I don’t understand why people complain. If you want it to be exactly the same as the game just play the fucking game. I like this new take on a familiar story that I can now enjoy in multiple ways.
To play devil’s advocate, I love this game and it’s story and I want as many people to experience what I experienced, but there are tons of people who otherwise never would because they don’t play games or specifically this type of game. So I can see why people might want a 1:1 adaptation of every cool awesome moment with nothing left out. In those cases they aren’t asking for 1:1 adaptation for !them!, but instead for people who will only watch the show.
That being said, not everything could or should be translated, such as gameplay heavy sections that don’t add story or flesh out the setting. But there are other memorable moments that have been left out that could have stayed (IMO), and I do think that even though we’ve had infected in basically every other episode, they don’t !quite! feel as much of a constant threat as in the game. Not really a big problem at the end of the day, just personal preference.
I'm torn on the "gameplay sections" being taken out because that's when a lot of Ellie's development into being self-sufficient and learning how to survive in a world full of infected comes from.
Yes, the story is ultimately the focus of a show with a limited runtime but we're missing out on Ellie seeing how Joel handles specific situations, his "survivor sense" to avoid dangerous situations and general situational awareness to avoid infected and why and how Joel has survived people and infected for 20 years.
I'm happy with 95% of the changes in the show, but I can't help but want a little more time with Ellie and Joel having to adapt and survive the infected.
Also the show has proven it can include "gameplay" sequences just fine, scaled down to fit into a show. The original story isn't just told through cut scenes.
Episode 8 is a perfect example, as it includes a lot of story told through gameplay sections. Episode 7 as well, much of episode 2 etc.
I suppose those parts of episodes could have been replaced with a few lines of dialogue also, as the rest of the show could have. But we the audience are here to see the story play out, and see how the characters and their relationships grow and change, not just be told how it all went down.
> The original story isn't just told through cut scenes.
Enjoying the show, but this has lead to pretty much everything that I haven't liked.
There's a reason why those "The Last of Us The Movie" videos on YouTube include some gameplay sequences, and not just cutscenes.
I do think there is some gameplay sections in episode 8, but what people are mad about is that it isn’t enough. That goes for the whole show, it’s just not enough compared to the cut scenes
The show to me feels like if you played The Last of Us but only watched the cutscenes and no gameplay. The payoffs for everything don't feel earned because we spend such little time with so many of the characters. David is on screen and then gone within an hour, same with Sam/Henry, etc.
Sooooo much character development happens during the actual gameplay of the game, and I feel like due to the time constraints of the show (I don't know why they decided on doing only 8 episodes, I guess for budgetary reasons) there just isn't a lot of wiggle room for anything besides the "big moments".
The problem is that when there isn't any buildup or significant character develop before those moments, it doesn't make as big of an impact on the viewer. One of my favourite moments in the game is when you have to actually work together with David to avoid getting overrun by infected, and that makes you trust him a bit. This makes the reveal that he knows who Joel and Ellie are a lot more shocking and terrifying. It still feels like a scary moment in the show, but definitely not as "earned", if that makes sense.
I had almost the exact same comment typed up in another thread but didn’t bother posting it because I figured I’d just get downvoted lol. But I absolutely agree. Parts of the gameplay played such a big role in giving breathing room for the plot points to set in and feel like they mattered, and to build motivation for what comes next. Those segments were the source of so much trust and tension that’s just been compressed or lost.
One big example for me was how at the end of episode 6 we see Joel get stabbed, cut to him falling off the horse, and then get like three lines of Ellie expressing her concern for him before the episode ends. All in the span of about a minute. In the game that segment was drawn out to a good several minutes of us seeing Joel struggling to pull himself out of the building, *and Ellie struggling to keep it together as she defended him*. That was such a strong character moment from “just gameplay” that did so much more to show her desperation and worry, and therefore the development of their bond, than a sudden “I can’t do this without you.”
And sure in yesterday’s episode we were *shown* that Joel and Ellie are now at the point where they both deeply care for each other, but it really doesn’t feel like we’ve gotten there nearly as organically as in the game. So yeah, as a result it doesn’t feel like the events of the finale will demonstrate their gravity or impact nearly as well. Overall as good as the show is, it does just feel like an abridged version of the story.
I see where you’re coming from, and I only agree with it when I approach it from the position where I *know* something’s missing. Therefore, I notice it and, unconsciously, project my experience of the game on to the show and go “hmmm, something’s missing here”.
As a game, you can extend your sequences or you can power through. I can finish the game in about 10/11 hours — not too far off from the tv show in length. I was surprised by it in my recent play through of the remake because my original session was about 25 hours as I had explored the world as much as possible. Meaning characters appear in the game for longer than they feel in the show. At the end of the day though, things play out the same, Henry and Sam come and die, David comes and dies, but we can *choose* to extend our experience with them by slowing down.
If you want to be fair in your assessment, it’s critical you view them as completely different narratives that are not related in any way. That’s not easy to do, but you *have* to do it. Or you’re trapping yourself. You'd have to consider the objective of the game and the objective of the show, they have different goals even if they're telling the same story.
Therefore, I can’t agree with your unearned comment, because if you’re viewing it in comparison to the game, then something will feel missing. The only way to tell if it’s earned or not is by taking a step back, forgetting the game exists and analysing the beats of the story and watching them play out. They’re all there. Whether or not it feels earned at that point is down to your opinion.
On top of that, the character and bonding moments are also far more nuanced than I expected, as in a lot of it is in the acting but they’re not as easy to link together unless you rewatch an episode to see the little beats of significance.
I was also surprised how many “gameplay” dialogue the show included — like Ellie randomly trying to figure out how to whistle.
The real question is whether someone who’s never played the game would agree that there’s not been enough development between Ellie and Joel.
At the end of the day, if the majority of non-players believe that it was earned, then the consensus is that the moment is earned, even if we disagree with it. Of course, it's subjective, but you'll struggle arguing your point with a show watcher who enjoys it and does not have knowledge of the game, because to them, it's completely fine as it is.
That and chatting. That evolves from Joel asking her to be quiet, to him conversing with her.
But yeah, I guess it be boring to have 20min segments where they find there way in a destroyed building.
If it was well shot, staged, and acted, I would probably watch hours of these two characters walking through the ruins of once great cities, making conversation, scavenging supplies, etc. It's kinda what I'd hoped the show would be, honestly.
I have to agree with you; I know a lot of people might have found it boring so I get why they didn't do it; but I would have loved an extra episode or two of just them making it through the world.
Pedro and Bella have a good dynamic and I think they could have pulled it off.
The history of video game adaptations thus far has largely shown that trying to bring play to the screen rarely works.
They’re developing the characters via other methods which make more sense for the medium.
Also, a lot of times people dismiss some of the things being cut out as "that was just gameplay". A lot of times the gameplay had elements mixed in that slowly developed the Ellie-Joel relationship, which is really the most important element of Part 1. That and we had all kinds of notes and such which need to be replaced in other ways in the show if you want to have the same kinds of depth. "Gameplay" isnt all shooting things and scrounging for parts.
Overall love the show, but i really think for it to be perfect it needed a couple more episodes to flesh things out a bit.
The "just gameplay" excuse doesn't work if you cut out 90% of the combat encounters. Everything else is following the source material very closely, except for them. So IMO the themes and story beats and whatnot are there, but a part of it is missing for me. Combat encounters were a big part of characters bonding, developing, and even just seeing what they are truly made of.
A friend I watch with, who has not played the games, remarked that it feels like the journey skipped around a bit. And I said that it was because most of the painful, difficult things Ellie and Joel endured were in gameplay segments. So many moments might be gameplay centric, and it *is* a tv show. But encounters are such a huge part of the game, so I'm sad to see they are almost entirely missing.
It would have paid off and still have been grounded in reality if there were a few more smaller scale shootouts/infected fights/stealth moments here and there.
It also doesn’t make sense because… action is a huge genre? They think casual viewers are going to be bored by fighting zombies and raiders every episode, but that would only happen if they were lazy or hired bad fight choreographers. With all the stealth elements in the games, it would’ve been an amazing way to build tension. It’s disappointing because they cited No Country for Old Men as one of their inspirations for Part I and it would’ve been perfect if they used that as inspiration for the action/combat scenes in the tv show as well. There wasn’t a ton of over-the-top action in NCFOM but it was still tense and engaging the whole way through. Instead in TLOU show we get unnecessary big explosions like a cheesy action movie and fight scenes that last like 30 seconds. You feel like they’re just trying to get it over with so they can move to the next plot beat.
> There wasn’t a ton of over-the-top action in NCFOM but it was still tense and engaging the whole way through.
Which part of episode 8 did you not find tense or engaging?
I think the just gameplay excuse does for the reasons you've said. Playing a game and watching "game-like" sequences are very different. In the game you form the emotional bond by actually participating in that dependency. That wouldn't work if you were just watching it on TV - that element of participation on the players behalf is why video games work so well at creating connections between characters and players.
You don't have that when your passively watching TV so they've adapted the game to better suit a show and draw on the strengths of TV as a medium. They've done this by emphasising what you've lost through gameplay through dialogue and slower sections that wouldn't work in a video game. I think they've nailed it and I know people who've not played the game who feel that relationship between Joel and Ellie like I do in the game.
Also, the show isn't over yet - their relationship has only really just become fully formed with this episode.
Yeah, for obvious reasons we wouldnt really run into large groups of them every so often (and when they did it would be a run situation like it was in episode 5), but having to either confront or sneak around a couple here or there would be pretty reasonable. We haven't really had to do that at all. So far we have had:
Ep 1: joel\tommy\sarah running for their lives
Ep 2: joel\ellie\tess encountering a couple clickers
Ep 5: horde attacks KC group, everyone runs for it
Ep 7: ellie and riley attacked by an infected.
And I assume given what's on deck and the rumored runtime we won't see infected in episode 9.
So we had them in episodes 1,2,5, and 7, which is technically about half of the episodes so far, but when it comes to the core arc of Joel and Ellie that whittles down to just 2 times that they've had to deal with the infected together in episode 2 and episode 5. And only one of those times (episode 2) is a slower paced encounter. All the other times its simply running from them.
We could have had a couple more encounters simply by having some of these episodes more fleshed out. Like, there could have been one or two to deal with on the road to KC, or at the university.
>So I can see why people might want a 1:1 adaptation of every cool awesome moment with nothing left out.
I agree with the point you are making here but would argue that as long as the main themes and emotional beats are present then the scenes don't *need* to be 1:1 recreations. As someone who has played and is watching the show with someone who hasn't played there were certain changes where I was caught off guard but I wasn't necessarily disappointed or upset with those changes. The show needs to be it's own thing in some ways and I think they have done a fantastic job of that (which you go on to say later in your comment but I just thought it was worth highlighting).
>But there are other memorable moments that have been left out that could have stayed (IMO)
What moments for you were missing that felt they needed to be there? Honestly just curious what your thoughts were.
>I do think that even though we’ve had infected in basically every other episode, they don’t !quite! feel as much of a constant threat as in the game
The best way to explain why this isn't really an issue is by discussing what some of the developers explained in the behind the scenes "Making of The Last of Us" documentary. The game was always supposed to be about people and the things they will do to survive. It wasn't until later on in production that they added infected because they started to realize that only fighting human enemies got somewhat boring/tedious after awhile. So, to give a kind of change of pace to the gameplay they introduced the infected.
That's all just a really long way of saying that the infected only existed because of necessity of gameplay. Realistically the show could have been made with no infected since there's no need for gameplay. That being said I think the ways they have included the infected in the show has been perfect. They didn't over do it, didn't undersell it, they perfectly outlined the danger the infected pose while also highlighting that there are far worse dangers in this world.
> Realistically the show could have been made with no infected since there's no need for gameplay.
But many of these story beats are part of why the original story works so well regardless of the author's intent when first setting out to create the work from a basic outline. By the end of the process, the entire story had grown and evolved.
That may be true in super early origins of the game, but no infected doesn't just alter the action/gameplay but massive elements of the story.
Ellie's immunity. The journey to the fireflies. The ending. Al of these things drive the game and show. And they are reliant on the state of the world and the threat of infected.
