Questions about "The Last of Us"

Cafe Society
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1

I know there are other threads dealing with the show, but this thread deals mainly with the question, “What is this thing that everybody is talking about?”

I can read the other threads, so I know that it’s a popular TV show. But it’s also a video game? How does that work? So far, from what I can pick up from other threads and in-person conversations, it’s something about zombies who aren’t quite zombies. Or something like that. And an old Linda Ronstadt song became popular again after the last episode.

I don’t play video games, nor do I do streaming of any sort from sites like Netflix or HBO, so please don’t tell me to “tune in and find out.”

I know it was filmed in Alberta, which is where I live, so I’m sure I’d recognize many locations. Local friends have had fun recognizing familiar places (to Albertans, anyway), so maybe it would be a fun watch. Hey, if teasers on the local news are correct, somebody or something destroys the Lethbridge High Level rail bridge in a future episode. But my questions still stand: what the heck is everybody talking about, and why?

2

Basic overview follows.

In 2013, the video game “The Last of Us” was released for the PlayStation console.

It was developed by Naughty Dog, who previously made the “Uncharted” series. Those games are fun escapist adventure. “The Last of Us,” by contrast, made a splash because it was unusually serious.

The basic genre of the game is “zombie apocalypse survival horror.” However, in its details, it’s a little different from the standard conventions. The creatures are not reanimated living dead; they have been corrupted by a fungal infection which destroys their minds and replaces their consciousness with a purely instinctive compulsion to spread the fungus.

The game has a brief prologue showing the initial collapse of civilization, and then jumps forward twenty years, showing the broken world that has taken shape in the aftermath. The basic plot of the game follows an amoral smuggler who is tasked with bringing a teenage girl across the country for reasons that are best left unspoiled.

Critical and audience response to the game was very positive, because the story is much more thoughtful and compelling than was typical in the field. The player is confronted with moral complexity, and is left with troubling implications related to their actions in game.

The game was discussed for screen adaptation almost as soon as it was released, but the game’s creatives resisted the usual heavy-handed tinkering of Hollywood executives. (Stories abound of the dumb changes they wanted to make.)

After a decade of delay, the new HBO series finally brings an adapted version of the game to TV. The primary creative leader of the game is closely involved with the show, and actually directed the second episode. It is nevertheless not a slavish scene-for-scene re-creation; the series (which has so far aired three out of nine episodes) diverges from the source story in the game in various respects, both large and small.

In the broad strokes, though, as an adaptation, the HBO series seems to be using the same narrative framework and pursuing the same thematic objectives as the game.

I am a longtime fan of the game (and an even bigger fan of its sequel), and so far I am quite pleased with the show. It honors the source story without handcuffing itself to its details, and at the same time it seems to be entirely accessible to someone who knows nothing about the game.

Does this answer your questions?

3

To add to the already wonderful explanation I’d like to point this is a real thing that actually exists right now, it just affects ants (and maybe other insects?) and not humans.

4

Indeed.

5

Is the show following the plot of the game, or just set in the same world?

I don’t have a lot of knowledge of either, my experience with the game was watching a friend play* it when it came out (which was apparently 10 years ago, how time flies), and my knowledge of the show is from the other night’s Colbert interview and clip.

But the two don’t really seem to mesh well as a plot, with my albeit very limited knowledge.

*It seemed less playing, and more spending a few minutes of gameplay in between cutscenes. More of a slightly interactive movie than a game, IMO.

6

Based on the first three episodes, it will follow the plot of the game.

There are some game moments which have been condensed or modified, and there are series moments which do not exist in the game but which have been invented or extrapolated from its precedent.

But it’s still, so far, the same story with (mostly) the same characters.

7

Thanks for the answers and comments, folks. I especially want to thank @Cervaise for the helpful overview; and yes, my questions were answered. Thanks again!

8

Since you found your answer (and @Cervaise did a great summation) I will just toss in a recommendation to watch the show if you can.

I have had friends who said they were well and done with zombie movies/tv not to mention being dubious of game adaptations which are usually awful. But they love this TV show. It may not be for everyone (nothing is and that is fine) but it is very well done and well worth a try (I think).

9

With the “so far” caveat. We’ve seen only three episodes with six to go in the first season, so there’s plenty of road left for the show to go into a ditch.

Based on the quality of the first three, I think that’s unlikely, and I’m optimistic that the show will stick the landing. But on the other hand, I also liked the first three-quarters of “Star Trek Discovery” season one, and then it slammed aggressively into a very stupid wall, so, well, y’know.

Anyway, personally, I’m going to wait until the season is finished before I feel confident about recommending it to the uninitiated.

10

I my experience there are some that are so willfully ignorant against gaming that they don’t understand that they can be more complex than Pac-Man. They don’t understand that some can have great writing and a plot as good as a novel. This is one of those games. So far the show is doing justice to that writing and world building. Unlike Cervaise I think the plot of the second game is a bit of a mess despite the fact I enjoyed playing it. That shouldn’t be touched in the first season.

11

It’s not like that didn’t get an adaptation

I don’t know that I would put it at them not being able to “understand” and more that they are aware that quite a number of games, most of them in some opinions, have some terrible writing and plot.

12

There are some people you immediately dismiss gaming and have never learned the basics. Some in my own family or sharing my bed. Since it’s a game they think you must be trying to win something and that there must be some sort of scoring going on. They don’t get that some games are about the journey and being part of the story.

13

I unfortunately know people who do play games who feel the same way. They are no fun to play with.

But I get what you are saying, there are those who will dismiss any media that they don’t personally use as beneath them. “Video games are for kids and losers” type mentality. Quite a few people would say the same about playing table top games or watching anime. And then they’d smirk in their righteousness as they turn to their TV to watch the latest reality TV show or police procedural.

But, people can be skeptical about video game adaptations for a couple legitimate reasons. The first is that there have been some bad game adaptions made over the years, and there have also been some really bad video game adaptations. The genre itself is a bit tarnished by including in it the likes of “BloodRayne”. I am actually struggling to think of a good adaptation, not saying none exist, but none are coming to mind. And maybe the effect of changing media from a first person interactive model to a third person observer is difficult to bridge.

Then there’s the fact that most video game plots are actually pretty dumb. They are just excuses for the main character to go from one fight sequence to another. Even plots that seemed as though the writers put a lot of thought into it didn’t necessarily make any sense, as evidenced by pretty much all the Final Fantasy games.

Now The Last of Us could well be something that is more successful at an adaptation, for the reason why I personally didn’t enjoy it as much as a game. It is more about the story and less about getting from one combat sequence to another.

I don’t know that it is worth subscribing to HBO for, but it’ll add to that column, and if I do, I’ll check it out.

As an aside, while doing a bit of research for this post, I found why I thought the clip on Colbert to be so different from what I had seen in the game (which I admittedly had only seen some unknown percentage of), in that the clip portrayed a scene that specifically never happened in the game.