role-playing game, uncle
Iroh's Adventure Guide.
Ooh yeah, it's the latesthardcover booklet or adventure
(11:16):
guide for the Avatar Legendsrole-playing game.
It's been out for a couplemonths now.
This is the first I've pickedit up and given a look at.
Couple months now.
This is the first I've pickedit up and given a look at.
But yeah, it expands on thelore of the Avatar universe as
well as giving you like fiveunique stories from different
eras, starting from Kyoshi toRoku, to Hundred Year War, to
Aang and then Korra, all takingplace within a unique setting.
(11:38):
So, yeah, I'm excited to jumpinto that.
Next up, another Avatar bookAvatar Frontiers of Pandora,
solex Journey.
It may not be the Avatar thatyou guys were expecting to hear.
I was a big fan of Frontiers ofPandora, the video game.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, it was pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
That came out a couple probably about a year ago
at this point, and thecharacter in it that they made
an overarching narrative withfor this comic series.
It's a Dark Horse comic series,six issues and I don't know
anything about what's in thisbook besides that it ties in
with the video game Frontiers ofPandora, so I'm excited to jump
(12:16):
into that.
And just this past week thefirst one-shot comic graphic
novel for the Legend of Korracame out.
It's called the Mystery ofPenquan Island and I'm excited
to jump into it.
It follows Mako and Bolin asthey get a tip about something
going on with Penquan Island andon the cover it kind of hints
(12:38):
at, you know, like we willprobably learn more about their
early life with their parents.
So there's a mystery there andI'm excited to jump into that.
So yeah, some some avatarcontent for me to read this week
nice other than that.
Yeah, I think I'm gonna cede mytime to rich rich.
What have you been up to thispast week?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I mean, I just got some work stuff going on, so
that kind of takes over a littlebit, but other than that, I
finally finished outlaws.
Well, I've completed the mainquest and everything, and I'm
doing like one of the dlcs nowthat they came out with I think
there's another one on the way.
Actually, if I'm readingeverything correctly, just kind
(13:17):
of in a holding pattern to mlb,the show is downloaded.
That would be, uh, exactlyeight days from now I will come
home from work and I will be ahappy man.
Baseball will be in full swing,so stuff ready for that yeah,
it's, it's it's uh springtraining right now, right oh
yeah, I'm making my family watchmeaningless games taking place
(13:43):
in this tiny little stadium inflorida yeah yeah, they're, yeah
it's.
They're just like what already,like we're getting started like
these don't count so, but it'sright around the corner it's
still fun to see the the playersyou know warming up yeah, so
that's.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Oh yeah, I did, I'm sorry, go, I was going to say
like, with us being on the topicof video games, dude, I
completely forgot.
It's probably because I'mfeeling like pretty sleepy right
now, but I completely forgotthat, like I've also been
playing Monster Hunter Wilds.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Oh yeah, how is it?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Dude, it's awesome.
Yeah, it's awesome.
The the world is like prettyopen.
Now there's definitely likespots where you kind of load in,
but it's nowhere near howmonster hunter used to be, where
like every zone was like youknow, like you would have to
load in and load out.
Monster hunter world took awaya lot of that.
(14:42):
But now, like the, the homebases that you go to you can go
straight to like the zone fromthere.
Like you don't load in fromthere.
I mean there is loading, likeyou know, when you go to hop
into a hunt to like helpsomebody else with a hunt, then
like you'll like load into theirgame and then like you'll kind
(15:02):
of of join them there.
But it's been fun, like it'sreally cool.
I feel like they definitely alot of the like almost like all
of the weapons.
They've done a lot of TLC overthe years of like certain
weapons, like especially likethe hunting horn and stuff, and
this is like the culmination ofthat.
You know I like monster hunterand that's why I had asked you,
(15:26):
I think last week or like lastoh yeah, last episode.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
If my brother was excited, yeah if he was gonna
get it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And yeah, man, it, it was worth it.
The weight was worth it.
I've been, you know, monsterhunter.
Like to me is is like you MLBthe show to Rich.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I heard that, depending on the weapon that you
choose, your gameplay stylecould be Devil May Cry or Elden
Ring.
Yes, which is so funny.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
For a long time it's kind of been like that, when
you're fighting with somethinglike a long time, it's kind of
been like that, like when you'refighting with something like a
long sword or like a great sword, you're going to be doing a lot
of like slower swings.
The long sword is faster thanthe great sword, but yeah, like
it that does feel like a littlebit elden, ringy or dark souls
like.
