The series “The Last of Us” – why you should expect a failure. Everything we know about the filming of The Last of Us at a glance

“People joke about the apocalypse as if there is no future…”

In 2003, the world was struck by a monstrous fungal infection. Spores entered humans through the airways and began to grow, turning the carriers into something between a zombie and a mutant. The further the infection went, the more the body and habits changed. Small groups of survivors settled in towns and villages, somehow cleared the territory of spores and started life anew.

At the same time, monsters and mushrooms have not disappeared. You could be infected by a bite or through the air, so most infrastructure and settlements had to be bypassed or made short flights with gas masks. The surviving scientists tried in vain to find a vaccine, and civilization bounced back so much that cannibalism and archery became commonplace.

A typical trip to the store in 2023A typical trip to the store in 2023

The main character, Joel, is a 50-year-old man who deals in smuggling. He is one of the few who dares to go to the most remote and dangerous places for medicines, weapons and other household items. From the beginning of the epidemic, the hero managed to lose his daughter and in general did not value his life too much, and in the post-apocalypse people are ready to give everything for an interesting book, toilet paper and a can of canned food .

One day, Joel is offered an unusual contract – to secretly lead a girl named Ellie through the deposits of the army and bandits. During the sortie, the final destination turns out to be much further than expected. An elderly smuggler and a teenager have been roaming the country for nearly a year.

You have to give the makeup artists their due.You have to give the makeup artists their due.

The plot seems banal, but all its beauty is in the details. Game designer and screenwriter Neil Druckmann focused not on infections and monsters, but on people.

The game explored the psychology of humanity on the brink of extinction and individuals trying to survive in hostile conditions. It proved so terrifyingly believable that the project instantly became a living classic.

The Last of Us was released on the PlayStation 3 in 2013, and just a year later a remaster was released for the PlayStation 4. In 2022, the official remake for PS5 saw the light of day, pumping up the graphics and animations even more. To understand how The Last of Us sank into the souls of gamers, it is enough to know that each reissue became an instant hit in sales, and it was the same game.

“If you’re lost in the dark…find the light”

In March 2020, there was first talk about a possible film adaptation. At the time, few people knew what to expect, but now we have a trailer and tons of photos from the set.

The showrunner is Craig Mazin, best known for the great HBO miniseries Chernobyl. The choice of one of the leading directors, Kantemir Balagov, turned out to be a surprise. Despite his young age, he is known for his dramatic film festival works – for example, “Tylda” and “Closeness”.

Craig Mazin – showrunnerCraig Mazin – showrunner

Joel is played by Pedro Pascal. The Game of Thrones and The Mandalorian star are no stranger to adult man and child stories. Despite Pedro never bothered to launch The Last of Us in his own words, the trailer proved that the actor looks great in character. Bella Ramsey plays Ellie. Unfortunately, the girl bears little resemblance to the original prototype. Many fans are outraged by this cast, but we think it’s better to rate the acting.

There are also other characters in the trailer. Nick Offerman plays Bill, Joel and Ellie’s companion in Lincoln, and Anna Torv takes on the role of Tess, another smuggler. You could see the actress in the TV series Fringe. It is worth noting Joel’s brother – Tommy and the leader of the “Cicadas” – Marlene. Both are very important to the story. Gabriel Luna and Merle Dandridge will portray these characters. The former should be familiar to you from the TV series True Detective and the movie Terminator: Dark Fate, while the latter also voiced Marlene in the game. Overall, the cast seems successful. All actors are far from beginners, many have established themselves as real masters.

It is worth saying a few words about the visual style and general impressions of the trailer. We were shown several locations that partially overlap with the game. The series looks really cool – muted colors, lots of small details from the original and almost literal reproduction of some of the dialogue. Even Joel’s watch, his daughter’s latest gift, has been meticulously recreated.