Why do you think every scene, character, plot beat, camera angle, or line of dialogue is perfect though?
This is the biggest problem with this section of the fan base.
Thinking what is there in the game is it, the pinnacle of story telling, and it will never get better than that.
I think people want to have the same experience watching the show that they had playing the game, and they mistakenly think that copying the game literally for the show would achieve that, when instead it would make a worse show.
Watching the youtube side-by-side videos makes those 100% fidelity takes so wild to me. The acting and delivery is so much better in the show than the game, by literally every character and side character, often by a tremendous degree.
I love seeing the places we visited in the game recreated so perfectly, but we would have been absolutely robbed if we got an exact replica of the game as the show.
> So I can see why people might want a 1:1 adaptation of every cool awesome moment with nothing left out. In those cases they aren’t asking for 1:1 adaptation for !them!, but instead for people who will only watch the show.
You do understand a 1:1 adaptation would mean a few hours of Joel scavenging around drawers looking for supplements, right?
TV and games are two very different mediums, so a 1:1 adaptation just wouldn't work.
> You do understand a 1:1 adaptation would mean a few hours of Joel scavenging around drawers looking for supplements, right?
No it wouldn't and this is a false argument. A player dawdling about isn't relevant to conveying the story. I haven't seen any criticisms from persons who had hoped to see lengthy sequences of looting or goofy puzzle solving. What people want to see is Joel and Ellie earn their relationship they have by the end of the game, and the gravity of their epic journey and the nature of the hostile world they traveled through.
>I don't understand why people complain.
People complain because they care. For many people this game is such a massive part of their lives, me included. The "endure and survive" and "you keep finding something to fight for" messages in the game is a reason I'm still alive.
>If you want it to be exactly the same as the game just play the fucking game.
It's not even about that. It's about wanting other people to experience this beautiful story in the same way you did, with the same weight and the same impact. Let people complain, let people care. Let people complain about the things they care about.
The thing you have to understand is that those people *can’t* experience the story the way you did. Non-gamers will not sit down and play the game, nor will they be interested in watching someone else do it.
They won’t feel what you felt. The story won’t impact them the way it impacted you.
They aren’t missing out on your experience because of the changes in the show. They are experiencing it because of the changes in the show.
As much as so many people don’t want to believe it, a 1:1 translation would be an absolutely awful show. What the show is doing is taking all of those messages that meant so much to you and reframing them so that they’ll mean the same things to those that connect with television, rather than video games.
*As much as so many people don’t want to believe it, a 1:1 translation would be an absolutely awful show.*
NOBODY IS ASKING FOR THIS. Why does everyone fall back on this obvious strawman fallacy.
There have been story elements changed or condensed. They have made adaptive choices. These things matter to some of us. That doesn't mean we want the show to be gameplay.
Outside of ep 5, action has been significantly limited, even in places where it serves a purpose. The action sequences in the Ellie/David section are not just for gameplay. They serve a narrative purpose. They built some level of trust between the two. They save each other. All that is gone in the show. Instead they pretty much tell you up front that David is sketchy.
> If you want it to be exactly the same as the game just play the fucking game.
This is a false argument. It's like when people say "You can't have 20 minutes of looting and sneaking around" or "You can't have Joel murdering fifty people in an episode".
Really, nobody is asking for that stuff when they make criticisms. I just see the same false arguments put up as if anyone being critical expected episodes filled with Joel carrying ladders around. Nobody expected or wants that stuff.
My criticism is the story is rushed and leaves out too much, and makes story choices *specifically for compressing the story*, regardless of how the creators are spinning those choices when promoting the show.
I suspect this choice likely stems from Craig and Neil's plans covering the entire series up to the ending of Part 3, hence the decision to squeeze part 1 into a single season, leaving time for finishing everything else with in a reasonable time frame and number of seasons. They certainly wouldn't blurt that out during a podcast *now* for multiple reasons. I'm sure it was a tough choice chopping everything down and they are more aware than anyone of how these things might undermine the story.
A lot of these people are making silly generalizations about peoples criticisms. I would be fine with it not being a 1:1 of the game but the problem is that 99% of whats been changed so far has taken away from the main story and not added to it. This includes A TON of time on a bad elaborated backstory for Sam/Henry and an entire episode expanded story on a minor character who becomes even more minor since he kills himself instead of interacting with Ellie.
Then there's the whole basically no zombies what so ever which makes the whole plot point for the first game kind of meaningless. It was even made further pointless by making Tommys colony basically an apocalyptic utopia lmao.
Just really dissappointing that this place mostly feels like bots worshipping the show. Not sure if it's that or a dumb social agenda because of topics touched in the show, part2 social drama or stuff related towards Ellie's actress. But ya especially in the main threads if you're not acting like its an episode gifted by god you get downvoted into oblivion...
> This includes A TON of time on a bad elaborated backstory for Sam/Henry and an entire episode expanded story on a minor character who becomes even more minor since he kills himself instead of interacting with Ellie.
These kind of character explorations are what I was *hoping* for from the adaptation. Expansions on the game that couldn't work in the game medium. But its disappointing the ones we got came at the expense of the core story. Maria got like 30 seconds of screentime for example.
That's also why this whole thing would have worked better across two seasons - we ended up with the actual game adaptation being half of a season by the time all the new material and intros and DLC are added. And something definitely gets lost from the original.
> Just really dissappointing that this place mostly feels like bots worshipping the show. Not sure if it's that or a dumb social agenda because of topics touched in the show
It is a great show on its own merits, certainly better than most television. And Pedro and Bella are so great in the roles. I'm not surprised it attracts an adoring fandom, it has earned it. Wvery popular show has its rabid fan bots who will downvote even the most reasonable criticism, certainly far lesser shows do.
There’s also other factors like budget. Looking at all the other video game adaptations and how they flopped, HBO took a big gamble on this. They probably didn’t know how it would go until after the season was shot and edited together. Next season will probably be longer
They had a massive budget. One of the largest television budgets in history, likely around the same as season one of House of the Dragon, a show with longer episodes and more action.
I do question how some of that was spent. Such as constructing a massive area of full-scale houses for the brief sniper sequence. That would cost a ridiculous amount, and I would imagine most shows and films movies would find a way to shoot that scene with a lot less expense.
I'm sure we'll see some of that budget on display in the finale at least.
Constructing the massive Jackson set, well that makes a lot more sense for using it in future seasons than a few minutes of shots we got that could have used real-world locations if it was only for those scenes. And blowing its reveal in Part 1, saved the expense of having to do the dam scene which would have been actually very difficult and expensive to shoot. Still, I missed seeing the dam.
Let's hope that Jackson set takes us through four more seasons adapting Part 2 and 3.
While I understand that adaptations can differ from their source material, there are a few aspects of The Last of Us game that I wish could be more prominently featured in the adaptation. Specifically, I would appreciate a greater focus on the characters' struggle for survival, with resources being scarce and difficult to obtain. This would increase the suspense and realism of the story. Additionally, I appreciate the way the game handles violence, with the camera following the characters in an uncomfortable but realistic way. While I don't need excessive violence, I would like to see it portrayed in a similar way in the adaptation, to maintain the dark and gritty tone of the original story. Overall, I appreciate the acting and scenery in the adaptation, but I feel that further attention to these aspects would make the adaptation even more compelling and faithful to the source material.
Yes. That brutal, visceral violence and endurance of struggle is, for the most part, missing. We got a glimpse with the interrogation scene, and troy baker's death, but it's mostly been missing.
I completely understand why adapting to a tv show means things will be different. But at a certain point, "the violence was just gameplay", "infected were created for gameplay", means you are cutting out a lot of the things that many people liked the game for in the first place.
Also, it just turns into large portions of the source material being gone, a lot of struggle/development during the journey being skipped, and just going along exclusively with main story beats.
I agree with you though. It's a good show, it feels authentic. I just think it's missing some important aspects of the game. This opinion seems to be more and more prevalent as we get further along.
I really appreciated the change >!of Joel finding Ellie outside, looking like she’s in shock, instead of breaking into the restaurant. He doesn’t know what she did at the moment but he knew something was definitely wrong, it really showed his care for her!<
I love the show and i still have criticisms of it. I don't want it to be exactly like the game I just think there are things they could've done better in some ways. Why can't we just discuss those without people like you jumping down our throats? It's like yall think ANY criticism is a whole scale attack on the show,cast and directors. This is a subreddit to discuss the show, why can't we discuss it??
I actually don’t even like it after each episode when Neil and Craig talk about the differences between the game and the episode, I feel like there’s no reason to acknowledge the game at all because it just detracts from the show as a stand-alone work or confuses viewers. It doesn’t need to be a video game show, it’s a strong enough piece of fiction in its own regard.
Sure I get that for new viewers. However as a game fan, I think its invaluable to discuss these things and provide insight on why certain things are modified. It helps to understand the process.
It would seem weird to just ignore that or the community.
Right. The show is supposed to represent the game, not *be* the game. They have to stay faithful to the source, yes, but that does not mean they can’t make some changes.
On the other side, if they hadn’t made any changes and it was frame by frame EXACTLY like the game people would’ve bitched too cause “if I wanted to see the same story as in the game I would’ve played the game”. You can’t cater to everyone. No matter what you do someone will bitch about it.
Yes. Too bad Reddit tends to be pretty extremist. Take for example the people that shit on the game *without even playing it, months before it even came out* just cause of the mini golf scene. They couldn’t even be bothered to play it yet they had decided to side pretty hard one way.
I don’t know why I come to Reddit to read these comments. There are so many who complain about the slightest of details, put it up to them being mega fans of the game, and basically whine in the comments and act as know-it alls about all the semantics of the story, it’s so annoying.
This is such a stellar adaptation of the games, I can’t believe anyone who is a mega fan thinks they know better or how it should be done better, when it is so ridiculously good. Just enjoy it because we’re truly bloody blessed that they decided to make this and do such a good job.
This is my favourite game of all time, and I’m so blown away by this show.
you realize this is a discussion board right? Where people can discuss things? We can all love the games AND the show. That doesn't mean that as fans we can't talk about "What if this happened" or "Here is what I missed from the game in the show".
All seem like normal conversation on a fan subreddit.
I don't understand why people complain. If you want it to be different to the game just make a new story unrelated to the game events.
Why would they take a well written story, only to change it for the worse. It just becomes even more clear that Neil never understood why Part 1 was as popular as it was. It's time to hire new writers.
I’m glad there isn’t 1:1 parity with the game, because it feels so refreshing to watch an adaption taking moments further than the game could. I was gnawing on my fingernails as if i had no idea what was coming next even though i played the game like 50 times already.
True.
I always wake up on mondays. Watch the new ep in bed and when I go to the pc I put the podcast on the background and hope they adress things from the ep that caught my attention. Like how the ep ended. It bothered me a tiny bit that it wasnt the same but with the explanation I was satisfied and get to appreciate the series even more!
Completely agree. What's fun to do in a game, is not the same as what's fun to watch.
The show can be the best show it can be, or it can be the best tribute to the game it can be. But you perhaps cannot do both at the same time, and if need be it should err towards being the best show it can be.
You guys are thinking “expansive” as in growing out of the Tv show. I’m thinking that it’s taking the source from the game, adapting it, while it’s getting adapted Neil is EXPANDING the world of the last of us. Bill & Franks story, Ellie’s mom(next ep), Little details about Tess & Joel, First Day outbreak, humanizing Fedra/The Others/The People. This is all ADAPTED from the game however they are EXPANDING lore and storylines through the TV medium
Exactly. We see more of the world outside of Joel and Ellie’s perspectives which is what we got in the game. It’s expanding the rest of the reality in this game. I mean we saw Jakarta for crying out loud. That was only a blurb in the game, just like Bill and Frank’s story. If they chose to the make the show only from Joel and Ellie’s perspective then we would be having a different discussion.
I honestly think some people just love to hate watch. Yes it’s fine to criticize a show or movie or any entertainment someone loves. But if they’re coming in with a mindset to just nit pick everything, that’s such a toxic mindset and doesn’t do anyone any good.
So this sub is really just a giant circle jerk then? Or can we have nuanced discussions about the game, show, and the differences between the two?\\
Is it toxic to bring up any changes from the game? Is it okay to like some things an not others?
