Filmmaker Reacts: The Witcher 2 - Opening Cinematic

[@PhilipHarts]

Play the Unicorn Overlord Demo NOW and preorder click here: gsght.com/c/puu00u Subscribe here and Follow me on twitch.tv/philiphartshorn Join my discord to help me choose my next video: discord.gg/J85mKhG Watch my film work here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fILKZpVsl8aafdU Follow my Twitter: Twitter.com/philipharts

[@Nimfiel_Melethril]

The weapon seems to be “Northern Wind” bomb.

[@zanzan2738]

The most interesting thing is that most did not even realize that everything shown took place in an “accelerated show” and in the reality of the world for ordinary people; the entire scene of the king’s murder took no more than 15-30 seconds. This is especially evident in the footage of the murder of knights, where Leto seems to teleport and deliver instant blows to enemies.

[@averagecapybaraenjoyer1]

*Kings not knights

[@thegrandwombat8797]

@@averagecapybaraenjoyer1Nah, they're talking about when he took out the armed guards

[@averagecapybaraenjoyer1]

@@thegrandwombat8797 oh yeah now I see

[@AnaatthiGozo]

I love Letho's character design. He looks like a hulking brute, and there's no shortage of those in the witcher universe, the are two wrestling in this very video. But Letho is just as fast, agile and smart as Geralt or any other witcher.

[@kamchatmonk]

And the best part is that Letho exploits that impression of a dumb brute he makes. He easily outsmarted the sorceresses by playing a dimwit.

[@itsgonnabeokay9341]

I would argue Geralt is a better swordman

[@solitaryenjoyer411]

​@@itsgonnabeokay9341thats depends how you fare against him im game

[@Teniun1992]

One thing I have noticed thanks to you is the way how Letho moves. He is a witcher from the school of Viper I believe, and you can clearly see it in the way he runs. He looks like some hulking brute, but his entire body is in move. He does really remind me a snake going for it's prey, eyes not just on his prize, but also at each of the arrows. It is quite clear he is ready to dodge the first arrow, but thanks to his superhuman perception, he 'calculates' it's trajectory and does not act, only looks in the arrow's direction briefly. Then he starts his dodge -before- the second arrow is even released, as if he could predict it's trajectory.

[@MagyarBuszke]

SPOILER ALERT! So the Assassin is called Letho of Gulet. He is indeed a witcher. I wouldn't call him rogue, his school choose to accept contracts on humans aswell as on monsters. He is hired by Scoia'tael (rebel dwarves and elves), who are basically controlled from the background by Nilfgaard (the empire of the south) to hunt down the monarchs of the Northern Kingdoms. So basically you can call anybody evil but it's just politics. They weaken the North before the invasion. As for the icebomb, it is probably procured by some Nilfgaardian mage. It is not overly powerful in mage on mage combat, just against regular soldiers, so it would not close a war shortly but here with a nice bit of surprise it worked wonders.

[@evzenkastl6386]

He was hired by emhyr though. Not scoiatel. He Promised him to revive his Witcher school.

[@dariot5225]

Sheala de tarcarville gave him weapon to kill demavend. Lodge also hired him.

[@evzenkastl6386]

@@dariot5225 yeah but emhyr was the one instigating everything

[@dariot5225]

@@evzenkastl6386 correct that why I wrote "also".

[@nicktarasidis4860]

Letho not leto

[@xxDrain]

Letho's attitude in this event is how I want to be at all times. Focused, clear on my objective, aware of anything that might impede me, not letting arrogance lead to my failure.

[@hulmhochberg8129]

The guys name is letho, he is a witcher from the school of the viper! Hes at least on the level of geralt id say. Lorewise geralt has more mutations than most i think, so maybe theres some stuff hes better at, but in raw strenght and constitution letho surpasses geralt by far. But more importantly, letho is SMART, he doesn't say much and PLAYS the big dumb brute, but he knows whats going on.

[@Ghost-Face420]

Geralt is proven to be the overall strongest Witcher by far, his feats are impossible to reach as any other Witcher

[@arandombard1197]

Geralt also has the option of killing him and at that point in the game, it's a curb stomp, even on max difficulty.@@Ghost-Face420

[@anne.1205]

He is Letho of Guleta, a witcher of the Viper School that doesn´t exist anymore. The Nilfgaardian Emperor captured him and told him to assassinate the Kings of the Northern Kingdoms to prepare for the invasion of the North. In return he promised to rebuild the Viper School. It should look like sorcerers killed the monarchs, so the North would lose trust in them which would further weaken the North, for the sorcerers prevented the last attempt of invasion. That´s why he uses an ice bomb.

