Given the long development cycles of big-budget video games, they rarely resonate with specific moments in culture the way film and television do. However, it depicted a fictional global catastrophe in a way that was difficult to reconcile with what was happening in our own lives. It’s a game that portrays a world after a deadly epidemic as violent and pessimistic, and instead of making an effort to show how community and mutual aid contrasts with it. , people split into factions and fiercely compete over resources.
HBO’s adaptation of its predecessor, 2013’s The Last of Us, suffers from similar problems as it tries to introduce the original story to new audiences and fans who want to relive it.
Led by the game’s creative director Neil Druckmann and Chernobyl showrunner Craig Mazin, The Last of Us is probably the most faithful adaptation of a video game I’ve ever seen, but the source material isn’t all that old. No. If you’ve played the game or it’s finally set to debut on PC in two months time (opens in new tab), which tells you how close the show is to its source material. Ignoring the section where you, as Joel, hide and hide from the infected in typical third-person shooter style, the show puts a lot of effort into mirroring the cutscenes (and dialogue) right down to the camera movements. I’m paying. Sometimes it’s like watching a supercut of a game’s story on YouTube.
Its fidelity is an achievement, but it also highlights how much effort was put into making the game itself look like the prestige HBO show. but since its release, Sony has turned it into a blueprint and started spreading thin.
Pedro Pascal and Vera Ramsey play crusty hero Joel and angry teenage sidekick Ellie, with some condensation and exaggeration to make up for the show’s much shorter length. Without the game’s brutal shootouts and stealth sequences, Joel’s seething anger and explosive tendencies toward violence are more apparent through flashbacks to the horrifying events of the first episode. and it works.
Watching The Last of Us is a lot like going back and replaying the game.
Additional context, such as how Joel’s daughter, Sarah, repairs the watch Joel gave him for his birthday, and how Tess has a black eye when he first sees her later in the game. It’s nice to see it as someone who played it, but it doesn’t serve much purpose other than scaffolding.
On the other hand, in the 3 episodes I’ve seen, the story isn’t trying to update for 2023. It shows the initial despair of an infectious disease that will lead to the deaths of millions, but eventually returns to the same zombies. A metaphor you’ve seen over and over again.
Survival in The Last of Us means taking what’s yours and protecting it to the death. Infected or not, other people are the real monsters and well, you remember The Walking Dead. He seems uninterested in tweaking The Man Who Travels Across Countries and highlighting the parts that might resonate with our current reality.
HBO’s Joel is a sympathetic father who goes too far because of what the world has done to him. The show tries to reveal who Joel really is early on in a scene where he attacks a soldier who only threatens to shoot Ellie, but makes it so strong that the game kills 20 soldiers in a fight sequence. No. In the game, no matter how many people he kills along the way, Joel clearly needs an idealized vision of stability so desperately that he eradicates any threat to it. With his relationship with Ellie tightening and nowhere in the show is an ounce of that seen, it’s hard to see him show his true nature.
Watching The Last of Us is a lot like going back and replaying the game. Its bleak opening is still devastating, with Joel and Ellie being chased by soldiers, It’s still pretty fascinating to watch to follow the mushroom zombie’s screaming journey of understanding each other. The show may go deeper in the second half with its nine-episode run, but with the game’s beat-by-beat remake, it’s not like there’s anything new the game hasn’t yet. I’m worried about