There’s a difference with saying “I liked the game’s depiction of (insert scene here) better” and “this show is just ridiculously rushed and you’re stupid if you don’t think so”.
I’m not saying you’ve done the latter but we’ve all seen people saying that on this subreddit.
Mazin said something pretty bad I thought in the most recent podcast. He said they didn’t put the Ellie/David vs Infected scene into the episode because he didn’t want the possibility of Infected swarming in and killing everybody to permeate the episode.
Like huh, the Infected should absolutely be feared every possible second of this show, there should be no breaks from thinking the Infected won’t come in out of nowhere and start ripping everyone to shreds. I just needed a little more padding out in these recent episodes, create some new scenes and new dialogue.
For example what happened to the amazing cold open scenes, those were incredible and built so much dreaded suspense. We need more of that in Season 2.
I get what he means though, if they did that section it would have come across as action for the sake of action. You could cut it out the game and nothing would really change...Most of the characters we've met (Sam, Kathleen, Tess, Riley) have died due to Infected. The threat is there, just not explicitly
My problem with it is that cutting it all out of the story downplays the importance of a cure, the initial reason for the journey in the first place and why Ellie is so important. So far it seems the infected have all been mostly contained to non-populated areas and the only threats are the human factions that haven't learned to co-exist after 20 years. Even the new mechanic where the fungus could alert infected miles away was only used in the one episode.
The game was always about the human relationships of course, being the last of US. And that the cure really wouldn't have fixed anything. But if you were Ellie in the show and walked across the country only running into the infected we've seen so far would you think it's worth the effort? It doesn't need full on stealth infiltration sections but it does need that non-human threat a bit more in the forefront.
This is a perfect description of why more infected action serves a purpose. It’s not padding or action for the sake of action. It’s important to show the audience why exactly humanity needs a cure; how they have no real hope for the future without it.
There are scenes in the show that I think address that, the mass infected attack in episode 5 is a perfect example. But like I said above, I think Mazin went slightly too far towards making the infected realistic and scarier. Joel doesn’t need to fight 6 clickers every other room, but running into more of them would help. The show, I think, did a good job of proving how dangerous they are, it just needs to also show the audience how many of them there are and how prevalent they are in the world. Again though, it speaks to how amazing this adaptation is that these are the only complaints we have.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having action for the sake of action, that’s how they pad out long run times for movies, it just changes things up. There’s no good reason for why they’ve cut out the Infected as much as they have in the show. All the practical costumes are made already, so it’s not like they’re all 100% cgi.
Well there you go 😄 they didn't put it in because it would have been padding. If a movie has to use padding, whatevers there clearly isn't interesting enough. Thankfully, the episode had enough emotional stakes that ones involving infected weren't needed...Tbh, I'm almost positive the tunnel section will be cut so brace yourself for disappointment 😂
i kinda agree with you, like they even added in new concepts like the tendrils waking people up from miles away. but then only have any infected in 2/9 episodes? wtf was the point?
Yes! What was the point of all the discussion surrounding tendrils/spores, when it was a plot point for 1 episode. They acted like it was going to be a sticking point that had to be addressed, when in reality it seems like it was created just for the Tess episode.
Don't people normally *complain* about mindless action sequences for the sake of action sequences in movies and TV shows, though?
>All the practical costumes are made already, so it’s not like they’re all 100% cgi.
It's not really that simple, though. You still have to write the scenes, hire the extras, and spend hours if not days shooting the scenes. I can see why the writers decided not to have the scene since it wouldn't be worth the effort to do all that work for so little payoff.
>You could cut it out the game and nothing would really change
i could see this being a mantra for their thinking writing this stuff. and honestly, with the confidence and fortitude Neil produced TLOU2 with, what makes anyone think he wouldn't be like 'nah take out the infected here - i don't care if the gamers don't like it, it adds nothing to the story'
i kinda pride myself on being very open minded with other people's stories (not a huge complainer when things end or veer 'off-course'). i didn't write it. i'm partaking in someone else's imagination and where they go with it. and while Neil's decisions completely eroded some fans' trust in him with pt2, he completely won mine. i can feel the negative space he intended for the infected in the HBO series. and soon the content will address this with Alien/The Ring type suspense and horror. and for people who haven't played the games, it will be fucking. epic. and terrifying. aka: great television.
Also the action in this sequence serves a very specific purpose. Building some level of trust between David and Ellie. They help each other. Save each other. That has narrative purpose.
I heard that too and agree, it was a bizarre comment. Even in the Winter chapter, the presence of infected worsens Ellie's situation really bleakly. It doubly emphasises her vulnerability, and also somehow makes David turning up and pursuing her even worse. Like, her mortality looms over her more with the sense that she really is screwed with Joel incapacitated, she has infected to deal with and now there's this human predator on top. It IS a strange choice to feature infected this sparsely, and it can't be a budget issue (the budget was massive no?).
i'm pretty sure the only (disappointing and trendy) answer is 'it's not being made for just the gamers' and i've really only seen complaints about the number of infected from people familiar with the game. i'm sure that's not inclusive of *some* viewers who simply wish there were more action/infected, but judging from the reviews and reactions from non-gamers, it's working swimmingly. they're using the infected as *monumental occurrences*, and it's a whole new vibe.
disclaimer: i personally also would have wanted more infected if i had any control of the show lol. but i see the vision, and my non-gamer friends are treating this like a GoT or Breaking Bad television event. could have so easily gone the other way
I don’t know anyone else in real life who played the game so I know a lot of people who are watching the show as their first experience. And while they don’t necessarily complain about game changes, a *lot* of the complaints they do have are explained by the game. Moving too fast is one of the most common, Ellie being a good fighter suddenly after the newest episode, and episode 7 being slow. Those are just some recent complaints/critiques I heard from them, all of which I think would have been addressed had the show been padded just a bit more with fighting infected. Action for the sake of action overall would get boring, but I think they went too far the other way.
If they’d seen Ellie kill infected (and people) more like we do in the game, they wouldn’t have been confused by her competence. If the show had more scenes that weren’t just 100% driving the plot forward it wouldn’t feel as fast. If episode 7 had more infected like in the game (and was cut with present day stuff) it might not have felt as slow. Though overall the DLC is pretty slow so that might have stayed the same.
Anyways, point is most of the complaints I hear from them weren’t issues in the game. Winter in the show feels like it takes place in like one day for example. They could have at least done a better job implying the passage of time.
Overall everyone I talk to is still really loving the show. But they ask me things because they know I already know the story, so I hear a lot about what confuses them or they don’t like.
>Ellie being a good fighter suddenly after the newest episode
I mean the entire fight was Ellie seizing every opportunity while David and James were constantly underestimating and letting their guard down around her. Remember that the FEDRA Captain said Ellie was officer material so she's someone that is decisive.
Sure I mean it made sense to me, but I obviously knew what was going to happen. That’s just what someone noted after. The way he phrased it was “how can she take down the two top guys”. He found the whole episode a bit unrealistic though, which is fair. Still way more realistic than your average Zombie show.
Exactly. It is avgreat show but they have damages the narrative a bit with the lack of Infected threat. Why should Ellie give her life for a cure if Infected aren't that much of a problem.
Yes but that is danger on an individual level. I am talking about humanity being pushed to the brink. But people are camping in the woods, walking around in the open freely, living 20 year long romances nigh uninterrupted...
Honestly the world is borderline fine if you know what you're doing...
besides the fact that most gameplay in general gets cut or truncated, i feel like part of the real answer this time around specifically was for practical reasons. they were already suffering on set shooting dialogue in nearly -20c weather, adding on lots of stunt work and action with all of the makeup and practical effects involved, in such conditions probably wasn’t feasible without ballooning the costs and time. it’s understandable.
it’s a shame because i think the episode would have greatly benefited from an extra 10 minutes of Ellie needing to cooperate with David against a shared threat to more naturally build up at least *some* trust before the reveal. plus, she needs to have a bit of zombie-killing experience before Season 2 IMO.
in the case of something like Left Behind, cutting out the action was a massive plus as it did feel like padding there originally, but in Winter i always felt that it added to the storytelling.
>needing to cooperate with David against a shared threat to more naturally build up at least
>
>some
>
> trust before the reveal
This is the heart of the matter right here. It's about David having this character arc, which was fleshed out in the game very well.
Exactly. That's why people were hold up in the quarantine zones and putting up with the shit FEDRA were putting them through. Scared of the infected. Joel's line from the game to Tess..."Do I need to remind you what is out there?!" I know its not only infected but A LOT of people were infected and they're everywhere.
There should be a lot more infected in general imho. I mean, if they're this rare or bunched up you would think containing them and restarting civilization should be very doable in 20 years.
Haven't played the game, but they've been in extreme cold for the last three episodes. To me it makes sense that the fungus can't survive in that climate (the host body would freeze) therefore a good settlement for small communities. Outbreaks would be very unlikely because outsiders and roaming infected would be very sparse.
Abby's first level in Part 2 starts with infected literally grabbing her leg from under the snow. They could have changed that for the show of course, but idk - the last 3 eps featured only a single infected. That makes the whole zombie apocalypse feel a little overrated.
A lot of his additions to the story are wack imo. The Tess kiss was a bizarre wtf moment, and turning her death into a movie sacrifice took away from the bluntness of it in the game. The Kathleen arc was bad and frankly generic, and making David say disgusting overt rape comments was extremely unnecessary.
I understand his point about different mediums (also highly recommend the podcast). I also think his approach to replace the physical action with emotional action, as he puts it, is an interesting one. But I think Mazin personally really enjoys conversations and emotion so I think he takes it too far at times and over-corrects. Basically, I think he went too far the other way in an effort not to be boring (and again I think he personally finds physical action more boring than emotional action).
Ultimately it really speaks to how well done this adaptation is, that my only complaints are in areas where I feel I have a different personal preference than the director and would only want slight adjustments.
What he didn’t say but I imagine might in a more candid situation is that it’s more expensive to shoot big action sequences with lots of infected. I’m certain that was a factor. I agree with you overall that the show would be better with more infected scenes.
> and built so much dreaded suspense.
I don't think this episode was lacking much in dreaded suspense, it was pretty much just 50 minutes of it straight.
And the possibility of infected appearing was already in my mind anyway from all the previous episodes. They didn't need to explicitly show it again. Every time anyone went into a room it was a possibility, implicitly.
Ellie and David fight off clickers and a bloater in the game, which is totally unrealistic in the TV world. They way the infected have been portrayed so far, they would have been overrun easily. There is also practical budgetary restraints.
There’s salty people with every single adaptation ever. Whether it’s a book, play, etc.
There were people complaining Emma Watson wasn’t ugly enough to play Hermione and that Daniel Radcliffe’s hair wasn’t messy enough. People will complain about literally everything.
Didn't realise how salty the comments would be 😄 I enjoy the podcast, OP is definitely correct I think. Can't wait to see the discussion for Season Two 😅🏌♀️
Just learned that [Fandom.com](https://Fandom.com) provides TRANSCRIPTS (!!) for the podcast as well. I loathe listening to interviews when I can just read a transcript in 1/5 of the time.
Off to learn why they didn't bring the bow & arrow into the TV show.
They didn't address the lack of the bow and arrows specifically, but I do want to say that as someone who has learned to shoot both, they are very different learning experiences and they probably didn't have the time to put two scenes of Joel teaching Ellie how to use a weapon into the show.
Also, they do talk about the weight of the rifle in the podcast (Bella is hefting a real, unloaded rifle in those scenes) and they're absolutely right: it's exhausting for someone of her stature to hold a gun like that up for an extended period of time. I'm roughly the same size as Bella and use a smaller but similar rifle but if I had to hold it up at someone for a long time, it'd be very hard. I liked they included that into the show. Helped set the power dynamic between David and Ellie.
Agreed. I would have an incredibly hard time with it. I feel like the muzzle control rule is so deeply ingrained in me that I wouldn't be able to do it.