[@seanrobey8335]

That bomb that was throw was a magical ice bomb letho made one thing about the school of the viper they made weapins in there school which is why he knew how to make it

[@marvinhansen1875]

The Bomb Leto uses is a "Northern Wind" Bomb. Geralt can use them in Witcher 3. In the Gwent Card Game, the "Northern Wind" Card comes with the Quote: "An unnatural fog enveloped Demavend's ship and his crew turned into icy sculptures...". Demavend is the King who gets executed.

[@TheOneSoulMate_]

I really enjoyed your commentary. Your experience definitely really makes the breakdown of the scene entertaining and informative. The enthusiasm also is good specially satisfying as you break it all down.

[@KeytarArgonian]

The best part of this, is where you think the ‘sped up’ parts are just that, sped up. But they aren’t. Everything else is playing out super slow motion. Those ‘sped up’ seconds are actually playing on real time.

[@kireta21]

Honestly, entire Prologue of Witcher 2 plays out like a damn good movie.

[@1.618-o2y]

Witchers are killing machines hired to kill monsters, but now they started killing kings. I think thats why they used this guitar at the end.

[@CasperHomeStudio]

You may want to know that this animation was made by Tomasz Bagiński. He's working with CD Project on whole Wither serie. Also he was working on Netfix Witcher series cause of that, but... let's not talk about it ;) One hes work you may want to see is "Katedra" (Cathedral) having Oscar nomination in 2003. Or try Legendy Polskie: Jaga - short movie directed by Bagiński - if you want something more modern.

[@KeytarArgonian]

A great cutscene director, but terrible writer/showrunner. His reasoning that ‘American audiences aren’t smart enough to get it’ as justification to completely rewrite the story was ridiculous.

[@Turalcar]

Fun fact: It is customary for witchers to present the head of a monster as proof to get paid. In this case he just needed it as proof that he's the one who did it.

[@dabstep2302]

about the power of the "ice bomb". It's not as powerful as it would seem. As someone else commented already it is effective only against regular soldiers, and on the battlefield, especially on the side of the Northern Kingdoms, there are many strong sorcerers (of course Nilfgaard also has magic users on their side, but I believe they are a little bit weaker as it would fit the Nilfgaardian empire and it's bureaucracy to temper their mages a little, because of how dangerous it would be for even one to turn against the ruler/state).

[@nickv1212]

"It is effective only against regular soldiers", aren't most people regular people? Well, it's not like it's any more dangerous than any other bomb. They're just not as flashy and magical. But I don't think people would waste these on regular people anyway. Too many monsters and leaders to slay.

[@vedigregorian4382]

That's Letho, a viper school witcher, actually a good guy who was coerced into killing a several kings.

[@AliyaWill]

So cool! And Unicorn looks so fire 😳😳🔥

[@PhilipHarts]

Thank you so much!!

[@TheOneSoulMate_]

I am going to have to go back and watch all of your other videos. 👍🏼

[@indigobuntz3564]

Letho is a witcher. He is very strong, definitely at Geralt's level in terms of fighting skills (he defeats Geralt once and then loses if the player decides to fight him a second time). But the ice bomb is provided to him by the Lodge of Sorceresses, a very powerful and influential secret organisation formed by the greatest sorceresses on the continent. Since their political agenda included getting rid of Demavend, the king of Aedirn you see in here, that they consider way too weak to rule a major kingdom such as Aedirn, they help Letho in his intent, without knowing that he acts on behalf of the empire Nilfgaard, a southern empire that wants to conquer the North. It's complicated

[@DarshRS]

School of the viper is like Slytherin in Harry Potter, those guys are no joke. Great video, but as we all know, Geralt is just built different. BTW: He put his head in the Trophy hook, like Geralt does with monsters

[@KanohiVahi]

The weapon or ice bomb the assassin used could be "Northern Wind" which is a type of bomb with similar effect that is accomplished here, though this one is way stronger than the one you get to use as the player (though only in Witcher 3). It is mentioned in the game that this assassin is hired by powerful sorceresses to murder the king in this video and that they gave him supplies and gold to help with the assassination, so this bomb is more likely to be a magical weapon given to him by the sorceresses to make his job easier because Northern Wind didn't exist in Witcher 2 yet. To answer your questions about this witcher: Witchers most of the time try to stay neutral on politics and only get hired to kill monsters but this assassin who is a Witcher named Letho, was in a desperate situation and his desperate situation kinda got taken advantage of to hire him to assassinate different monarchs.

[@Zolwiol]

I didn't watch the video yet but whoever made you watch this one is a true man/woman of culture. This is hands down one of the greatest "couple minute" CGI animation.

[@Zolwiol]

One of the things to note about the archer is that he is using low poundage trickshot bow not actual combat or even a hunting bow.