But then you like you use thedual swords and like it's a lot
(16:25):
of like hack and slashing andyou're like, you know, just a
lot faster yeah, a lot faster.
And then sometimes there's likethis ability that you can use
with the dual swords that allowsyou to do this crazy combo that
, like you like attack, go intothe air, use your like the, the
like not grappling hook, butit's like a, you know, it's like
a kind of like a grapple to,like you know, pull yourself
(16:47):
back to the monster and then,like you do this crazy like
windmill, attack down the backof it.
So, yeah, that's definitelylike devil may cry.
And then then you have a lot oflong-range weapons like bows
and and bow guns.
I actually have been using alot more bow guns this time
around.
I dabbled with it in MonsterHunter world and rise, but I
(17:10):
usually stuck with the insectglaive or even like the dual
swords.
I used to play a lot of gunLance before that.
But yeah, like I've beenmessing around the bow guns in
this one.
But yeah, it's just beenfantastic.
I don't know if you've heardanything about it from austin.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
I know austin I haven't spoken to him in a bit,
yeah, so I haven't heardanything but he's probably
enjoying it too oh, I'm sure heis yeah, so knowing my brother
rich, we kind of cut you off.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah, sorry about that oh, no, no, no, I've heard
of this monster hunter.
I'm not there yet.
Like I said, I since I have theuh, what's baseball?
Listen, let me put it this wayI played 1408 hours mlb the show
last year, from release to youknow, as a few weeks ago, where
I just couldn't take the factthat the rosters weren't updated
(18:00):
, because I'm a petulant childand I, it feels, honestly, the
problem is they've got mebecause it feels wrong, like
even if a team has just threeplayers that are different, I'm
like that's team chemistry, baby, that's different.
I can't play.
I cannot play.
(18:20):
I wish I was that person whocould just keep a copy of a game
and play it, because you knowthe truth is how many changes
they're going to be?
Probably none.
I paid an absurd amount ofmoney.
I got the digital early releasebecause I'm a crazy person.
So that's, I'm going to getthat.
I'm going to get digital cardsthat I get to open early because
that'll be awesome.
(18:41):
So I have shiny cards in adigital game but it'll, it'll
have.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
It'll have the, the rosters that are correct so I'm
telling you, you know what.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
You know what it comes down to the reason I play
that game and nobody reallyknows this.
I only do the baseball part soI can get the cards right.
Like I play this diamonddynasty mode and I just want to
get the cool cards like they.
Just they come out with like adifferent version of francisco
lindor, that's like a hologram,and I'm like, oh, that's nice,
(19:11):
so like they really have you,this is a card collecting game
where you have to play baseballto earn more fancy cards.
That's kind of cool, so that'sreally all I'm doing right is
like mindlessly grinding.
It's a collection, I get it Imindlessly grind against only
the computer, basically onRookie.
(19:31):
I don't want to challengemyself, I just want to enjoy
myself, and then I just earnthese cards.
So that's the secret, is all mygames.
I'm either just playing pokerin Red Dead or playing Sabacc in
Outlaws or Gwent in Witcher.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
We've learned some new lore today Anthony about
rich.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
The rich lore.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
The rich lore.
Yeah, it's very rich lore thatwe gain once a week, it seems.
Last week we learned about LadyLuck and his old car.
Now we're learning about cardgames in a baseball game.
Love it All right guys, Shouldwe jump over and start talking
about the Witcher?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Let's start by talking about our experience
with the Witcher franchise overthe years, where we first jumped
into that, how deep intowitcher lore we got.
And yeah, I'll start with richall right, let's see.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
So I think, yeah, my first exposure was the witcher 3
.
I just looked like a cool game,read, read a couple, you know,
watched some reviews or whatever, and just got it, loved it
right away.
I mean, that's my kryptonite.
I mean you know the amount ofside quests.
I mean it's paralyzing, butit's the kind of game I love to
(21:00):
play.
You know, it takes me foreverto get through because I'm very
meticulous and I but I enjoythat meticulous and I but I
enjoy that so much.
And then you give me some magicand you let me ride a horse,
you know, like you're really.
That's it, I love it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
So I started I.
So then I I really enjoyed it,and then I heard that they were
making a series, so I decidedthat I might start reading the
books.
But so I decided that I mightstart reading the books, but I
guess caveat is that I decidedto read all of those books in
spanish.
So just you know, it's not my,it's not my strongest language,
(21:36):
right?
So I'm not sure if there'sstuff, if there's like innuendo,
that I may have not kind ofpicked up on in in my read it's
an interesting choice, though.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Why did you?