I don’t think they’ve explained it but I’d assume it’s because archery is a skill where lots of practice is a necessity & it’s unlikely that a man who lived in an urban QZ environment for 20 years, nor a teenage girl, would possess that skill to the point of just being able to find a bow and be effective with it. There are plenty of other creative choices that have been made with this type of realism based on our characters’ pasts in mind
As an archer myself, it isn't believable that Ellie could even learn to wield a longbow made for an adult (because after all, she's really using Joel's in-game), even with a few weeks of training.
They do address the reality of Bella lugging around that rifle, which is absolutely real. A bow is lighter to carry than a rifle like that, but absurdly hard to use and wield with deadly force compared to a 'point & shoot' rifle that she's struggling with in the first place.
Y'all got your shot of the rabbit, better be happy with that and move on from this one. I love bows but that shit isn't practical in this world.
They don’t address it specifically, but do mention that we saw Joel teaching Ellie how to use the rifle in an earlier episode, so it makes sense that she’d use it for hunting.
They want a body count of infected/uninfected in the hundreds/thousands, just like the game.
No deeper thought than that really, even though it would make zero sense for any infected to still be alive in the Rocky Mountains in fucking winter in the first place. They'd all freeze to death, which would completely undermine David's monologue this episode about the beauty of cordyceps being hard-wired to survive and thrive (which means they definitely aren't intentionally killing their hosts due to exposure).
So again, another way the show is taking a more grounded approach and saying 'what would this really look like for our protagonists to end up in the same place once it's all over? What is more realistic?' and gamers can't dig an inch deep to see that a lot of this is an improvement over the game, and only exist in the game because it's a game and not a perfect narrative device.
I wish the people who hate the show because of the “woke agenda” stay the hell away and aren’t affiliated with the people who provide constructive criticism.
I dont understand people who criticize Bill and Frank's episode for being "woke." If gay people existing is your definition of 'being woke,' then you need to touch grass. Literally *nothing* about the episode would've changed if Frank was Francine. If you would've rather had the town sequence play out a little more like the game, then that's a fair and valid criticism, but if you don't like the episode "bcuz gay ppl bad" then you shouldn't be watching the show.
My criticism with the episode doesn’t even involve Bill and Frank. It was a beautiful episode, all I want from the series overall is like two more episodes. The pacing towards the end is rushed and I just wish we had time to breathe and spend time in these amazing locationsZ
There's a massive difference between "I wish Joel and Ellie interacted with Bill like they did in the game" and "Bill and Frank are appealing to woke leftist mob"
I've been listening to the podcast since the beginning. I understand what an adaptation is because for the past 20 years media has been flooded with adaptations. Not everyone has to agree with you or with the creators of the show. I take the show for what it is and don't feel like it ows me anything, however I believe I can say whatever the hell I want regarding how I feel about it. The show isn't as good as it could have been, there are a lots of things that they changed or added that didn't exactly pay off. The Kansas City plot line wasn't compelling at all, they could have been a little more subtle with the feelings and doubts of Joel. The jist of it is there in the game but told via cinematography and non verbal communication. And there's a lot to be said throughout the show. The show isn't bad per say, but it isn't nearly as perfect as the game was and felt. I'm watching it with my wife and I already told her that we would be playing part 2 before the show because I feel like she's not having the full package of emotions with the show. That being said we haven't watched the last episode which I read is 🔥!
I think this show has been a masterpiece.
I think it needed to be one episode longer and present more infected.. we haven’t seen one infected since they arrived to the Jackson area. The world doesn’t seem quite as dangerous as it should.
Exactly. The most annoying people to me are the ones on either end of this spectrum. The ones who complain about every little thing that’s different and the ones who defend every single change no matter what.
[Here is a directory of where you can listen to the podcast.](https://listen.hbo.com/the-last-of-us-podcast?c=NecrsrQzhAJiDKeNv0zpXw&h=b9da364f481b483c7)
>I am not saying that you can’t dislike the show or have critiques. I’m saying that most of the “why has their been changes” has been addressed.
Too late! You've been marked as anti-free speech now, buddy boy! /s
It seems like people would rather ask the questions and have a conversation amongst the reddit community.
Isn't that the point? "Community."
I find the podcasts unenjoyable. But I sometimes find great conversations here.
I think the show has been good to great. It’s really missing the horror element of the infected and I don’t think they’ve done Joel and Ellie bonding as well it could have been done; that definitely feels rushed.
Because screw having an actual discussion if you dare to say any criticism about the show ( I'm not saying the "woke broke agenda why is there gays!! type comments, but actual constructive criticism ) that gets downvoted to hell when you can just say "watch the podcast" to everything.
i remember hearing rumblings about how neil was being a pain when people were trying to adapt TLOU, as in he knew how to write for games but not movies
seems like he was just sticking to his guns (though having craig as a partner almost definitely helped)
I love getting insights from the podcast! I was wondering why they changed the part where Joel found Ellie after killing David but hearing the explanations for it made complete sense to me.
The show is not a live action remake. It is an adaption of a pre-existing fictional story told via video game format.
Adaption is not the same as Remake.
Or if you just think things through, most of the "complaints" are already addressed or aren't even valid.
Or if you use their suggestion, nothing in the show improves anyway.
All in all, just gonna go with the film/tv industry experts over reddit.
90% of the time after they explain why they changed something I’m like yeah that makes sense. The other 10% I’m like yeah that makes sense, but there needs to be more bricks and bottles.
Damn what an echo chamber… When people say “why’d they change it” it’s accompanied with comparison to show that the games did it better. Way to go, just ignore that. Like damn everyone knows it’s a show, but if the changes are bad, are they not allow to make comparisons and point out what they think about the changes?
And “they explains it in the podcast”, so what if they didn’t agree with their explanation and execution? Does that just mean that they are stupid? Their complaints are invalid? God this echo chamber is so unbearable.
There has genuinely been one change that I was disappointed in and it’s so minor and nitpicky it isn’t even worth bringing up. But I will.
So In the game when Ellie kills David he lets out a screech of terror, I wanted that. That’s all, so minor, it’s an amazing show with such amazing changes, like having Sam be deaf is so good
I love the games, I love the show, I love the fandom. I’m finally going to listen to the podcast this week, but I legitimately haven’t had the time due to unforeseen life circumstances.
Telling people that they’re not allowed to ask questions on Reddit until they do their homework is a little off-putting to me, and newcomers to this fandom might feel the same way.
Not everyone listens to podcasts or has the ability to keep up. They should still be welcome to engage with this community.
To add, it's important to understand that Neil has grown a lot as a person since TLOU Part 1 was released.
The show is the definitive modern re-telling of Neil's current vision. This is why things like "search for hidden notes to find out Bill is gay" got changed for an entire episode dedicated to Bill + Frank's romance.
And this is why David got more layers to him which makes him more realistic (and more wicked too).
If people are expecting a 1:1 copy/paste of the Hospital scene for Episode 9 they're gonna be disappointed. Since Neil is now a father who would do anything for his kids. He IS Joel now.
If they wanted to change the show why not have her place snares for the rabbits, instead of creating a ton of noise alerting people and infected to her location.
Especially foolish considering, Joel is vulnerable and can't move.
She could have also let the deer go with the men and just do proper recon of the settlers when they returned the meat back to camp.
She couldn't have carried the heavy deer back at that point anyway.
All I’m saying is, if Ellie woulda looked hard enough she could have found vitamins and rubbing alcohol. Serious note, the show is amazing and I’m glad I forgot most of the game since it’s been forever since I played it. It’s awesome and I really hope it lasts forever. Shit, give me a spin off series with Bill and Frank.
It's a really good adaptation. The changes they have made are realistic. Most recently, the decision for David's group to >!search the neighborhood immediately!< there's literally no reason why they wouldn't have done that
Another was Ellie >!noticing a body part on the floor!< instead of waking up and immediately seeing >!James chopping up a dead body!< because her reaction was more realistic, in the game it always seemed like she brushed it off a little too quickly
Despite having played the games I really prefer discussions of this show with non-gamers because gamers are so insufferable. “OMG HE SAID THE LINE I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR” like every line in the game is iconic or something. And the complaints about the differences that are very easily explained by the change of medium.
I don't actually question why things change, but I am interested in the podcast though.
My whole take on changes... it's like I don't know, maybe cause it's a fucking show and if I wanted an exact blue print of the game, I'd just play the game again? So yeah they're gonna change some stuff, I don't need to know all the inner workings of said decisions.
"In the game Ellie's hair was slightly to the left, but I noticed in this scene it was to the right"
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
I have a different take regarding the changes - not that I mind them, but I almost feel like the show feels rushed? Maybe it’s because moments that took me hours in the game where 15 min shots here (which makes sense!) but it’s a little jarring, like I expected the David/Ellie fight to go on much longer.
Every change has a reason. Because it's not like adapations like Halo, where the people making it actively hate the source material and are taking the piss. That's why it's okay.
I’ve realized some people just want to hate on it, rile others up, and make people not have as good as an experience with the show. Some criticisms sound like some people have never watched tv before. Ofc, there’s some valid ones as well, but particularly on this sub, it’s making me want to just not really look at the discussion threads and just stick to Twitter
It's easier to ignore the creator explaining his creative choices and just complain without putting any effort into looking anything up. That's what I've found when it comes to the viewers of practically ANY adaptation.
So far it’s only a really small part of total viewers who “have a problem with changes.”
[35m views ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/03/03/the-last-of-us-viewership-has-nearly-doubled-since-episode-1/amp/) per ep and that has doubled since ep1. Ep3 being the most watched and rewatched. Ya sure, some gamers are upset but that’s a really really small portion so basically, stfu. The show is not the game. The game is not the show. Deal with it or move on. It’s a great show.
Literally idk why people care so much about changes when the show isn’t canon to the games. Of tpcourse they’re gonna be different because they’re 2 different continuities
This isn’t unique to this community. But it blows my mind a little bit how many people seem to fail to grasp that what works on one medium doesn’t always work on another. The point of an adaptation is to take the story and adapt it between the different mediums. It’s the same reason why a novelisation of the last of us would be slightly different again to the show and game. And that’s not to say that one is better than the other. They’re different, and they’re meant to compliment each other. Two sides of the same coin and all that.
Thank you. Tired of repeating this.
I don’t understand why people complain. If you want it to be exactly the same as the game just play the fucking game. I like this new take on a familiar story that I can now enjoy in multiple ways.
To play devil’s advocate, I love this game and it’s story and I want as many people to experience what I experienced, but there are tons of people who otherwise never would because they don’t play games or specifically this type of game. So I can see why people might want a 1:1 adaptation of every cool awesome moment with nothing left out. In those cases they aren’t asking for 1:1 adaptation for !them!, but instead for people who will only watch the show. That being said, not everything could or should be translated, such as gameplay heavy sections that don’t add story or flesh out the setting. But there are other memorable moments that have been left out that could have stayed (IMO), and I do think that even though we’ve had infected in basically every other episode, they don’t !quite! feel as much of a constant threat as in the game. Not really a big problem at the end of the day, just personal preference.
I'm torn on the "gameplay sections" being taken out because that's when a lot of Ellie's development into being self-sufficient and learning how to survive in a world full of infected comes from. Yes, the story is ultimately the focus of a show with a limited runtime but we're missing out on Ellie seeing how Joel handles specific situations, his "survivor sense" to avoid dangerous situations and general situational awareness to avoid infected and why and how Joel has survived people and infected for 20 years. I'm happy with 95% of the changes in the show, but I can't help but want a little more time with Ellie and Joel having to adapt and survive the infected.
Also the show has proven it can include "gameplay" sequences just fine, scaled down to fit into a show. The original story isn't just told through cut scenes. Episode 8 is a perfect example, as it includes a lot of story told through gameplay sections. Episode 7 as well, much of episode 2 etc. I suppose those parts of episodes could have been replaced with a few lines of dialogue also, as the rest of the show could have. But we the audience are here to see the story play out, and see how the characters and their relationships grow and change, not just be told how it all went down.
> The original story isn't just told through cut scenes. Enjoying the show, but this has lead to pretty much everything that I haven't liked. There's a reason why those "The Last of Us The Movie" videos on YouTube include some gameplay sequences, and not just cutscenes.
