Like 4.7 million other people, I tuned in to watch HBO’s broadcast of The Last of Us, the television adaption of Naughty Dog’s hit post-apocalyptic zombie game. Lots of people have written of the similarities and differences between the game and the show, and there’s really nothing more to be said about them; instead, I want to talk about how a show so rooted in the fandom of its source material can pay homage to that material without feeling lazy, condescending, or cringe. We know this feeling well (us video game fans): from Doom’s (2005) infamous first-person sequences and the lackluster storylines of something like Mortal Kombat (2021), to the corny jokes and downright disrespectful handling of their source material (I’m looking at you Super Mario Bros), video game adaptations have a horrible legacy. So, when I watched The Last of Us and got to the part where Joel and Tommy arrive to save Sarah from an infected Mrs. Adler, I was struck with a sense of reverence I’ve never felt with a video game adaptation before.

Let me explain.

After a protracted (though not unwelcome) amount of time spent with Sarah, we finally begin the climactic opening from the video game we all know and love: the one in which Sarah is rushed into Joel’s car with Tommy to ultimately meet her tragic end. As we know, The Last of Us is a third-person survival horror game—we see almost everything from behind the main character’s back. In this instance, as with the video game, Sarah is the protagonist—we follow her, shaky cam and all. Then, in a seamless transition, Sarah is thrust into the back of Joel’s truck and we (the audience) are made to view this ride through the high-octane, cramped, and terrifying first-person point-of-view. This is not Doom, either; this is natural, this makes sense, this is that heart-pumping feeling video games are meant to evoke. Unlike so many other video game adaptations that seem to try too hard to blend their cinema roots with that of their interactive source material, the team behind The Last of Us is able to make a subtle nod to video games.

Subtlety is the name of the game; it’s what all other adaptations lack. Later, we come to what sold me on the team behind HBO’s adaptation: the scene where Tommy becomes separated from Joel and Sarah. Here, divided by burning cars, the scene seems to play out as if it were designed for a video game by video game developers to give the characters a reason to split and for you, the player, to “go around” and learn the ropes. It’s so common an event that I almost expect it to happen when I’m playing a video game. In HBO’s The Last of Us, this scene made me smile, bringing forth memories of all those frustrating times I was forced to do the exact same thing Pedro Pascal was forced to do. Hell, Gabriel Luna, the actor playing Tommy in the show, even reacts silently to getting split up, as if he’s waiting for his queue to begin speaking his dialogue while the main character reacts to what just happened. It’s Joel who’s screaming for Tommy, but we don’t hear anything from Tommy until he pops into Joel’s field of view. Staged like a video game, but feeling as natural as a piece of quality cinema, I was giddy to see it all unfold.

Subtle, seamless, and without the annoying wink and nod that so many directors get wrong, the filmmakers behind HBO’s The Last of Us genuinely seem to not only care for their source material, but understand the importance of treating video games with the respect and dignity they are so often forced to live without.

I wrote this a week ago for a job application that went nowhere.

I think something that everyone should keep in mind while talking about this adaptation's quality is that the game is damn near a TV show already, it just has bits in between all the TV show parts where you sneak around monsters, scrounge for parts, and shoot lots of dudes. And even those parts are designed to be as much "feels like film" as possible, something the seventh generation was trying its damndest to do and, it seems, eventually succeeded.

@justin258: I've personally never seen a point in video game adaptations. Like you said, they're practically a tv show already. The ways in which HBO is changing/expanding on The Last of Us story aren't deep enough to get me super hooked on the narrative they're telling. It's a show for people who've never played the games; not for those who have.

I'm not sure if homage is important or necessary - but obviously welcome if it works out that way.

The real important thing to me is storytelling and delivering on a good story experience regardless of medium. Whether or not the Last of Us is better as a game or didnt need to be made I think is pretty irrelevant if it provides a meaningful story to a larger or new audience.

As a fan of specific stories I'm always hopeful in a successful transition of specific beats not because I NEED or DEMAND to see them faithfully recreated in an additional medium; but because there were experiences or discussions I wanted to have about the content that werent possible. I tried but I couldnt convince my friend or mom or whoever to read through 1600 pages of some fantasy novel just so I could express my thoughts on the Red Wedding or the significance of the Tower of Joy. In a little over a decade many of my low key interests have blown up and become giant pop-culture phenomena.

Same with the Last of Us. That ending is just a master class of story telling and its a conversation I've literally never been able to have with anyone important to me. My co-worker whose never played a game in her life keeps asking me if I've watched the show yet because she wanted to talk about it. Previous to this it was Wheel of Time. Talking about wheel of time with someone in real life? Didnt think that'd be happening! Haha.

I'm not really buying this notion that The Last of Us television series was easy to adapt, because the game is a TV show with gameplay bits. There is a lot of shooting, stealth stabbing, item collecting, and surviving in the game. It's not just walk from A to B, watch a cinematic cutscene and repeat, like the first Xenosaga game mostly was. No, the difference is that the writers actually paid respect to the source material and aren't diverting and writing their own script, which as been the problem with so many video game to movie and television show adaptions. Instead of the writers just trusting the story in the games, they let their egos take over and think they can write a better story. Only to be proven wrong when it bombs. Hopefully, the success of this show will start of trend of the writers creating video game adaptions based on the games actual storylines in the future.

That Mortal Kombat movie was awesome and I'll not hear no backtalk about it. That being said, I have been curious about this show and whether or not it actually turned out well. Like other's have said, the game is basically already a tv-show so making it to an actual tv-show wouldn't need too much work. And I am glad to hear they're not trying to spin their own yarn when the source is good enough. Good read, sorry to hear your job application didn't go anywhere!

@pezen: Thanks!

After the recent episode, it seems people started review bombing/upping in some war you'd expect from most popular mainstream shows. Something rubs people in the narrative especially in some beloved franchise where some want a one to one adaptation, others avoid watching because they expect it's one to one and unnecessary, and others want changes, and so on.

Reviews from critics used to be more useful to compare against general audiences to gauge if something was too artsy for general audiences but different so critics who watch too much of the same could enjoy it, or something slocky and simple with clichés that work for audiences as B movie fun but not for critical critic eyes. Nowadays, audience scores can be so divisive over stuff that mixes with some culture war or hot topic that it makes it hard for me to gauge shows. Critics sometimes, the last place i look, now are my first, but they tend to point fingers at some small issues i don't mind. SO lately it's a lot of judging material i guess how you should, with your own senses, but it sure does make selections a time-consuming endeavor which we solved by grouping up good material so you could work your way down lol.

All this is to say, I liked every episode so far, and discourse online was surprisingly like 90 % positive for a while, unlike the usual 30 % for stuff like this. It's inevitable even a perfect show, will gain traction from people not interested in the show, who watch it and hate it. If a show is bland enough to be liked by all, then the blandness will be the point of contention as a reason it's overrated. Thus, I wait for the bigger backlash and hope it never comes XD.