Why did you?
I know it's not like an englishfirst book.
It's originally a polish book,so it's translated into english,
so I guess the translationwould probably be just as strong
into spanish.
But why did you choose?
Uh?
Speaker 3 (21:57):
just because I figured, if I'm going to push
myself to read more in spanish,then I should do it with
something that I'd really likethat's fair, so I've only I've
only really read fantasy inspanish, essentially like yeah
like dragons, almost involved ineverything.
So I really, you know, but I did, I did really love, love all
(22:21):
the you know.
I did notice, obviously, how,like, the game is different than
the story that you're presentedin the book.
And then the netflix series.
I was very excited for that andI will say I watched all of it.
I was confused.
There were times where I wouldjust like finish an episode and
I would go on wikipedia and golike that's not what I remember
(22:43):
I was, because I thought it wasthis language thing.
I was like maybe I just read itwrong in Spanish, so let me go
to the wiki in English.
And sure enough, there werejust wholesale changes that I
didn't like, because for me it'sthe game and then the books
that's my headcanon.
So the series deviated so muchfrom that that I I really
(23:07):
disliked it.
Well, that's why cavill left.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I respect that yeah, ultimately yeah yeah, yeah, they
were making changes.
You know, the thing Iappreciate about henry cavill a
lot is that I mean he is a nerdand when he does something he
will like full send into it andlike he will.
Like you know, he'll make surehe does his homework and he
wants to stick with the storiesand the books.
(23:35):
But with the adaptation ofGeralt from the game and so,
like I thought he did prettywell and then they want to start
to deviate and so that's why wehave Liam coming out sometime.
I don't even know, like I feltlike that was supposed to be out
like a long time.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Are they still doing that?
Are they still doing a seasonfour Dude.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I want to know, like I think that like now they're
probably like, ooh, I don't know.
I mean, even Henry Cavillillwas like, trying to be like,
yeah, just give him a chance,you know.
But even then, like you know,most of us are like, no, we
(24:17):
don't want to, but but yeah, Ifeel that a lot I've wanted to.
I don't.
Well, before I say anything,rich, you got any more tidbits
or anything that about yourconnection no, that's, that's
kind of just yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
When I suggested the Netflix, this show that we're
going to talk about today,honestly I didn't see a trailer.
I had no.
It was like I had just putNetflix on and I don't normally
surf Netflix, so it's rare thatI even go to my home screen on
(24:44):
it.
If we're watching ArrestedDevelopment, I even go to my
home screen on it, Like if I'mwe're watching a particular,
we're watching, like you know,Arrested Development.
I go to exactly to that.
So I opened it and one day itwas just right there and I was
like Whoa, where did that comefrom?
I have not heard anything aboutthis.
So I, just before I even took alook at it, I was just like,
hey, you know, we should, let'stake a look at this.
And as we'll see, I think, asthe episode progresses tonight,
(25:10):
I think a common theme withNetflix seems to be making
changes for no apparent reasonwhatsoever.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, it doesn't mean that it was a bad movie, but
yeah, there were really randomchanges, I will say.
But we'll definitely talk aboutthat more in a bit.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
anthony, let's jump over to you so mine is pretty
much similar to riches.
I mean me being a gamer.
I played the game.
I I didn't play the first orsecond witcher, I think I had
heard about them before, but Ihad had seen the Witcher 3, the
(25:48):
Wild Hunt and like, I think atsome point it was like the, the
version that had all the DLC andit was on sale.
So I got it and, you know, Itook the dive into it.
I feel like they do a prettydecent job with explaining
things that have happened beforein the game.
I still think that it would beinteresting to play the first
(26:11):
two, but that was like prettymuch like my first experience
with it.
I absolutely loved the game.
The world was reallyinteresting.
I liked the idea of you know,this mutated being that's like a
monster hunter that has thesemagic abilities.
And then I hopped onto the show.
I watched the first season,which, for the most part, I did
(26:36):
enjoy.
I started the second season andimmediately fell off.
I was just like there's justsomething not right about this.
Fell off like.
I was just like there's justsomething not right about this
and I've always wanted to hopinto the books but I've never
had the chance to, but they'relike in my purview, you know
totally yeah so I.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
I have a little bit of a different introduction to
the witcher because I neverplayed through witcher 3.
Um, I've only played a couplehours into it.
I think you know enough to giveme like a good like vibe of the
game.
I think at the time that I wasdoing I just didn't have a lot
of time to devote to video games.
But I would like to jump backin eventually.
