The Last of Us

2023 - 1 - 11

Post cover — Image courtesy of "The Guardian"

The Last of Us: TV finally has the perfect video game adaptation (The Guardian)

Inspired casting, excellent acting, hugely inventive storytelling … no console-to-screen journey has ever been this good. And it's one of the year's best ...

I initially thought he might be too impishly gorgeous to play a mid-50s southerner who doesn’t want to be doing any of this shit, but he creaks around in a denim shirt with just the right amount of world-weary heaviness and “your ankle’s twisted, but it isn’t broken” practicality. For the type of person who shuts their curtains to keep the daylight out so they can better enter the atmosphere of the game they are playing, there is hesitancy with this. The Last of Us came out in 2013 on the PlayStation 3 and is considered one of the best video games ever made. But there needn’t be: what the writers (Craig Mazin, from your favourite, Chernobyl, and Neil Druckmann, writer and creative director of the original games) have done is cleverly extended out the world of The Last of Us to tell the stories that can’t be told by pressing R2 and X every couple of seconds. Every human you encounter is trying to stab you or scavenge bullets off you or recruit you to one side of a conflict between the citizen army and the underground uprising. So HBO has decided to remake it as a TV series (Monday, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), cutting all traces of the video game out of the story, and finally letting those who have an Xbox experience it for themselves.

You don't need to play 'The Last of Us' to watch the HBO show (The Washington Post)

As a gamer (and an editor at The Washington Post's video game vertical), I'm familiar with the premise and even some pivotal plot points of the games, though I ...

There’s the original PlayStation 3 game, a remastered version for PlayStation 4 titled “The Last of Us Remastered” and If you want to play “The Last of Us,” you’ve got a few options — and one more coming in March, if you’re willing to wait. The game’s 2020 sequel, “The Last of Us Part II,” explores the fallout from decisions made in the original game; the TV show’s first season follows the plot of the first game. Still, having watched a few episodes of the show, there’s no indication that playing the series is an important prerequisite to enjoy the HBO adaptation. In “The Last of Us” (both the game and the show) a fungal infection ravages the world, taking over human hosts and turning them into unusually floral zombies. For those interested in the new prestige drama, but maybe less interested in video games, there’s good news: You don’t need to play the games to understand the show.

New to 'The Last of Us'? Here's What to Know Before It Debuts (The New York Times)

HBO's new post-apocalyptic series is based on a video game with tens of millions of fans. For them and for newcomers, here's what to expect.

The game has been lauded for its diversity of characters in a medium often dominated by macho male protagonists, and that hasn’t been lost in translation. Without the action-first requirements of a video game, Druckmann and Mazin seem freed to deepen the dominant themes. Early signs suggest the answer is “very,” with the show including most of the major characters and plot points. The big question for fans of the video game is, how faithful will the series be to its source material? [announced](https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/06/screen-gems-to-distribute-sam-raimi-produced-the-last-of-us-movie) that it would be distributing a Sam Raimi-produced film version of the game, with Kaitlyn Dever and the “Game of Thrones” star Maisie Williams as early contenders to play the female lead. Fans of the game series will also recognize the brothers Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard); Ellie’s former ally Riley (Storm Reid); and the malevolent David (Scott Shepherd), a cult leader with dark secrets of his own.

'The Last of Us' review: A better game than a TV show (INSIDER)

HBO's big-budget adaptation of "The Last of Us" video game debuts Sunday on HBO and HBO Max. The apocalyptic series is heavily lacking in the dead, thrills, ...

Overall, "The Last of Us" is more thrilling to play. There's a couple who look like Rick and Michonne knock-offs (one of the two characters was even on "TWD" briefly and shares a similar hairstyle to fan-favorite Michonne). Often, it feels like someone at HBO simply [watched every cut scene from the game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoeZJLHnbNk) and based their adaptation on that instead of actually playing through the game to understand its emotional core and the details that made it beloved. But there are far better zombie and apocalyptic series to watch right now ranging from "All of Us Are Dead" to "Alice in Borderland." If you love the game series, "TLOU" is, at the least, worth checking out. Here, it seems like Ellie is cursing for the sake of it. Though it often follows the game beat for beat, the series speeds through some interesting groups and areas that easily could've been a focus of an entire season. Other than the first half of the pilot and the series' third episode, most of "The Last of Us" slogs along with a few great moments here or there. Much of the series is pretty dull for an apocalyptic thriller, which shouldn't be the case for a show involving a pair traversing a country full of the undead. But this is also the running trend with video-game adaptations. Most bizarrely, the series strangely lacks in the dead department. Psychologically, the game is tough to play in one sitting.

Can Hollywood break the video game curse with HBO series The ... (The Straits Times)

It is a big-budget adaptation of the award-winning Sony PlayStation title of the same name. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Review: 'The Last of Us' sets the bar for video game adaptations (Lifestyle Asia)

Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have done the seemingly impossible: break the curse of video game adaptations and deliver a poignant and moving series in The ...

But The Last of Us proves that not only can it be done right, but it can also be done beautifully. Fans of the game will love it because this isn’t a hodge-podge of some of the things in the game with characters that kinda sorta are like the characters you were controlling on your PS4. It’ll be interesting to see the reactions of audiences who know the game compared to those who don’t though. Would audiences who have no prior knowledge of the game feel the same gut-wrench and heartbreak? To that point, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are perfect for the roles of Joel and Ellie. Audiences who don’t know the game will fall in love—and have their hearts smashed like we gamers did when we first played TLOU—with Joel and Ellie and the journey they embark on. Thinking she’s just the kid of someone powerful, he makes a shocking discovery: Ellie is immune, and she could hold the key to a cure. Frank and Bill’s storyline, with Nick Offerman playing Bill, gives the series a little more depth, though Druckmann has also said that there might be fans who will be upset about the episode dedicated to their story. Those who have played the game already know how the whole thing goes, and yes, the show is definitely as emotional as its source material. The explanation of how it works is eerily and terrifyingly plausible, a warm thought in this post-pandemic world. Game of Thrones proved the same but this time for TV. [The Last of Us](https://www.lifestyleasia.com/hk/culture/entertainment/everything-you-need-to-know-the-last-of-us/) is set in a post-apocalyptic world that has been ravaged by a virus.

'The Last of Us' bucks the game-to-screen trend, breathing life into ... (CNN)

The spotty track record of videogame adaptations and glut of apocalyptic/zombie dramas receive a welcome boost from "The Last of Us," which proves there's ...

“The Last of Us” premieres January 15 at 9 p.m. Yet despite the limits of past game-to-TV/movie translations, the first season exhibits the kind of delicacy and depth that suggests we won’t be seeing the last of it for some time. ET on HBO, which, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. The spotty track record of videogame adaptations and glut of apocalyptic/zombie dramas receive a welcome boost from “The Last of Us,” which proves there’s room for more of each as long as it’s this good. Still, there’s a genuine humanity in the bond that forms between Joel and Ellie, which develops organically from one harrowing encounter to the next, while also creating strong showcases for the guest stars that pass through their orbits. From that perspective the storytelling here is absolutely fearless and unflinching, creating horrifying scenarios and moments that can be alternately touching and utterly tragic.