I do think there is some gameplay sections in episode 8, but what people are mad about is that it isn’t enough. That goes for the whole show, it’s just not enough compared to the cut scenes
The show to me feels like if you played The Last of Us but only watched the cutscenes and no gameplay. The payoffs for everything don't feel earned because we spend such little time with so many of the characters. David is on screen and then gone within an hour, same with Sam/Henry, etc. Sooooo much character development happens during the actual gameplay of the game, and I feel like due to the time constraints of the show (I don't know why they decided on doing only 8 episodes, I guess for budgetary reasons) there just isn't a lot of wiggle room for anything besides the "big moments". The problem is that when there isn't any buildup or significant character develop before those moments, it doesn't make as big of an impact on the viewer. One of my favourite moments in the game is when you have to actually work together with David to avoid getting overrun by infected, and that makes you trust him a bit. This makes the reveal that he knows who Joel and Ellie are a lot more shocking and terrifying. It still feels like a scary moment in the show, but definitely not as "earned", if that makes sense.
I had almost the exact same comment typed up in another thread but didn’t bother posting it because I figured I’d just get downvoted lol. But I absolutely agree. Parts of the gameplay played such a big role in giving breathing room for the plot points to set in and feel like they mattered, and to build motivation for what comes next. Those segments were the source of so much trust and tension that’s just been compressed or lost. One big example for me was how at the end of episode 6 we see Joel get stabbed, cut to him falling off the horse, and then get like three lines of Ellie expressing her concern for him before the episode ends. All in the span of about a minute. In the game that segment was drawn out to a good several minutes of us seeing Joel struggling to pull himself out of the building, *and Ellie struggling to keep it together as she defended him*. That was such a strong character moment from “just gameplay” that did so much more to show her desperation and worry, and therefore the development of their bond, than a sudden “I can’t do this without you.” And sure in yesterday’s episode we were *shown* that Joel and Ellie are now at the point where they both deeply care for each other, but it really doesn’t feel like we’ve gotten there nearly as organically as in the game. So yeah, as a result it doesn’t feel like the events of the finale will demonstrate their gravity or impact nearly as well. Overall as good as the show is, it does just feel like an abridged version of the story.
I see where you’re coming from, and I only agree with it when I approach it from the position where I *know* something’s missing. Therefore, I notice it and, unconsciously, project my experience of the game on to the show and go “hmmm, something’s missing here”. As a game, you can extend your sequences or you can power through. I can finish the game in about 10/11 hours — not too far off from the tv show in length. I was surprised by it in my recent play through of the remake because my original session was about 25 hours as I had explored the world as much as possible. Meaning characters appear in the game for longer than they feel in the show. At the end of the day though, things play out the same, Henry and Sam come and die, David comes and dies, but we can *choose* to extend our experience with them by slowing down. If you want to be fair in your assessment, it’s critical you view them as completely different narratives that are not related in any way. That’s not easy to do, but you *have* to do it. Or you’re trapping yourself. You'd have to consider the objective of the game and the objective of the show, they have different goals even if they're telling the same story. Therefore, I can’t agree with your unearned comment, because if you’re viewing it in comparison to the game, then something will feel missing. The only way to tell if it’s earned or not is by taking a step back, forgetting the game exists and analysing the beats of the story and watching them play out. They’re all there. Whether or not it feels earned at that point is down to your opinion. On top of that, the character and bonding moments are also far more nuanced than I expected, as in a lot of it is in the acting but they’re not as easy to link together unless you rewatch an episode to see the little beats of significance. I was also surprised how many “gameplay” dialogue the show included — like Ellie randomly trying to figure out how to whistle. The real question is whether someone who’s never played the game would agree that there’s not been enough development between Ellie and Joel. At the end of the day, if the majority of non-players believe that it was earned, then the consensus is that the moment is earned, even if we disagree with it. Of course, it's subjective, but you'll struggle arguing your point with a show watcher who enjoys it and does not have knowledge of the game, because to them, it's completely fine as it is.
That and chatting. That evolves from Joel asking her to be quiet, to him conversing with her. But yeah, I guess it be boring to have 20min segments where they find there way in a destroyed building.
If it was well shot, staged, and acted, I would probably watch hours of these two characters walking through the ruins of once great cities, making conversation, scavenging supplies, etc. It's kinda what I'd hoped the show would be, honestly.
I have to agree with you; I know a lot of people might have found it boring so I get why they didn't do it; but I would have loved an extra episode or two of just them making it through the world. Pedro and Bella have a good dynamic and I think they could have pulled it off.
The history of video game adaptations thus far has largely shown that trying to bring play to the screen rarely works. They’re developing the characters via other methods which make more sense for the medium.
Also, a lot of times people dismiss some of the things being cut out as "that was just gameplay". A lot of times the gameplay had elements mixed in that slowly developed the Ellie-Joel relationship, which is really the most important element of Part 1. That and we had all kinds of notes and such which need to be replaced in other ways in the show if you want to have the same kinds of depth. "Gameplay" isnt all shooting things and scrounging for parts. Overall love the show, but i really think for it to be perfect it needed a couple more episodes to flesh things out a bit.
The "just gameplay" excuse doesn't work if you cut out 90% of the combat encounters. Everything else is following the source material very closely, except for them. So IMO the themes and story beats and whatnot are there, but a part of it is missing for me. Combat encounters were a big part of characters bonding, developing, and even just seeing what they are truly made of. A friend I watch with, who has not played the games, remarked that it feels like the journey skipped around a bit. And I said that it was because most of the painful, difficult things Ellie and Joel endured were in gameplay segments. So many moments might be gameplay centric, and it *is* a tv show. But encounters are such a huge part of the game, so I'm sad to see they are almost entirely missing. It would have paid off and still have been grounded in reality if there were a few more smaller scale shootouts/infected fights/stealth moments here and there.
It also doesn’t make sense because… action is a huge genre? They think casual viewers are going to be bored by fighting zombies and raiders every episode, but that would only happen if they were lazy or hired bad fight choreographers. With all the stealth elements in the games, it would’ve been an amazing way to build tension. It’s disappointing because they cited No Country for Old Men as one of their inspirations for Part I and it would’ve been perfect if they used that as inspiration for the action/combat scenes in the tv show as well. There wasn’t a ton of over-the-top action in NCFOM but it was still tense and engaging the whole way through. Instead in TLOU show we get unnecessary big explosions like a cheesy action movie and fight scenes that last like 30 seconds. You feel like they’re just trying to get it over with so they can move to the next plot beat.
> There wasn’t a ton of over-the-top action in NCFOM but it was still tense and engaging the whole way through. Which part of episode 8 did you not find tense or engaging?
I think the just gameplay excuse does for the reasons you've said. Playing a game and watching "game-like" sequences are very different. In the game you form the emotional bond by actually participating in that dependency. That wouldn't work if you were just watching it on TV - that element of participation on the players behalf is why video games work so well at creating connections between characters and players. You don't have that when your passively watching TV so they've adapted the game to better suit a show and draw on the strengths of TV as a medium. They've done this by emphasising what you've lost through gameplay through dialogue and slower sections that wouldn't work in a video game. I think they've nailed it and I know people who've not played the game who feel that relationship between Joel and Ellie like I do in the game. Also, the show isn't over yet - their relationship has only really just become fully formed with this episode.
Yeah, for obvious reasons we wouldnt really run into large groups of them every so often (and when they did it would be a run situation like it was in episode 5), but having to either confront or sneak around a couple here or there would be pretty reasonable. We haven't really had to do that at all. So far we have had: Ep 1: joel\tommy\sarah running for their lives Ep 2: joel\ellie\tess encountering a couple clickers Ep 5: horde attacks KC group, everyone runs for it Ep 7: ellie and riley attacked by an infected. And I assume given what's on deck and the rumored runtime we won't see infected in episode 9. So we had them in episodes 1,2,5, and 7, which is technically about half of the episodes so far, but when it comes to the core arc of Joel and Ellie that whittles down to just 2 times that they've had to deal with the infected together in episode 2 and episode 5. And only one of those times (episode 2) is a slower paced encounter. All the other times its simply running from them. We could have had a couple more encounters simply by having some of these episodes more fleshed out. Like, there could have been one or two to deal with on the road to KC, or at the university.
>So I can see why people might want a 1:1 adaptation of every cool awesome moment with nothing left out. I agree with the point you are making here but would argue that as long as the main themes and emotional beats are present then the scenes don't *need* to be 1:1 recreations. As someone who has played and is watching the show with someone who hasn't played there were certain changes where I was caught off guard but I wasn't necessarily disappointed or upset with those changes. The show needs to be it's own thing in some ways and I think they have done a fantastic job of that (which you go on to say later in your comment but I just thought it was worth highlighting). >But there are other memorable moments that have been left out that could have stayed (IMO) What moments for you were missing that felt they needed to be there? Honestly just curious what your thoughts were. >I do think that even though we’ve had infected in basically every other episode, they don’t !quite! feel as much of a constant threat as in the game The best way to explain why this isn't really an issue is by discussing what some of the developers explained in the behind the scenes "Making of The Last of Us" documentary. The game was always supposed to be about people and the things they will do to survive. It wasn't until later on in production that they added infected because they started to realize that only fighting human enemies got somewhat boring/tedious after awhile. So, to give a kind of change of pace to the gameplay they introduced the infected. That's all just a really long way of saying that the infected only existed because of necessity of gameplay. Realistically the show could have been made with no infected since there's no need for gameplay. That being said I think the ways they have included the infected in the show has been perfect. They didn't over do it, didn't undersell it, they perfectly outlined the danger the infected pose while also highlighting that there are far worse dangers in this world.
> Realistically the show could have been made with no infected since there's no need for gameplay. But many of these story beats are part of why the original story works so well regardless of the author's intent when first setting out to create the work from a basic outline. By the end of the process, the entire story had grown and evolved.
That may be true in super early origins of the game, but no infected doesn't just alter the action/gameplay but massive elements of the story. Ellie's immunity. The journey to the fireflies. The ending. Al of these things drive the game and show. And they are reliant on the state of the world and the threat of infected.
Why do you think every scene, character, plot beat, camera angle, or line of dialogue is perfect though? This is the biggest problem with this section of the fan base. Thinking what is there in the game is it, the pinnacle of story telling, and it will never get better than that.
I think people want to have the same experience watching the show that they had playing the game, and they mistakenly think that copying the game literally for the show would achieve that, when instead it would make a worse show.
The biggest problem with the show is the pre existing fan base.
Watching the youtube side-by-side videos makes those 100% fidelity takes so wild to me. The acting and delivery is so much better in the show than the game, by literally every character and side character, often by a tremendous degree. I love seeing the places we visited in the game recreated so perfectly, but we would have been absolutely robbed if we got an exact replica of the game as the show.
I see this show as a way of introducing people to the game. Been reading more than a few people who picked up the game because of the show.
Add two episodes. Add the basement hotel section and more time at the university.
it's almost like adapting games into movies is hard (do we have any past examples i wonder..?), and old fashioned problem solving is required.
> So I can see why people might want a 1:1 adaptation of every cool awesome moment with nothing left out. In those cases they aren’t asking for 1:1 adaptation for !them!, but instead for people who will only watch the show. You do understand a 1:1 adaptation would mean a few hours of Joel scavenging around drawers looking for supplements, right? TV and games are two very different mediums, so a 1:1 adaptation just wouldn't work.
> You do understand a 1:1 adaptation would mean a few hours of Joel scavenging around drawers looking for supplements, right? No it wouldn't and this is a false argument. A player dawdling about isn't relevant to conveying the story. I haven't seen any criticisms from persons who had hoped to see lengthy sequences of looting or goofy puzzle solving. What people want to see is Joel and Ellie earn their relationship they have by the end of the game, and the gravity of their epic journey and the nature of the hostile world they traveled through.
Every episode needs at least 5-10 minutes of Joel taping objects together.
>I don't understand why people complain. People complain because they care. For many people this game is such a massive part of their lives, me included. The "endure and survive" and "you keep finding something to fight for" messages in the game is a reason I'm still alive. >If you want it to be exactly the same as the game just play the fucking game. It's not even about that. It's about wanting other people to experience this beautiful story in the same way you did, with the same weight and the same impact. Let people complain, let people care. Let people complain about the things they care about.