But prior to that, prior tohaving played the Witcher 3, I
(27:21):
had jumped into the novels.
I was really big into thenovels leading up to the release
of Netflix's show.
I was excited to see how theywould adapt it.
Getting such a big name asHenry Cavill on board was very
exciting for me.
So I think I read the firstfive books.
The first two books are shortstory compilations, then the the
(27:45):
other.
I think there's five othernovels.
I read three of them.
They're like actual novelspertaining to the life of
gerald's, yennefer, siri and andso forth.
And yeah, I enjoyed them, butnot as much as I enjoyed the
first two novels, which areshort story compilations.
For some reason I felt likethat was like the pinnacle of
(28:07):
how good the witcher can be, youknow, in terms of like.
It's a short, all-encompassingstory.
It has a moral lesson that ittries to teach you by the end of
it and it's always just likeshort and snappy, but it's
always pretty cool because it'sa different monster hunt of
episode every single short story.
So I like those first twonovels the best.
But uh, yeah, I did not like thenetflix series.
(28:29):
I tried to, I really tried to,but after the first season I
think I watched the firstepisode of the second season and
I I fell off.
Yeah, like I couldn't watchanything past that point.
But yeah, so I'm excited totalk about this because
unfortunately, I think Netflix'sshow which is why I was like
(28:50):
reading the novels was so bad tome that I stopped reading the
novels.
So I still have like two orthree novels left and I think
there's a new novel that justcame out by Andre Sapkowski,
like another Witcher novel Again, again, I have no idea what the
chronology is between thenovels into the witcher game.
I know that there is probablysome differences there, but I
(29:14):
don't know how much yeah, Ican't tell you that I know.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I mean, I think that there were things that from the
game that I definitely saw onthe show, but in terms of how
it's laid out I don't reallyrecall.
I do know that the beginning ofwitcher 3 they give you an
opportunity to make decisionsthat you would have made at the
(29:42):
end of witcher 2, I believe, andit kind of gives you like a
history of the, of the, the gamefranchise.
But how that plays with thenovels I'm not really sure yeah,
I don't know we'd have to.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
We have to, like, do some more research and get back
to you guys on that.
But what did you guys think ofsirens of the deep anthony?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
we'll start with you I thought that sirens of the
deep was pretty good.
I I enjoyed my watch.
I don't know, I haven't readthe short story like you have,
dakota, so I don't know.
You know what the major changeswould be from that, but for the
most part I really did enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
There were some aspects of it that were
derivative of the little mermaidI guess that's kind of the like
, the the joy of those firstshort stories with the witcher,
because like there's a beautyand the beast short story,
there's a snow white short story, you know like.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So this was the clear derivative of the little
mermaid, right, right, like youhave this human prince that is,
you know, in love with thismermaid princess, and you know
they even have a sea witch thatyou know comes up with this like
potion to like turn her intohuman.
(31:05):
Like there's a lot that I'mlike bro, this is like the
little mermaid with a monsterhunter in it.
Like I'm not saying it was bad,though like I enjoyed it.
You can always take a story andlike put your own spin on it,
and this was the spin with thewitcher on it, right, and it was
cool, like I I really I reallyliked it.
I felt like Geralt was very muchso the one that I remember from
(31:29):
like the video games.
You know he's this like monsterhunter, but like he's very
awkward and just like socialinteractions.
You know that's just not histhing.
You know his social interactionis with swords and that's it.
Well, not that's it, but likethat's really what he is, like
that's his job.
His job is to kill monsters andyou know, just do his thing.
(31:52):
So seeing his, his socialinteractions in the show reminds
me of a lot of the socialinteractions from the game.
A lot of it like made me likechuckle because his awkwardness
is funny.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah.
So let's break down the story alittle bit of Sirens of the
Deep and I'm going to try not toget it blended too much into
the short story A littlesacrifice.
There's the Witcher and Jaskier, or Dandelion if you follow the
short story.
Actually, is he Dandelion inthe game?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yes.
Yeah, he is yeah, yeah, he isokay yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So the witcher is tasked to come and visit a small
seaside town, basically, wherethere's been a series of attacks
on human fishermen who are likepearl divers and stuff by
mermaids and other merman-likecreatures that the mermaids are
in cahoots with.
(32:49):
And we find out that there's aprince named prince aglaval who
is in love with the princess ofthe merpeople named shianuts not
ariel, it's different, it'sshea nuts and yeah, so that that
kind of just start starts a,not like a.
(33:10):
That doesn't necessarily starta war, but it does.
It's something that aglaval'sfather, the king, is incapable
of getting behind.
