youThe Last of Us came out in 2013 on PlayStation 3 and is considered one of the best video games ever made. I know this because the week it came out I drew the curtains in the front room of my share house, forbade all my housemates from entering the area unless they went to watch in reverent silence, and completed it.
In the game, you play Joel, finally a representation of Joel! – through a post-apocalyptic USA, 20 years after a pandemic event. Every human you come across is trying to stab you, take bullets from you, or recruit you to one side of a conflict between the citizen army and the underground uprising. Every monster you meet is infected with a brain fungus that makes them blind, bulbous, and very biting. But what made the game stand out was the story: Joel is escorting Ellie, a mushroom-proof teenager and humanity’s last hope, through a long journey that will lead them both to safety. The classic dynamic – gruff old man, innocent, talkative teenager – softens and deepens as they drag themselves further into the sprawl of what’s left of the world. I really liked it; many hardcore gamers felt there was too much story. Where is Sonic? Where is the infinite ammo machine gun? Where is the open map with infinite exploration? This sucks!
So HBO has decided to remake it as a TV series (Monday, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), removing all traces of the video game from the story, and eventually letting those who own an Xbox experience it for themselves. From a distance, this doesn’t make much sense, as it does, for example, adapting a book into a TV series: you can already see how this story happens, if you want, by playing the game. And the culture has a rich history of taking video games and doing something between bad and disappointing: Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, The Angry Birds Movie. For the type of person who closes the curtains to keep out the daylight so he can better get into the atmosphere of the game he’s playing, there are doubts about that. But you don’t have to: what the writers (Craig Mazin, of your favorite, Chernobyl, and Neil Druckmann, writer and creative director of the original games) have done has been cleverly extended into the world of The Last of Us to tell the stories. that can’t be said by pressing R2 and X every couple of seconds.
We should talk about casting first. Game of Thrones alumni Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey play Joel and Ellie with perfect levity. A nine-episode story about two strangers making their way through an infested USA could quickly turn into a relentless survival marathon without the right performances, and both actors here are terrific. Playing “annoying and unflappable” better than anyone, Ramsey is lighthearted and hopeful, childishly silly in one scene and gun-wielding in another. Pascal also makes the role of Joel his own. Initially I thought he might be too wickedly gorgeous to play a mid-’50s southerner who doesn’t want to do any of this shit, but squeaks into a jean shirt with just the right amount of world-weary heaviness and “your sprained ankle.” , but it’s not broken” practicality. What the game cutscenes did so well was the drama choreography (looks, touches, half expressions) and this was transposed into the show. He spends just the right amount of time showing you everything he shows you, and then : what was that noise?
It’s a bold statement to make this at the beginning of the year, but I think episode three of The Last of Us could very well be one of the TV episodes of 2023: a one-hour, 15-hour zig away from Joel and Ellie’s walk. for the United States. , deftly explores a story starring Bill, the survivor played by Nick Offerman, who couldn’t have told someone holding a controller while he was dying to headshot some monsters. There are nods to gaming throughout: an early car chase is filmed from a clever backseat perspective; Joel and Ellie’s first interaction with the Clickers ends with them pulling a bookcase over a door to seal one level to another; Joel keeps finding sniper rifles, but they never get in the way. In fact, without the sense of failure at a checkpoint, every hit shot, semi-invulnerable you get playing a game, zombie (and human) attacks feel more primitive, more permanent. Is this the best adaptation of the game to the screen? Until they inevitably give Candy Crush a gritty reboot, absolutely yes.