[@Elysia119]

A Question: At 19:20 at the frozen shot where letho kills the two guards, i noticed something. If you freeze the shot, then you can see that the image has an overall gradient from lightest to darkest. The sky is bright near letho and gradually darkens further from Letho. The shadows and colors on the ship also have the same property: the standing position of the king towards the right of the frame is hidden inside a dark shadow. Would this mean that this scene would represent Letho as a good/light character fighting against dark forces? Or am i looking too deep into this?

[@heiker1351]

Maybe overinterpreted. As a designer who dabbles with photoshop you know that those are tricks to lead the eye to the important points. It manipulates your attention. But it is always possible that they had a second intention for this technique. Sometimes the designer does not even know why he does things, just that they feel right. The subconscious meddling with the affairs of the rational mind ... 😂 I love to find those hidden meanings, too. They are very interesting, but can easily mislead. They tell the truth, but a personal one. The hopes and fears of the one who created the image.

[@JeannieLove]

I really liked Witcher 2, it just sucked that my laptop I paid 10k for couldn't run it properly. By the time it came out for Xbox 360, I had already moved on to PS3. Vanillaware rocks, even if I'm not into what they put out, the art is still top notch.

[@PhilipHarts]

I agree, the art style is like no other, so unique!

[@JeannieLove]

You pretty much got it, a rogue witcher is killing kings. Because of this Geralt gets arrested and he has to clear his name and the reputation of the witchers

[@Clapperofcheeks5000]

The game was badly optimised for pc Xbox version was redone

[@Wladeex123]

To give a bit of a background [there will be spoilers]: The ships belong to the monarch who's killed in this cinematic - King Demavend, ruler of Aedirn - one of the Northern Kingdoms in the Witcher world. Demavend was viewed as a generally weak king, but he's still the head of his country and so his death is a major blow. The assassin is Letho of Gulet, a witcher hailing from the School of the Viper, a mostly forgotten school located in Nilfgaard. It was mostly destroyed over half a century ago, it's not producing any new Witchers, and there are almost none alive who wear the viper medallion. Letho got an offer from the Emperor of Nilfgaard, Emhyr var Emreis - he and his brothers were supposed to venture into the Northern Kingdoms and kill as many monarchs as possible, to destabilize the region and prepare it for a third Nilfgaard invasion. In return - Emhyr would reinstate the School of the Viper and help rebuild it. We've seen a bit of the Vipers' activity at the end of the first Witcher game, where (in a cinematic) Geralt stopped an attempted assassination of Temeria's King - Foltest and looked down at the body of the assassin, to reveal to the audience, that he was, in fact, another witcher. Letho is a decently strong witcher, somewhat comparable to Geralt in strength. But he's also ridiculously cunning and callous, and got most people he interacted with to play right into his hand. The bomb he used is way too strong to be a witcher bomb (although it's effects are simmilar to the Northern Wind), so it was probably made or enhanced by either the Imperial mages, or - and that's far more likely - by the Lodge of Sorceresses, who started working with him right before Demavend's slaying. No matter how the events of the game play out, it seems like Letho's efforts were successful, as the initial Nilfgaardian invasion proved a great success and made great progress, almost felling all of the Northern Kingdoms in one fell swoop. But that's The Witcher: Wild Hunt material.

[@Puchacz81]

Not only king. Death of the mage was a blow to northerners. Each king in the north had a mage advisor and in Witcher world they were running the show like Bene Geserit in Dune.

[@MM-vs2et]

Letho was one of the scariest Witcher villains because something that big should not be that fast and agile

[@dagonofthedepths]

On the weapon and the assassin. He's Letho, a witcher from another school, the kingslayer, and the man is sort of the main antagonist of the game. I don't think that's really a spoiler, that's all in the trailers for the game and it's pretty obvious what he is if you know the lore of witchers. Anyways, the bomb is something witcher's use but that one seems to be overcharged. It's also kind of situational. Letho had to cast a spell on himself, so he doesn't die, and it really only took out the ship. Yeah, that's scary but how many people can swim on a ship undetected and throw up a magic spell just to chuck a bomb at someone? Plus, you have magic users in the world that can potentially do more. Really, this works because Letho is a well-trained mutant with years of experience under his belt. Also, the water isn't frozen so I don't think the range is as far as it seems. Or they forgot about that. :P

[@Ludovit110]

I'd be definitely interested in analyzing other Witcher trailers, especially of The Witcher 3.

[@QueenPersephone520]

Northern wind bomb in the witcher 3 shown in witcher 2 opening😍

[@jam2944]

goddamnit didnt expect a unicorn overlord sponsor for sure... this game keeps twisting the knife in showing up everywhere and not getting released for PC...

[@aigleincomments9532]

havnt watched that trailer in along time, just noticed that archer uses the modern day shooting range archery technique. ( basicly loading the arrow to the left side of the bow ) which wasnt a thing back than and is super unpracticle in combat, slows down the motion n interupts the flow by changing the grip. but at least the quiver isnt on his back. :D ( hollywood/gaming bs )

[@2ChainZsensai]

I desperately wanna play as Letho of Gulet.