It's a marriage that wouldnever work.
So he's doing everything in hispower to stop that from
happening, and he does.
He goes so far as to basicallystart a war that he knows isn't
(33:31):
true, so that he can break thesetwo individuals apart and
eventually love persists.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
That's an excellent rundown, and the one thing I
guess I want to start with is Idon't really understand why
anything from the original storyhad to be changed.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Right, yeah, so there's actually quite a bit of
stuff that they changed from theoriginal story.
There are some beats that arestill there and there's enough
beats where it's just like well,why not just keep the rest of
it?
And there's enough beats whereit's just like well, why not
just keep the rest of it?
So in the short story, anthony,it's not a prince, it's a duke,
it's Duke Aglaval.
It doesn't really follow likeShianauts and the merpeople at
(34:18):
all in the book.
So they definitely give a muchmore heavy focus to the mermaids
in this one.
Yeah, there's definitely a lotmore of a focus towards the mer
people in this.
You know like they actually gointo the water and show you like
what they're dealing with underthe water.
They don't do that at all inthe book and there's really not
(34:41):
that much of a.
There is a sea witch, but it'snot half as like.
They basically made this moviemuch more in line with the
little mermaid than the actualstory is basically.
Would you take that to like bethe case?
Speaker 3 (34:59):
which that's.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I just in terms of like there was no real Ursula
character in the short story,but they definitely turned it
into a Ursula, you know, takinghuman form and corrupting the
royal line, basically, yeah, Iwas watching it.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I ended up watching it because you know what I do.
So I watched it three times.
The first time I just watchedit too late and fell asleep.
The second time I'm watching itand I remember I had flashes
because I late and fell asleep.
The second time I'm watchingand I remember I had flashes
because I'd been falling asleepthe night before and I'm going
man, this is, this is like thelittle mermaid, you know, and I
don't remember feeling thatagain, I read it in spanish.
(35:38):
So, you know, then half of me islike maybe I just didn't pick
up on it.
You know, I don't know, likethat doesn't make sense to me.
I can read it well enough.
So, yeah, you know, by the end,you know, I obviously it dawned
on me that it was reallysimilar in a way that I don't
understand.
I mean, there was enough of aveiled reference to it right in
(36:03):
the story, the way it wasoriginally written, that I think
you didn't need to, kind oflike hammer home.
I mean I'm surprised theydidn't have a singing crab.
I'm just surprised, right, likethey actually.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
They did give the ursula character a singing role
in this movie uh, which is veryfunny, I, I enjoyed that at
least, but but there's really noreason for that.
I don't know.
I actually didn't hate it, butyeah, anyway, continue.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah, and that's the thing, and this is what bothers
me.
I mean, I hate it pains me asan English teacher by trade to
say this aloud, but this is oneof those scenarios where the
Netflix stuff makes me wish Ihadn't read the books right like
I wish I was.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yes, I wouldn't I agree, because I agree, I don't
know why.
Then I'd be like hey, you knowwhat?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
I love this content related to this game that I have
no knowledge of outside of thegame.
But no, I went ahead and readand I have spoiled it.
So I thought this was just arandom thing because, dakota, as
you know, there's nothingcalled Sirens of the Deep in any
(37:14):
of the books, right, yeah?
So I am like, oh, this israndom new content.
And then, as I'm watching it,I'm like wait, this is like part
, like the last little sacrifice, and I'm like you, you, you
probably like realize short,like, probably like 20 minutes,
in that, like this sounds veryfamiliar.
Yes, and you know but and thenthe little mermaid stuff, and
(37:37):
I'm just sitting there I'm going.
I'm really confused.
I thought this was somethingdifferent, but it's something
that's already been done.
But they're not doing it thesame way and I, you know, I will
say look, I really enjoyed mytime with gerald, like anthony
was saying yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
So, anthony, they changed quite a few things, like
there was no king in theoriginal short story.
Zeleste is just a character inthe story.
He's not like the half brotherof prince aglaval in again in in
the story Aglaval is just aduke and he's kind of a jerk to
like.
So the basic premise of ALittle Sacrifice is that there
(38:15):
are a bunch of differentcharacters that need to
basically do a little sacrificeif they're ever going to either
get along with the people thatthey're trying to get along with
.
Or, you know, prince Aglavalwith the people that they're
trying to get along with, orPrince Aglaval, who's kind of a
snooty duke, not Prince Aglaval,but Duke Aglaval is not as
chivalrous as he's portrayed inthis movie.
(38:37):
He's actually a real jerk andhe's very bratty.