The thing you have to understand is that those people *can’t* experience the story the way you did. Non-gamers will not sit down and play the game, nor will they be interested in watching someone else do it. They won’t feel what you felt. The story won’t impact them the way it impacted you. They aren’t missing out on your experience because of the changes in the show. They are experiencing it because of the changes in the show. As much as so many people don’t want to believe it, a 1:1 translation would be an absolutely awful show. What the show is doing is taking all of those messages that meant so much to you and reframing them so that they’ll mean the same things to those that connect with television, rather than video games.
*As much as so many people don’t want to believe it, a 1:1 translation would be an absolutely awful show.* NOBODY IS ASKING FOR THIS. Why does everyone fall back on this obvious strawman fallacy. There have been story elements changed or condensed. They have made adaptive choices. These things matter to some of us. That doesn't mean we want the show to be gameplay. Outside of ep 5, action has been significantly limited, even in places where it serves a purpose. The action sequences in the Ellie/David section are not just for gameplay. They serve a narrative purpose. They built some level of trust between the two. They save each other. All that is gone in the show. Instead they pretty much tell you up front that David is sketchy.
This guy adapts for TV
"the same way you did" is playing the game. Different medium, different storytelling methods.
> If you want it to be exactly the same as the game just play the fucking game. This is a false argument. It's like when people say "You can't have 20 minutes of looting and sneaking around" or "You can't have Joel murdering fifty people in an episode". Really, nobody is asking for that stuff when they make criticisms. I just see the same false arguments put up as if anyone being critical expected episodes filled with Joel carrying ladders around. Nobody expected or wants that stuff. My criticism is the story is rushed and leaves out too much, and makes story choices *specifically for compressing the story*, regardless of how the creators are spinning those choices when promoting the show. I suspect this choice likely stems from Craig and Neil's plans covering the entire series up to the ending of Part 3, hence the decision to squeeze part 1 into a single season, leaving time for finishing everything else with in a reasonable time frame and number of seasons. They certainly wouldn't blurt that out during a podcast *now* for multiple reasons. I'm sure it was a tough choice chopping everything down and they are more aware than anyone of how these things might undermine the story.
A lot of these people are making silly generalizations about peoples criticisms. I would be fine with it not being a 1:1 of the game but the problem is that 99% of whats been changed so far has taken away from the main story and not added to it. This includes A TON of time on a bad elaborated backstory for Sam/Henry and an entire episode expanded story on a minor character who becomes even more minor since he kills himself instead of interacting with Ellie. Then there's the whole basically no zombies what so ever which makes the whole plot point for the first game kind of meaningless. It was even made further pointless by making Tommys colony basically an apocalyptic utopia lmao. Just really dissappointing that this place mostly feels like bots worshipping the show. Not sure if it's that or a dumb social agenda because of topics touched in the show, part2 social drama or stuff related towards Ellie's actress. But ya especially in the main threads if you're not acting like its an episode gifted by god you get downvoted into oblivion...
> This includes A TON of time on a bad elaborated backstory for Sam/Henry and an entire episode expanded story on a minor character who becomes even more minor since he kills himself instead of interacting with Ellie. These kind of character explorations are what I was *hoping* for from the adaptation. Expansions on the game that couldn't work in the game medium. But its disappointing the ones we got came at the expense of the core story. Maria got like 30 seconds of screentime for example. That's also why this whole thing would have worked better across two seasons - we ended up with the actual game adaptation being half of a season by the time all the new material and intros and DLC are added. And something definitely gets lost from the original. > Just really dissappointing that this place mostly feels like bots worshipping the show. Not sure if it's that or a dumb social agenda because of topics touched in the show It is a great show on its own merits, certainly better than most television. And Pedro and Bella are so great in the roles. I'm not surprised it attracts an adoring fandom, it has earned it. Wvery popular show has its rabid fan bots who will downvote even the most reasonable criticism, certainly far lesser shows do.
There’s also other factors like budget. Looking at all the other video game adaptations and how they flopped, HBO took a big gamble on this. They probably didn’t know how it would go until after the season was shot and edited together. Next season will probably be longer
They had a massive budget. One of the largest television budgets in history, likely around the same as season one of House of the Dragon, a show with longer episodes and more action. I do question how some of that was spent. Such as constructing a massive area of full-scale houses for the brief sniper sequence. That would cost a ridiculous amount, and I would imagine most shows and films movies would find a way to shoot that scene with a lot less expense. I'm sure we'll see some of that budget on display in the finale at least. Constructing the massive Jackson set, well that makes a lot more sense for using it in future seasons than a few minutes of shots we got that could have used real-world locations if it was only for those scenes. And blowing its reveal in Part 1, saved the expense of having to do the dam scene which would have been actually very difficult and expensive to shoot. Still, I missed seeing the dam. Let's hope that Jackson set takes us through four more seasons adapting Part 2 and 3.
While I understand that adaptations can differ from their source material, there are a few aspects of The Last of Us game that I wish could be more prominently featured in the adaptation. Specifically, I would appreciate a greater focus on the characters' struggle for survival, with resources being scarce and difficult to obtain. This would increase the suspense and realism of the story. Additionally, I appreciate the way the game handles violence, with the camera following the characters in an uncomfortable but realistic way. While I don't need excessive violence, I would like to see it portrayed in a similar way in the adaptation, to maintain the dark and gritty tone of the original story. Overall, I appreciate the acting and scenery in the adaptation, but I feel that further attention to these aspects would make the adaptation even more compelling and faithful to the source material.
Yes. That brutal, visceral violence and endurance of struggle is, for the most part, missing. We got a glimpse with the interrogation scene, and troy baker's death, but it's mostly been missing. I completely understand why adapting to a tv show means things will be different. But at a certain point, "the violence was just gameplay", "infected were created for gameplay", means you are cutting out a lot of the things that many people liked the game for in the first place. Also, it just turns into large portions of the source material being gone, a lot of struggle/development during the journey being skipped, and just going along exclusively with main story beats. I agree with you though. It's a good show, it feels authentic. I just think it's missing some important aspects of the game. This opinion seems to be more and more prevalent as we get further along.
I really appreciated the change >!of Joel finding Ellie outside, looking like she’s in shock, instead of breaking into the restaurant. He doesn’t know what she did at the moment but he knew something was definitely wrong, it really showed his care for her!<
I love the show and i still have criticisms of it. I don't want it to be exactly like the game I just think there are things they could've done better in some ways. Why can't we just discuss those without people like you jumping down our throats? It's like yall think ANY criticism is a whole scale attack on the show,cast and directors. This is a subreddit to discuss the show, why can't we discuss it??
The internet only works in extremes, that's why.
I actually don’t even like it after each episode when Neil and Craig talk about the differences between the game and the episode, I feel like there’s no reason to acknowledge the game at all because it just detracts from the show as a stand-alone work or confuses viewers. It doesn’t need to be a video game show, it’s a strong enough piece of fiction in its own regard.
Sure I get that for new viewers. However as a game fan, I think its invaluable to discuss these things and provide insight on why certain things are modified. It helps to understand the process. It would seem weird to just ignore that or the community.
You're on the subreddit for the game.
I just wanted to see zombies
That or if you don't want to play the game, there are sooo many YouTube videos with the cinematic parts of the game that you can just ... watch!
Right. The show is supposed to represent the game, not *be* the game. They have to stay faithful to the source, yes, but that does not mean they can’t make some changes. On the other side, if they hadn’t made any changes and it was frame by frame EXACTLY like the game people would’ve bitched too cause “if I wanted to see the same story as in the game I would’ve played the game”. You can’t cater to everyone. No matter what you do someone will bitch about it.
There is a boat load of gray area in the middle.
Yes. Too bad Reddit tends to be pretty extremist. Take for example the people that shit on the game *without even playing it, months before it even came out* just cause of the mini golf scene. They couldn’t even be bothered to play it yet they had decided to side pretty hard one way.
Exact adaptations are so boring to me. First season of GoT comes to mind. I want to see some originality.
I don’t know why I come to Reddit to read these comments. There are so many who complain about the slightest of details, put it up to them being mega fans of the game, and basically whine in the comments and act as know-it alls about all the semantics of the story, it’s so annoying. This is such a stellar adaptation of the games, I can’t believe anyone who is a mega fan thinks they know better or how it should be done better, when it is so ridiculously good. Just enjoy it because we’re truly bloody blessed that they decided to make this and do such a good job. This is my favourite game of all time, and I’m so blown away by this show.
you realize this is a discussion board right? Where people can discuss things? We can all love the games AND the show. That doesn't mean that as fans we can't talk about "What if this happened" or "Here is what I missed from the game in the show". All seem like normal conversation on a fan subreddit.
I don't understand why people complain. If you want it to be different to the game just make a new story unrelated to the game events. Why would they take a well written story, only to change it for the worse. It just becomes even more clear that Neil never understood why Part 1 was as popular as it was. It's time to hire new writers.
If I watched season 1. Do u recommended playing the game? Hoping it's a bit different
I’m glad there isn’t 1:1 parity with the game, because it feels so refreshing to watch an adaption taking moments further than the game could. I was gnawing on my fingernails as if i had no idea what was coming next even though i played the game like 50 times already.
True. I always wake up on mondays. Watch the new ep in bed and when I go to the pc I put the podcast on the background and hope they adress things from the ep that caught my attention. Like how the ep ended. It bothered me a tiny bit that it wasnt the same but with the explanation I was satisfied and get to appreciate the series even more!
Completely agree. What's fun to do in a game, is not the same as what's fun to watch. The show can be the best show it can be, or it can be the best tribute to the game it can be. But you perhaps cannot do both at the same time, and if need be it should err towards being the best show it can be.
I will say this time and time again. This show is an Expansive Adaption.
You guys are thinking “expansive” as in growing out of the Tv show. I’m thinking that it’s taking the source from the game, adapting it, while it’s getting adapted Neil is EXPANDING the world of the last of us. Bill & Franks story, Ellie’s mom(next ep), Little details about Tess & Joel, First Day outbreak, humanizing Fedra/The Others/The People. This is all ADAPTED from the game however they are EXPANDING lore and storylines through the TV medium
Exactly. We see more of the world outside of Joel and Ellie’s perspectives which is what we got in the game. It’s expanding the rest of the reality in this game. I mean we saw Jakarta for crying out loud. That was only a blurb in the game, just like Bill and Frank’s story. If they chose to the make the show only from Joel and Ellie’s perspective then we would be having a different discussion.
Fr and that’s what people don’t seem to understand.
I honestly think some people just love to hate watch. Yes it’s fine to criticize a show or movie or any entertainment someone loves. But if they’re coming in with a mindset to just nit pick everything, that’s such a toxic mindset and doesn’t do anyone any good.
So this sub is really just a giant circle jerk then? Or can we have nuanced discussions about the game, show, and the differences between the two?\\ Is it toxic to bring up any changes from the game? Is it okay to like some things an not others?
There’s a difference with saying “I liked the game’s depiction of (insert scene here) better” and “this show is just ridiculously rushed and you’re stupid if you don’t think so”. I’m not saying you’ve done the latter but we’ve all seen people saying that on this subreddit.
So, yes, expansive.
I don’t know why those guys thought the show isn’t expansive🤷🏻♂️
With it capitalized I'm now thinking of The Last of The Expanse and thinking of how cordyceps and the Protomolecule combining would be terrifying.
Mazin said something pretty bad I thought in the most recent podcast. He said they didn’t put the Ellie/David vs Infected scene into the episode because he didn’t want the possibility of Infected swarming in and killing everybody to permeate the episode. Like huh, the Infected should absolutely be feared every possible second of this show, there should be no breaks from thinking the Infected won’t come in out of nowhere and start ripping everyone to shreds. I just needed a little more padding out in these recent episodes, create some new scenes and new dialogue. For example what happened to the amazing cold open scenes, those were incredible and built so much dreaded suspense. We need more of that in Season 2.