[@bojangazibaric3328]

When u said how archer is chilling while trying to hit Letho.... Well hes not, Letho is super fast and archer is shooting as fast as he can but Letho is just fast as lighting

[@HindrancUS]

Letho is incredible fast, in moments with his attacks, when slow-mo turns off, we can see this. His approach took only a few seconds - and during that time the archer managed to shoot twice. Аrom a bow, a weapon that most people will not be able to pull on during this time. In extreme conditions. And both times he almost hit. It really was a battle of titans.

[@Byron804]

He's about as skilled as Geralt

[@PhilipHarts]

Ok now I just want to see them fight!!!

[@beanz3089]

​@@PhilipHarts little spoiler: They Do.

[@Pierzyn10]

You need to see Polish legends made by the same people like this video game trailer call Legendy polskie Twardowski is unbeliveble

[@bolabola9354]

he probasbly got that bomb from nilfgaard. He had the emperoir resources i guess

[@KilatSilat]

Witcher!! Also unicorn overlord looks epic

[@PhilipHarts]

I need to see this guy Vs Geralt! And yes I played the Unicorn Overlord demo for 8 hours, it’s epic!

[@sergiykud]

ooo A Night to Remember! please and how is skyrim not on here

[@Deorman]

The Assassin is indeed a Witcher, On the same level of Geralt if not better. Quite famous (or infamous) as well but not as much as Geralt.

[@Tony-ih1pg]

The assassin, Letho, is a Witcher, a mutant, faster and stronger than a common human. These mutants are trained to kill monsters

[@dannyb9209]

This intro made me buy it 😂

[@Kamarov134]

A night to remember Witcher 3 is the best cinematic ever.. technically

[@pl-hq5hr]

Letho, the assassin is a witcher but has support from the mage guild. And the emperor. Complicated story...

[@RohtAnuum]

If you play Witcher II it set the difficulty based off how well you handled the tutorial fights. Fun game to play for sure.

[@dashandtuch7183]

"I wonder if this guy is evil or if this is an evil king" well yes, and no. As always in the Witcher series.

[@D4WeeMaN]

Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred.

[@PhilipHarts]

Love that quote!

[@geokon3]

There is no black and white in the world of The Witcher. Everyone is a shade of grey...

[@Turalcar]

@@PhilipHarts I think what people miss most about The Lesser Evil is that by the end of the story this Geralt's stance has been proven wrong

[@jip5889]

Evil does not even exist. It is an arbitrary and subjective concept. Example: Lion kills a Zebra. The action is evil from the zebra’s point of view but good from the lions point of view.

[@clst029]

alrady buy this game and the last trailer '" a night to remember ' witcher 3 is a real film trailer

[@heiker1351]

I disagree about the archer. 😊 He controls his fear very well, but he misses the first shot for no other reason. He is shitting his pants like everybody else. His calm is not real. That's why he misses. He pulls himself together for the second shot, but the witcher's calm is real. He knows where the arrow is pointing and moves out of its way. Very controlled, no energy wasted. The training of normal people might be good, but the witcher's creation is so brutal they lose everything. Fear of death, fear of pain, they are completely in control of their feelings. Completely calm, like the eye of the storm. Love it. CDPR know what they are doing. They know exactly what they want to show. It's all there. Meticulously planned. They are witchers, too. They aimed precisely at the heart and I would say they nailed it. For millions of us. 😂 So many years and still nailed to the mast or whatever. No moving on, Geralt is still the best. And all the others. I love Letho, he is such a strong character. A viper brain with the grace and stealth of a cat in the body of a bear. Geralt is not the only one with several mutations. 😎 Letho is clever enough to never talk about it. And nobody else dares to call him out. Wolf brains are smart, but not that calculating. Pack animals have too much empathy.

[@marcindraco5666]

Overall its decent story

[@repulse5501]

Жаль лучника, такая выдержка и все на смарку! 🥸

[@WoynyX123]

Please react to this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mWHMaWuqZbCUmdU This is cinematic trailer to The Witcher 3 Wild hunt and i wanna know your opinion about edit, music and other stafs In my opinion its perfectly done and i love it watching this over and over again

[@sandilar]

might be better than witcher3, but I thinkthat's blasphemy

[@charleswiltshire21]

its so stupid, react to the trailer, how about you play the wither 2 and react on it?

[@PhilipHarts]

Don’t you watch a trailer to decide if you’re going to play it or not? I’m not allowed to do that?

[@HindrancUS]

Trailer? Isn't that intro?

[@Catwomans_Belt]

this is still the best cinematic i have ever seen. nothing compares