Why isn't the mermaid willingand able to come onto land?
And Sheenot says why aren't youwilling to give a little
sacrifice of your own?
The whole thing is about alittle sacrifice, even from like
side characters to sidecharacters, and in the movie
they actually do mention theterm a little sacrifice two or
(38:58):
three times, so they aren't likeshy about hiding.
That is the adapted work thatthey're trying to get to, but
they conflated some stories likea lot and then like diluted
some stories a lot like the SEDavin character is like one of
my favorites ever, like she's sogood, like the way that she's
(39:21):
written in the book.
Se Davin here is just, she'sjust a character that you know
the wisher beds, basically.
Another thing that they changedis yaskir, or dandelion.
I don't think they evermentioned that he's from this
town but they made a very bigdeal about how you know
bremavort was like the placethat he was from, that he
(39:43):
decided to leave in this movieand they made that a huge plot
point that could have been usedfor other things.
But I mean, I get it.
They want to make yaskier seemmore important to the story
overall and the witcher mythos.
So yeah, rich.
What do you think is the changethat most bothered you?
(40:04):
Or, if there's a change thatdidn't bother you like, why?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
well, like all right, so you know at the end, when
you have who has to make thesacrifice, the prince ends up
making it, which I?
I don't know.
It's just a weird.
I think it's a needlessflip-flop.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I think it's right, because in the book it's
sheenots who decides to chooselegs and come on to land, but in
this story it's the princegoing into the water.
Yeah, I mean it.
He gave a little sacrifice,like it's Huge sacrifice.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
It's not the same.
In a world where monsters arediminishing, right, and you know
, you have literally a monsterhunter, right, becoming human
while leaving all you know isdifficult, right, it's not a bad
step up, right, in terms of youknow, you're kind of going from
(41:01):
a close to extinct race RightTo now part of a race that is
thriving.
Just on those merits alone, theswitch makes no sense and I
think it was just like somethingto do because you know it's
2025, so they just flip-floppedand I think that it's sloppy.
If you're going to changesomething, then it still needs
(41:22):
to be logical, and I just thinkthat the prince, he would.
I mean he's essentially leavinghis royal line, right, I mean,
like that's it, that's the end.
I mean he's going to the ocean.
I mean he's not having a humanbaby after that.
It doesn't.
It's just frustrating.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
They also change.
They also change the look ofthe mermaids.
I don't know if you caught thatfrom the story, but like
they're very human-esque in thebooks, I think in like the first
, like two or three lines of theshort story.
It explains that She-Anot haslike the most magnificent
breasts that Geralt has everseen, or something like that.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you know you're right, these
were not the most attractivemermaids I've ever seen.
You know, yeah, it doesn't sellit.
Like honestly, I was like thatlooks like I don't know, I don't
know fish that well, but like I, I it's.
It made it a little it did.
It definitely made it lessbelievable.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
I mean it definitely made it less believable I mean
the only thing, that that thatthe prince would fall in love
with.
Yes, the only thing that Ithink makes sense.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
I guess right is that it like when you, when the
other people are like disgustedby it, right, you're like yeah,
no, I get it right, like you can, you can better understand the
opposition to it, but I justdon't, I don't understand the
change.
I mean, even in Greek mythology, like the sirens, they were
(42:52):
attractive, but the point wasthat they were able to lure
sailors because of their songand because they were attractive
.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
And also it is kind of a weird stylistic choice on
Netflix's part, because theyaren't shy about making it like
a rated r product, you know likethey curse plenty.
There's so much gore it's likecrazy.
Lots of violence.
They really I don't know.
I mean it's weird that theychose that to be their siren,
(43:23):
but yeah, so let's talk a littlebit about essie davven, because
her character while it was niceseeing an adaptation that
included her, it really missedthe mark on what made her so
great.
I guess I don't know if thatmakes sense, or just some of the
backstory in regards to Essie,she ends up falling in love with
(43:46):
the Witcher and there's a longback and forth between the
Witcher and her as far as, like,what they're willing to
sacrifice for their relationshipand ultimately she realizes
that the Witcher is not capableof a little sacrifice for her.
That is something that is notpossible and I think that is
like part of the heartbreak ofthe story.
(44:08):
A little sacrifice is that, youknow, like she realizes that
what she wants from Geralt isnot something that he can give.
So she takes a gift given toher by Dandelion and Dandelion
told her that this pearl wasgiven as a gift for her birthday
from him and Geralt and shetakes that as like his only
(44:29):
sacrifice really to her andthroughout the story she's she
says that like, the thing thatshe fears most is dying to some
illness.