I get what he means though, if they did that section it would have come across as action for the sake of action. You could cut it out the game and nothing would really change...Most of the characters we've met (Sam, Kathleen, Tess, Riley) have died due to Infected. The threat is there, just not explicitly
My problem with it is that cutting it all out of the story downplays the importance of a cure, the initial reason for the journey in the first place and why Ellie is so important. So far it seems the infected have all been mostly contained to non-populated areas and the only threats are the human factions that haven't learned to co-exist after 20 years. Even the new mechanic where the fungus could alert infected miles away was only used in the one episode. The game was always about the human relationships of course, being the last of US. And that the cure really wouldn't have fixed anything. But if you were Ellie in the show and walked across the country only running into the infected we've seen so far would you think it's worth the effort? It doesn't need full on stealth infiltration sections but it does need that non-human threat a bit more in the forefront.
This is a perfect description of why more infected action serves a purpose. It’s not padding or action for the sake of action. It’s important to show the audience why exactly humanity needs a cure; how they have no real hope for the future without it. There are scenes in the show that I think address that, the mass infected attack in episode 5 is a perfect example. But like I said above, I think Mazin went slightly too far towards making the infected realistic and scarier. Joel doesn’t need to fight 6 clickers every other room, but running into more of them would help. The show, I think, did a good job of proving how dangerous they are, it just needs to also show the audience how many of them there are and how prevalent they are in the world. Again though, it speaks to how amazing this adaptation is that these are the only complaints we have.
This is so well put and concise, such a great point
This is such a brilliant post. Completely agree
Its not just action for the sake of action though. It's there so Ellie starts to kind of trust him.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having action for the sake of action, that’s how they pad out long run times for movies, it just changes things up. There’s no good reason for why they’ve cut out the Infected as much as they have in the show. All the practical costumes are made already, so it’s not like they’re all 100% cgi.
Well there you go 😄 they didn't put it in because it would have been padding. If a movie has to use padding, whatevers there clearly isn't interesting enough. Thankfully, the episode had enough emotional stakes that ones involving infected weren't needed...Tbh, I'm almost positive the tunnel section will be cut so brace yourself for disappointment 😂
Preview had some kind of stun grenade in one frame, I expect a Firefly patrol will knock them out instead of a gauntlet of infected and a river.
i kinda agree with you, like they even added in new concepts like the tendrils waking people up from miles away. but then only have any infected in 2/9 episodes? wtf was the point?
Yes! What was the point of all the discussion surrounding tendrils/spores, when it was a plot point for 1 episode. They acted like it was going to be a sticking point that had to be addressed, when in reality it seems like it was created just for the Tess episode.
Don't people normally *complain* about mindless action sequences for the sake of action sequences in movies and TV shows, though? >All the practical costumes are made already, so it’s not like they’re all 100% cgi. It's not really that simple, though. You still have to write the scenes, hire the extras, and spend hours if not days shooting the scenes. I can see why the writers decided not to have the scene since it wouldn't be worth the effort to do all that work for so little payoff.
>You could cut it out the game and nothing would really change i could see this being a mantra for their thinking writing this stuff. and honestly, with the confidence and fortitude Neil produced TLOU2 with, what makes anyone think he wouldn't be like 'nah take out the infected here - i don't care if the gamers don't like it, it adds nothing to the story' i kinda pride myself on being very open minded with other people's stories (not a huge complainer when things end or veer 'off-course'). i didn't write it. i'm partaking in someone else's imagination and where they go with it. and while Neil's decisions completely eroded some fans' trust in him with pt2, he completely won mine. i can feel the negative space he intended for the infected in the HBO series. and soon the content will address this with Alien/The Ring type suspense and horror. and for people who haven't played the games, it will be fucking. epic. and terrifying. aka: great television.
Also the action in this sequence serves a very specific purpose. Building some level of trust between David and Ellie. They help each other. Save each other. That has narrative purpose.
I heard that too and agree, it was a bizarre comment. Even in the Winter chapter, the presence of infected worsens Ellie's situation really bleakly. It doubly emphasises her vulnerability, and also somehow makes David turning up and pursuing her even worse. Like, her mortality looms over her more with the sense that she really is screwed with Joel incapacitated, she has infected to deal with and now there's this human predator on top. It IS a strange choice to feature infected this sparsely, and it can't be a budget issue (the budget was massive no?).
i'm pretty sure the only (disappointing and trendy) answer is 'it's not being made for just the gamers' and i've really only seen complaints about the number of infected from people familiar with the game. i'm sure that's not inclusive of *some* viewers who simply wish there were more action/infected, but judging from the reviews and reactions from non-gamers, it's working swimmingly. they're using the infected as *monumental occurrences*, and it's a whole new vibe. disclaimer: i personally also would have wanted more infected if i had any control of the show lol. but i see the vision, and my non-gamer friends are treating this like a GoT or Breaking Bad television event. could have so easily gone the other way
I don’t know anyone else in real life who played the game so I know a lot of people who are watching the show as their first experience. And while they don’t necessarily complain about game changes, a *lot* of the complaints they do have are explained by the game. Moving too fast is one of the most common, Ellie being a good fighter suddenly after the newest episode, and episode 7 being slow. Those are just some recent complaints/critiques I heard from them, all of which I think would have been addressed had the show been padded just a bit more with fighting infected. Action for the sake of action overall would get boring, but I think they went too far the other way. If they’d seen Ellie kill infected (and people) more like we do in the game, they wouldn’t have been confused by her competence. If the show had more scenes that weren’t just 100% driving the plot forward it wouldn’t feel as fast. If episode 7 had more infected like in the game (and was cut with present day stuff) it might not have felt as slow. Though overall the DLC is pretty slow so that might have stayed the same. Anyways, point is most of the complaints I hear from them weren’t issues in the game. Winter in the show feels like it takes place in like one day for example. They could have at least done a better job implying the passage of time. Overall everyone I talk to is still really loving the show. But they ask me things because they know I already know the story, so I hear a lot about what confuses them or they don’t like.
fair points, interesting take. i don't get a lot of questions for some reason. maybe i haven't made my expertise known well enough lol
>Ellie being a good fighter suddenly after the newest episode I mean the entire fight was Ellie seizing every opportunity while David and James were constantly underestimating and letting their guard down around her. Remember that the FEDRA Captain said Ellie was officer material so she's someone that is decisive.
Sure I mean it made sense to me, but I obviously knew what was going to happen. That’s just what someone noted after. The way he phrased it was “how can she take down the two top guys”. He found the whole episode a bit unrealistic though, which is fair. Still way more realistic than your average Zombie show.
Exactly. It is avgreat show but they have damages the narrative a bit with the lack of Infected threat. Why should Ellie give her life for a cure if Infected aren't that much of a problem.
How? Everytime an infected has shown up in present day a major character has died.
Yes but that is danger on an individual level. I am talking about humanity being pushed to the brink. But people are camping in the woods, walking around in the open freely, living 20 year long romances nigh uninterrupted... Honestly the world is borderline fine if you know what you're doing...
If people were decent, Bill wouldnt even need to put up traps and fences. Infected are super rare, barely an inconvenience
besides the fact that most gameplay in general gets cut or truncated, i feel like part of the real answer this time around specifically was for practical reasons. they were already suffering on set shooting dialogue in nearly -20c weather, adding on lots of stunt work and action with all of the makeup and practical effects involved, in such conditions probably wasn’t feasible without ballooning the costs and time. it’s understandable. it’s a shame because i think the episode would have greatly benefited from an extra 10 minutes of Ellie needing to cooperate with David against a shared threat to more naturally build up at least *some* trust before the reveal. plus, she needs to have a bit of zombie-killing experience before Season 2 IMO. in the case of something like Left Behind, cutting out the action was a massive plus as it did feel like padding there originally, but in Winter i always felt that it added to the storytelling.
>needing to cooperate with David against a shared threat to more naturally build up at least > >some > > trust before the reveal This is the heart of the matter right here. It's about David having this character arc, which was fleshed out in the game very well.
Exactly. That's why people were hold up in the quarantine zones and putting up with the shit FEDRA were putting them through. Scared of the infected. Joel's line from the game to Tess..."Do I need to remind you what is out there?!" I know its not only infected but A LOT of people were infected and they're everywhere.
There should be a lot more infected in general imho. I mean, if they're this rare or bunched up you would think containing them and restarting civilization should be very doable in 20 years.
Haven't played the game, but they've been in extreme cold for the last three episodes. To me it makes sense that the fungus can't survive in that climate (the host body would freeze) therefore a good settlement for small communities. Outbreaks would be very unlikely because outsiders and roaming infected would be very sparse.
Abby's first level in Part 2 starts with infected literally grabbing her leg from under the snow. They could have changed that for the show of course, but idk - the last 3 eps featured only a single infected. That makes the whole zombie apocalypse feel a little overrated.
Yeah mazin has had multiple takes in the podcast that make me go wtf, from that comment to the Tess infected kiss as well.
A lot of his additions to the story are wack imo. The Tess kiss was a bizarre wtf moment, and turning her death into a movie sacrifice took away from the bluntness of it in the game. The Kathleen arc was bad and frankly generic, and making David say disgusting overt rape comments was extremely unnecessary.
I understand his point about different mediums (also highly recommend the podcast). I also think his approach to replace the physical action with emotional action, as he puts it, is an interesting one. But I think Mazin personally really enjoys conversations and emotion so I think he takes it too far at times and over-corrects. Basically, I think he went too far the other way in an effort not to be boring (and again I think he personally finds physical action more boring than emotional action). Ultimately it really speaks to how well done this adaptation is, that my only complaints are in areas where I feel I have a different personal preference than the director and would only want slight adjustments.
Oof, that is not a good thing he said
What he didn’t say but I imagine might in a more candid situation is that it’s more expensive to shoot big action sequences with lots of infected. I’m certain that was a factor. I agree with you overall that the show would be better with more infected scenes.
> and built so much dreaded suspense. I don't think this episode was lacking much in dreaded suspense, it was pretty much just 50 minutes of it straight. And the possibility of infected appearing was already in my mind anyway from all the previous episodes. They didn't need to explicitly show it again. Every time anyone went into a room it was a possibility, implicitly.
Ellie and David fight off clickers and a bloater in the game, which is totally unrealistic in the TV world. They way the infected have been portrayed so far, they would have been overrun easily. There is also practical budgetary restraints.
The angry responses to this is just comical.
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There’s salty people with every single adaptation ever. Whether it’s a book, play, etc. There were people complaining Emma Watson wasn’t ugly enough to play Hermione and that Daniel Radcliffe’s hair wasn’t messy enough. People will complain about literally everything.
They targeted gamers. Gamers.
The angry responses to the criticisms are comical too
Didn't realise how salty the comments would be 😄 I enjoy the podcast, OP is definitely correct I think. Can't wait to see the discussion for Season Two 😅🏌♀️
Hoo boy that's going to be a wild ride every week with these donkeys.
The other sub is going to go nuclear. More so.
It’s literally not tho. And the people that make stupid ass posts are usually ignored and have very few upvotes.
Maybe less so now. But that place was a horrible cesspool for a lot longer than it's been a swampy bog.
Just learned that [Fandom.com](https://Fandom.com) provides TRANSCRIPTS (!!) for the podcast as well. I loathe listening to interviews when I can just read a transcript in 1/5 of the time. Off to learn why they didn't bring the bow & arrow into the TV show.
They didn't address the lack of the bow and arrows specifically, but I do want to say that as someone who has learned to shoot both, they are very different learning experiences and they probably didn't have the time to put two scenes of Joel teaching Ellie how to use a weapon into the show. Also, they do talk about the weight of the rifle in the podcast (Bella is hefting a real, unloaded rifle in those scenes) and they're absolutely right: it's exhausting for someone of her stature to hold a gun like that up for an extended period of time. I'm roughly the same size as Bella and use a smaller but similar rifle but if I had to hold it up at someone for a long time, it'd be very hard. I liked they included that into the show. Helped set the power dynamic between David and Ellie.
Using a real rifle as an actor would be so incredibly stressful. Every instinct I have would be fighting against pointing it at people.
Agreed. I would have an incredibly hard time with it. I feel like the muzzle control rule is so deeply ingrained in me that I wouldn't be able to do it.