Those hours in the series…Those hours in the series…

and in the gameand in the game

In one of the interviews, the creators confirmed that the events of the first season will reproduce the events of the game, but it is not entirely clear whether or not. However, we have some editing ahead of us, so there will be some scenes that weren’t in the original source, and familiar moments may change. It looks like the winter episode will be completely redone, leaving only the final twist. In the game, Ellie traveled alone through the snow, while in the trailer she is with Joel.

But the time jump was confirmed. In the series, the main events will take place in 2023, not 2013. Apparently, the creators have decided to hype the general panic of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s too early to talk about the atmosphere. Only the general mood can be felt in the two-minute trailer. And it fits the game perfectly. Music helps with that: the same song is played as in the passage as Ellie and Joel drive Bill’s pickup truck. By the way, the composer of the series is Gustavo Santaolalla (Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla) – he also wrote the music for the game.

what’s wrong with the series

There are a number of reasons why The Last of Us is far from the most anticipated series of the year. Let’s express an unpopular opinion, but the whole project is nothing more than a financial dummy. Everything the show can offer viewers is already shown in the game and it doesn’t look worse, maybe even better. More recently, a remake has been released, allowing fans to purchase the same game with slightly cooler graphics for a third time. There is a feeling that the series is attempt number 4.

Neil Druckman and showrunner’s guarantees of story expansion sound strange. If something was cut from the game and the final result was not affected, then it was insignificant. Artificially stretching the timing threatens boredom. Rather than a solid piece of work, five out of ten episodes may turn out to be fillers, where nothing but tear-jerking dialogue takes place. Of course it would be a mistake to turn the edit into an action movie, but there was plenty of action in the game. Does that make the story even dumber? No.

Actors are very similar to game characters for the most part, but it’s not clear why you should watch them if there is a source. The project is too new to get excited about how accurately Pedro Pascal reproduces Joel’s words.

Familiar locations look good, but their original appearance is easy to see in the game. Even the almost complete absence of computer graphics changes nothing. In The Last of Us, the infected are so detailed that if the makers of their models were inserted into the series, the difference would be imperceptible.

One of the subspecies of the infectedOne of the subspecies of the infected

It turns out that the main question to ask is why look at it? How is the app for the game? How incredible and original piece? The answer to everything is no. After the first trailer, it became clear that the plot will repeat the game plus or minus, which means that the main idea will not change, the defining events will remain, and the characters will retain familiar characters. Before us lies a high-quality copy, which will be damn hard to compete with the original.

The trailer flashed images referring us to: The last of us: left behind. In the DLC, Ellie showed her interest in girls for the first time. There is a scene where someone in a restaurant is holding a woman’s hand, and the role of Bill’s “partner” will be expanded. The conclusion suggests itself – apart from useless flashbacks and bows to sexual minorities, nothing new is to be expected.

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Perhaps the series will attract a new audience to the games, but even here it is impossible to say for sure. Has anyone never heard of The Last of Us series in 2022? Seriously? Unfortunately, the main audience of such a project is fans. If a person has successfully ignored one of the most important games of our time since 2013, it is unlikely that he will want to get acquainted with it after the release of the series.

I want to remember a recent movie that is based on another Naughty Dog series – Uncharted with Tom Holland (Thomas Holland) in the title role. The creators chose the correct vector and did not repeat the game. We got to see a young Nathan Drake and the plot was reinvented from scratch.

The situation with The Last of Us is different. It was possible to focus on Joel and his life since the beginning of the epidemic, make a prequel about Tommy, but alas. Spectators are once again offered to watch the dull “a gloomy man cares for an abandoned child” schedule. Once upon a time there was a pioneer in this formula. Now we have The Mandalorian, The Witcher and a host of other lesser known titles.

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The main thing that The Last of Us trailer does is prove to all fans that “we have everything like in the game.” But this is not enough to make the project really excel. We predict that the adaptation to originality will be desperately lacking. If we’re not mistaken (and we’d like to), the list of disappointments, which already includes Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, will be completed.

Are you looking forward to “One of Us”?