And then, like the narrator ofthe story, which is Jaskier, he
tells us that, like he'll, he'llnever tell Geralerald the true.
You know how, you know, severalyears later, after this a
(44:53):
little sacrifice story tookplace, he carried her to her
grave because she died of likesome smallpox or something like
that and she, she like, wantedto be buried with this pearl
that you know she believes isfrom gerald.
So it's, it's just such a sadending that like goes completely
(45:14):
, like undone I'm not undone,but like it just they, they
ignore it completely in this, inthis film.
But yeah anyway, all that beingsaid, I do like the movie.
I think it was a fun movie but,like rich said, I wish I hadn.
Rich said.
I wish I hadn't read the story.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
It's honestly fun.
It really is.
I actually, if I just take thatprevious knowledge, I like the
Little Mermaid ties.
It actually made it fun.
I thought to myself hey, youknow what I it fun, yeah, yeah.
Actually I said I thought tomyself hey, you know what?
Like I might be able tore-watch this with my wife and
(45:53):
she'll catch those vibes rightaway and go oh, I like this
right.
Like it might actually make itmore enjoyable for her too.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
So what's frustrating about it is just that they're,
I don't know, like if I couldsee rich is like silently fuming
over there, just like he'strying to like be as positive as
possible, but he seems to bemore upset about the changes
that they made to this storythan I am, and this is like my
favorite Witcher story, but Ifeel you, man, it wasn't bad,
(46:21):
like it's a fun movie, and Iliked that they added all that
stuff about the mermaids.
I liked the inclusion of like asea witch, slash kraken.
That was a cool like sea battle, and they definitely took it in
their own direction, though,and that's that's kind of what
bothered me, and I think thatthat's why they didn't call it a
little, a little sacrifice,just because they took that
(46:41):
concept and cherry picked whatthey wanted, and went another
direction.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Basically, this isn't hamlet right.
I don't need your reimagining.
Yeah, actually this is recentmodern literature.
All right.
You know it's not even 50 years.
If you're going to adaptsomething that is recent in
media, then you need to make itmatch.
That's the problem.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
They would never get away with this if this was like
Lord of the Rings, exactly.
Oh no, yeah, there match that'sthe problem.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
They would never get away with this if this was like
lord of the rings exactly.
Oh no, yeah, there'd be riots.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
They'd get strung up.
Yeah, it'd be so crazy, justlike all these gandalfs walking
down the street.
Just like you shall not passthe cars on bridges.
There'd be crazy yeah,everybody, nuts.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Anthony, you got any final thoughts on Sirens of the
Deep?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
The Sirens were in the deep, they were.
There were other animals, likesea animals that were down there
, that were humanoid, which Ithought was interesting.
But yeah, I'm coming into thiswithout you know, reading that
(47:49):
short story, so you know, Idon't know, like what changes
were made.
I mean, you know how I feelabout changes being made.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
I guess I'm most curious about what you think,
because Rich and I have our ownopinion based on some
pre-existing knowledge.
What do you feel about themovie having like forgetting
everything that we said today?
Basically, right, right.
What are your?
Speaker 2 (48:09):
thoughts I I enjoyed it, you know.
I I liked it, even though, yeah,like I said, there was
definitely a lot that was rippedfrom the little mermaid the sea
witch yeah, that musical numberwas interesting because I mean,
anytime that there was singingin this show, it made sense like
it was like you know, jesshere's, he's a bard, you know,
(48:31):
and so like that's his thing.
But the sea witch, like it waslike something completely out of
disney, like she's singingwhile all this magic is
happening.
It was like very like I waslike, okay, this is interesting.
But yeah, like you know, I, Iall, I I saw ursula.
You know I saw Ursula.
You know I saw Ariel.
It was, you know, veryinteresting.
Just, yeah, you had Witcherthrown into it, but you know, I
(48:55):
did enjoy it.
Do I feel like I might havefelt differently had I read the
short story?
Probably, I mean, you know howI feel when they make changes to
anything I enjoy.
You know, I semi-ripped theAvatar Netflix series, so I
probably would have feltdifferent.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
I will say that the Witcher series is much further
from the books than the Avatarseries is from the animated
series.
So yeah, so yeah yeah how abouty'all?
well, I will say that I enjoyedit for the most part.
So I didn't fully remember thestory, but I knew that they had
(49:40):
made some changes because, likesome stuff wasn't clicking in my
head from like.
You know, when I watched it Iwas like, man, this seems a
little off.
