The series is already out!
January 15 on HBO Max launched a TV series adaptation of the video game The Last of Us. I’m a big fan of the original and I’m happy to see it brought to TV by some of the most talented people in the industry. Here are 5 reasons why Naughty Dog is the perfect movie adaptation.
The opening is as cinematic as possible and sets the tone for the story.
The first 20 minutes of the game is a prologue to the main action, where we see the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. Joel lives with his daughter Sarah in a big house, they are happy, although finances are not all smooth sailing. Suddenly, real hell begins: people rage, everything around explodes, and the heroes run away from the city. But the met soldier kills the girl — we understand that the normal world is destroyed and will never be the same.
Despite its short length, the prologue squeezes out all the tears and tells Joel’s backstory perfectly. We know little about the protagonist, but this tragedy explains his tough temper, distrust of others and the chosen way of earning. He does not like people and is not ready to obey orders, therefore he trades in smuggling and is his own master.
The plot is based on the relationship between Joel and Ellie: from mutual distrust to love
Joel is assigned to deliver Ellie as cargo. The protagonist absolutely does not want to do this, but there is not much choice. Alas, no one meets them in the right place, and the hero loses his close friend Tess, who finally asks him to deliver the girl alive to the Cicadas. The fact is that Ellie is immune to infection, and the Cicadas have a laboratory somewhere in the western United States. They want to create a vaccine based on Ellie’s immunity. Joel does not seem to care, but Tess was very close to him, and he intends to fulfill her last request.
At first, the characters are silent and not very trusting. Gradually, they help each other out along the way and become more sociable, discover some piece of the past. Watching their relationship is even more interesting than shooting monsters and looking for supplies on the levels. By the end of the game, Ellie becomes Joel’s new daughter. So much so that he is ready to sacrifice the future of humanity, if only she was there.
The whole game is the perfect road movie
Cinematography is always diverse: from pop blockbusters to black-and-white arthouse for the elite. Road movies are loved by millions: there is constant movement, different locations — there is simply no time to be bored!
The Last of Us just follows the canons. Only in the first couple of hours we visited the quarantine zone of Boston, the destroyed skyscraper and the Capitol. Locations are as different as possible in terms of atmosphere and enemies. Further — even more interesting. Heroes in search of «Cicadas» set off on a long journey to the west of the country. They will visit a small town in Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, a power plant in Wyoming, the University of Eastern Colorado and even Salt Lake City. Not to mention the cross-country road, sewers, slums and other unpleasant places. The creators of the series do not even need to invent anything.
There are some great dialogues here.
The characters of the game talk like in real life, and not as if they were in a classic novel. They live in a gloomy world, but still find the strength to sometimes joke and laugh. However, their thoughts are more occupied by ordinary survival:
— And what should we do?
— Well, fight back.
— There are other options?
— Take a breath.
Joel is not so easy to break: «We must go forward, look for something to fight for …».
There was some romance, here’s a pinch of it in the Left Behind add-on: “There are a hundred reasons why we could not live to see today. And another hundred, according to which we may not live to see tomorrow. But we fight for every second that we can spend together. Let it be just two minutes… Or two days… They are priceless.”
Joel tells Ellie about the beautiful past world:
— So, people lived here and just studied? Even if they are adults?
— Yes, they studied, had fun, searched for themselves. Decide what they want to do in life.
What do they want to do in life…
Humor makes everything a little better:
“Oh, but your Billy will definitely have enough of this by the night. There is nothing to read, but the pictures are entertaining.
Ellie, this is not for children.
— Wow! How… How does he even walk around with that thing between his legs!?
— Throw it away now. I…
— No, wait. I wonder what all the fuss is about. Oops, the pages are stuck together…
— Eh…
— Yes, I’m over you joking!
And here is the dialogue of essentially two children, Sam and Ellie:
How are you not afraid of anything?
— Who told you?
— What are you afraid of?
— For example … For example, scorpions. Uh… Loneliness. I’m afraid to be alone. Well, what about you?
All these creatures. What if there are people inside them? Prisoners in a body that no longer obeys them? Will this happen to me?
Many types of zombies — this has never happened on TV
There are enough series about zombies on television, but the quality is a complete disaster! After low-budget shows like Black Summer, you want to forget about the genre once and for all. Apart from The Walking Dead, there is not much to watch, but its numerous spin-offs have either not yet been released, or are not credible at all.
And how by the way that after the finale of The Walking Dead, an expensive series in the setting of a zombie apocalypse will be released on HBO Max! What’s nice, here the infection is not at all the usual sick of the infection that makes all the bitten zombies. In the game, the pandemic began due to a mutated cordyceps fungus. Depending on the stage of infection with the fungus, the infected mutate into different types of zombies, making them diverse enemies with a special approach.
HBO has already announced that in the series, the infection spreads through tendrils, which create a kind of interconnected chain of infected. We will find out what this means on January 15th.