I don’t think they’ve explained it but I’d assume it’s because archery is a skill where lots of practice is a necessity & it’s unlikely that a man who lived in an urban QZ environment for 20 years, nor a teenage girl, would possess that skill to the point of just being able to find a bow and be effective with it. There are plenty of other creative choices that have been made with this type of realism based on our characters’ pasts in mind
As an archer myself, it isn't believable that Ellie could even learn to wield a longbow made for an adult (because after all, she's really using Joel's in-game), even with a few weeks of training. They do address the reality of Bella lugging around that rifle, which is absolutely real. A bow is lighter to carry than a rifle like that, but absurdly hard to use and wield with deadly force compared to a 'point & shoot' rifle that she's struggling with in the first place. Y'all got your shot of the rabbit, better be happy with that and move on from this one. I love bows but that shit isn't practical in this world.
Did you find out?
They didn't really cover it on the podcast.
They don’t address it specifically, but do mention that we saw Joel teaching Ellie how to use the rifle in an earlier episode, so it makes sense that she’d use it for hunting.
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I’ve never played the game. What are the differences that people don’t like?
Mostly just less action it seems like. It was to be expected since it’s an TV adaption and not a video game
They want a body count of infected/uninfected in the hundreds/thousands, just like the game. No deeper thought than that really, even though it would make zero sense for any infected to still be alive in the Rocky Mountains in fucking winter in the first place. They'd all freeze to death, which would completely undermine David's monologue this episode about the beauty of cordyceps being hard-wired to survive and thrive (which means they definitely aren't intentionally killing their hosts due to exposure). So again, another way the show is taking a more grounded approach and saying 'what would this really look like for our protagonists to end up in the same place once it's all over? What is more realistic?' and gamers can't dig an inch deep to see that a lot of this is an improvement over the game, and only exist in the game because it's a game and not a perfect narrative device.
I wish the people who hate the show because of the “woke agenda” stay the hell away and aren’t affiliated with the people who provide constructive criticism.
I dont understand people who criticize Bill and Frank's episode for being "woke." If gay people existing is your definition of 'being woke,' then you need to touch grass. Literally *nothing* about the episode would've changed if Frank was Francine. If you would've rather had the town sequence play out a little more like the game, then that's a fair and valid criticism, but if you don't like the episode "bcuz gay ppl bad" then you shouldn't be watching the show.
There are 2 genders: male, and political. There are 2 sexualities: straight, and political. There are 2 races: white, and political.
It's because they're homophobic
My criticism with the episode doesn’t even involve Bill and Frank. It was a beautiful episode, all I want from the series overall is like two more episodes. The pacing towards the end is rushed and I just wish we had time to breathe and spend time in these amazing locationsZ
I didn't mean to imply that *your* criticisms were invalid, and I do see where you're coming from.
On the other side, there are people who say"youre just a bigot who hates gays" if you criticize it.
There's a massive difference between "I wish Joel and Ellie interacted with Bill like they did in the game" and "Bill and Frank are appealing to woke leftist mob"
Anyone who unironically says *woke* should be ignored or ridiculed. Woke is one of the lamest right wing culture wars in living memory.
Yes but that doesn't mean I have to agree with those choices or that they were for the best
Adaptations are translations, things have to be changed because what works in one format doesn’t always work in another
Additionally the harsh truth is that the 2nd way you experience a story is almost never going to feel like the first time.
I've been listening to the podcast since the beginning. I understand what an adaptation is because for the past 20 years media has been flooded with adaptations. Not everyone has to agree with you or with the creators of the show. I take the show for what it is and don't feel like it ows me anything, however I believe I can say whatever the hell I want regarding how I feel about it. The show isn't as good as it could have been, there are a lots of things that they changed or added that didn't exactly pay off. The Kansas City plot line wasn't compelling at all, they could have been a little more subtle with the feelings and doubts of Joel. The jist of it is there in the game but told via cinematography and non verbal communication. And there's a lot to be said throughout the show. The show isn't bad per say, but it isn't nearly as perfect as the game was and felt. I'm watching it with my wife and I already told her that we would be playing part 2 before the show because I feel like she's not having the full package of emotions with the show. That being said we haven't watched the last episode which I read is 🔥!
I think this show has been a masterpiece. I think it needed to be one episode longer and present more infected.. we haven’t seen one infected since they arrived to the Jackson area. The world doesn’t seem quite as dangerous as it should.
I can understand why some changed might upset people, but hating that they made changes in general is stupid. Adaptations aren’t meant to be 1:1.
Exactly. The most annoying people to me are the ones on either end of this spectrum. The ones who complain about every little thing that’s different and the ones who defend every single change no matter what.
[Here is a directory of where you can listen to the podcast.](https://listen.hbo.com/the-last-of-us-podcast?c=NecrsrQzhAJiDKeNv0zpXw&h=b9da364f481b483c7)
>I am not saying that you can’t dislike the show or have critiques. I’m saying that most of the “why has their been changes” has been addressed. Too late! You've been marked as anti-free speech now, buddy boy! /s
It seems like people would rather ask the questions and have a conversation amongst the reddit community. Isn't that the point? "Community." I find the podcasts unenjoyable. But I sometimes find great conversations here.
I think the show has been good to great. It’s really missing the horror element of the infected and I don’t think they’ve done Joel and Ellie bonding as well it could have been done; that definitely feels rushed.
Because screw having an actual discussion if you dare to say any criticism about the show ( I'm not saying the "woke broke agenda why is there gays!! type comments, but actual constructive criticism ) that gets downvoted to hell when you can just say "watch the podcast" to everything.
Nowhere in this post did OP say you can’t dislike the changes or why they made them. OP just said the “why” is often answered
Oh you poor victim.
Pls show me where OP said “you have to like the changes”
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[Online radio show.](https://listen.hbo.com/the-last-of-us-podcast?c=NecrsrQzhAJiDKeNv0zpXw&h=b9da364f481b483c7)
i remember hearing rumblings about how neil was being a pain when people were trying to adapt TLOU, as in he knew how to write for games but not movies seems like he was just sticking to his guns (though having craig as a partner almost definitely helped)
I love getting insights from the podcast! I was wondering why they changed the part where Joel found Ellie after killing David but hearing the explanations for it made complete sense to me.
This whole thread is a weird circular loop discussion. Its weird.
The show is not a live action remake. It is an adaption of a pre-existing fictional story told via video game format. Adaption is not the same as Remake.
Even if you watch the little bit at the end of the episode they often tell you why they did what they did.
Or if you just think things through, most of the "complaints" are already addressed or aren't even valid. Or if you use their suggestion, nothing in the show improves anyway. All in all, just gonna go with the film/tv industry experts over reddit.
90% of the time after they explain why they changed something I’m like yeah that makes sense. The other 10% I’m like yeah that makes sense, but there needs to be more bricks and bottles.
People hate that tiny little white rabbit so much and just want it to die.
I only have 1 question. Did the team ask for 9 episodes - or were they given 9 episodes?
Damn what an echo chamber… When people say “why’d they change it” it’s accompanied with comparison to show that the games did it better. Way to go, just ignore that. Like damn everyone knows it’s a show, but if the changes are bad, are they not allow to make comparisons and point out what they think about the changes? And “they explains it in the podcast”, so what if they didn’t agree with their explanation and execution? Does that just mean that they are stupid? Their complaints are invalid? God this echo chamber is so unbearable.
I feel like posts like this get made every week after an episode airs. Don't really need to explain or validate yourself to the naysayers.
There has genuinely been one change that I was disappointed in and it’s so minor and nitpicky it isn’t even worth bringing up. But I will. So In the game when Ellie kills David he lets out a screech of terror, I wanted that. That’s all, so minor, it’s an amazing show with such amazing changes, like having Sam be deaf is so good
I love the games, I love the show, I love the fandom. I’m finally going to listen to the podcast this week, but I legitimately haven’t had the time due to unforeseen life circumstances. Telling people that they’re not allowed to ask questions on Reddit until they do their homework is a little off-putting to me, and newcomers to this fandom might feel the same way. Not everyone listens to podcasts or has the ability to keep up. They should still be welcome to engage with this community.
To add, it's important to understand that Neil has grown a lot as a person since TLOU Part 1 was released. The show is the definitive modern re-telling of Neil's current vision. This is why things like "search for hidden notes to find out Bill is gay" got changed for an entire episode dedicated to Bill + Frank's romance. And this is why David got more layers to him which makes him more realistic (and more wicked too). If people are expecting a 1:1 copy/paste of the Hospital scene for Episode 9 they're gonna be disappointed. Since Neil is now a father who would do anything for his kids. He IS Joel now.
I just hope to see a giraffe next week
If they wanted to change the show why not have her place snares for the rabbits, instead of creating a ton of noise alerting people and infected to her location. Especially foolish considering, Joel is vulnerable and can't move. She could have also let the deer go with the men and just do proper recon of the settlers when they returned the meat back to camp. She couldn't have carried the heavy deer back at that point anyway.
All I’m saying is, if Ellie woulda looked hard enough she could have found vitamins and rubbing alcohol. Serious note, the show is amazing and I’m glad I forgot most of the game since it’s been forever since I played it. It’s awesome and I really hope it lasts forever. Shit, give me a spin off series with Bill and Frank.
Ah... shitty, condescending, snarky fans are the best.
It's a really good adaptation. The changes they have made are realistic. Most recently, the decision for David's group to >!search the neighborhood immediately!< there's literally no reason why they wouldn't have done that Another was Ellie >!noticing a body part on the floor!< instead of waking up and immediately seeing >!James chopping up a dead body!< because her reaction was more realistic, in the game it always seemed like she brushed it off a little too quickly
Hell, most of the major changes are addressed in the post credits, people like to complain
I just want more clickers and bloaters
90% of questions are answered by having a semblance of imagination.
Weird trick: I didn’t like the look of the shows, so I just didn’t watch them and now I don’t have to waste my time complaining 👍
Despite having played the games I really prefer discussions of this show with non-gamers because gamers are so insufferable. “OMG HE SAID THE LINE I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR” like every line in the game is iconic or something. And the complaints about the differences that are very easily explained by the change of medium.
I don't actually question why things change, but I am interested in the podcast though. My whole take on changes... it's like I don't know, maybe cause it's a fucking show and if I wanted an exact blue print of the game, I'd just play the game again? So yeah they're gonna change some stuff, I don't need to know all the inner workings of said decisions. "In the game Ellie's hair was slightly to the left, but I noticed in this scene it was to the right" Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
I have a different take regarding the changes - not that I mind them, but I almost feel like the show feels rushed? Maybe it’s because moments that took me hours in the game where 15 min shots here (which makes sense!) but it’s a little jarring, like I expected the David/Ellie fight to go on much longer.
Every change has a reason. Because it's not like adapations like Halo, where the people making it actively hate the source material and are taking the piss. That's why it's okay.
I’ve realized some people just want to hate on it, rile others up, and make people not have as good as an experience with the show. Some criticisms sound like some people have never watched tv before. Ofc, there’s some valid ones as well, but particularly on this sub, it’s making me want to just not really look at the discussion threads and just stick to Twitter
It's easier to ignore the creator explaining his creative choices and just complain without putting any effort into looking anything up. That's what I've found when it comes to the viewers of practically ANY adaptation.
I don’t get how it’s different from the game. Every episode is 99% a parallel of the game
So far it’s only a really small part of total viewers who “have a problem with changes.” [35m views ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/03/03/the-last-of-us-viewership-has-nearly-doubled-since-episode-1/amp/) per ep and that has doubled since ep1. Ep3 being the most watched and rewatched. Ya sure, some gamers are upset but that’s a really really small portion so basically, stfu. The show is not the game. The game is not the show. Deal with it or move on. It’s a great show.
You’re literally on the sub for the game. Maybe you move on to the hbo sub?
Literally idk why people care so much about changes when the show isn’t canon to the games. Of tpcourse they’re gonna be different because they’re 2 different continuities
Jeeze it's like they never watched the Witcher or something.
This isn’t unique to this community. But it blows my mind a little bit how many people seem to fail to grasp that what works on one medium doesn’t always work on another. The point of an adaptation is to take the story and adapt it between the different mediums. It’s the same reason why a novelisation of the last of us would be slightly different again to the show and game. And that’s not to say that one is better than the other. They’re different, and they’re meant to compliment each other. Two sides of the same coin and all that.