But you know what, I'm enjoyingit.
I'm just gonna like go for theride and see how this compares
to the, the short story later.
And then I read the short story.
I was like, oh, actually, thisis like completely well, not
completely different, but youknow there's there's quite a bit
(50:03):
of like change.
That just didn't need to happenbut it happened dude.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
So dakota said maybe I shouldn't have gone back to
read that I know I should have.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
I should have just enjoyed stayed the story.
What I will say?
I loved the animation style.
I thought that was like itreally really strong animation
style.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
I did too.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
The animation was really well done, especially in
the combat scenes like oh itlooks so good to my seat and you
never like didn't know what wasgoing on on screen, which was,
you know, that's rare for likesomething where there's like 20
plus people on screen.
Very good animation.
I was really pleased with ityeah overall, I would say maybe
(50:44):
seven, seven and a half out, youknow, on its own.
You know, having that, havinglike foregoing my knowledge of
what it's based off of, but yeah, I enjoyed it.
What?
Speaker 3 (50:55):
about you, rich?
I think I'm in the same boat.
I did really like the animation.
I thought that the voice actingwas really well done.
I thought that whoever voicedGeralterald, just the writing
and the delivery was perfect.
It made me feel like I wasplaying the game or, to henry
(51:17):
kevill's credit, the show.
You know, he was excellent aswell, so I thought that was
great.
I remember there wasspecifically one sequence, but
gerald is like running upsomething.
It's a monster, he, and he'sjust like running up the steps,
like like the back, like if hewere going up like a stair, like
(51:37):
a kind of an oval star, a roundstaircase, just the way.
He's like pitter patter, andthey were cutting back and forth
, back and forth, back and forth, and I was thinking about how
you know, this is somethingthat's really cool.
That wouldn't be done the sameway if it were live action and
in that moment yeah I kind ofsaid to myself they're doing a
(52:01):
really good job of not making ananimated movie but using the
medium of animation to tell astory which I thought was really
cool.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
No, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
Yes, it's not just, it's not just anime, it's not
like okay, so we couldn't getthe actors, we're gonna do this.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
You know, it was actually like they played with
it, so I I enjoyed that andwhat's actually interesting is
they did get some of the actorsback from the TV series on
Netflix.
Like, the character who playsJaskier on the TV series is Joey
Batty and he's playing Jaskieragain here, and I think there's
a couple scenes with Yenneferthat they actually bring back
(52:44):
Anya Chalatra from thelive-action series as well.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
I thought they sounded good, so that's awesome,
I mean it was not Henry Cavillas the Witcher.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
That was a guy named Doug Cockle.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
Could have fooled me.
Could have fooled me.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
He's got a good Cavill impression.
I guess he just thought, youknow he thought of Henry Cavill
and Cross Between Him and maybeChristian Bale's Batman.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Love it cavill, and cross between him and maybe
christian bale's batman and loveit guys.
Thank you so much for listeningto us here for our 112th
episode of project geekology.
Next week we have a fun showrich.
You don't know what we'recovering yet because we haven't
told you, but anthony and I weretalking pre-show and we've
decided to cover Dungeons andDragons.
Honor Among Thieves.
It's on Netflix and I'm excited.
(53:32):
I really like that movie.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Same.
I'm actually very excited.
I've seen that and I actuallywas thinking I was going to ask
you guys if it was worth a watch, because I figured you guys had
seen it already, you know.
And then I was like ah, youknow what, they've probably
already talked about it and itslipped my mind.
So this is, uh, really cool.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
I'm excited, yeah I actually had to ask dakota that
if we covered it, because Iforgot if we did or not.
I know we did talk about it?
Don't think so like in thebeginning, you know yeah, I
don't think we did not like afull discussion?
Speaker 1 (54:05):
yeah, yeah, but we shall make an episode of Honor
Among Thieves next week, episode113.
Yes, guys, thanks so much forlistening to us here for our
112th episode.
If you'd like to check out anyof our socials, be sure to click
into our show notes down below,where you can find any of our
links for other social sites.
(54:25):
For other social sites Whileyou're here and while you're
listening, and if you'd want tocontribute something positive to
our day and to the show, besure to crack open a nice juicy
Slim Jim.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yes, a Slim Jim makes a return.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Give us a five-star juicy review as you enjoy that
Slim Jim, you will thank uslater, basically.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Oh, my gosh One of the driest meat sticks.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Oh my gosh dude this is, I guess, juicy sizzling slim
jim.
All right, uh, all right, guys.
We'll see you in the next onealready y'all gerald of rubia.
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