The gradual rise of the gaming industry over the years has stunned both the cinema and television industries. Video games, once seen as “children’s entertainment”, now have a larger consumption and market share than both the film industry and the music industry. For this reason, many TV series and movie studios adapt successful games to the screen as TV series or movies.
However, of course, not every movie adaptation of the game is successful. Numerous fiascos in the past, such as Alone in the Dark (2005), Max Payne (2008) and Assassin’s Creed (2016), caused a decrease in interest. However, players who have seen the game adaptations that have attracted attention recently, especially with The Witcher and Cyberpunk Edgerunner, have started to give the re-adapted content a chance.
The Last of Us is exactly the work of this generation!
Naughty Dog’s successful game The Last of Us actually aimed to be one of the first “next generation” game series after The Witcher. However, the release date of the series was slightly delayed due to the disruptions and delays in the shooting. The series, whose first episode was broadcast last week, met with the audience on BluTV in our country and received great acclaim both in our country and globally. Of course, there were some criticisms about the series and especially the characters, but the vast majority described the series as “the same as the game” or even “better than the game”.
We compared some scenes in The Last of Us series with the scenes in the game for you. Let’s see if the series is really “the same game”?
Warning: There are plenty of spoilers for both The Last of Us series and the first game in the rest of the article.
HBO knows this business: Sarah’s gift
Perhaps one of the parts where the series differed most clearly from the game was the starting sequence. While we enter the story directly from the scene where Joel comes home from work in the evening in the play, we get to know Joel, Sarah and Tommy a little better in the series. We see the scene where Sarah gives a gift to her father after this little sequence, which contains details that will especially please those who play the game.
I think it was a good choice for them to put this scene without changing it until the lines. For those who did not play the games, it could have been a beautiful scene in any way, but for the players who played TLOU Part 1 and watched the series, changing this critical scene could cause negative prejudices about the series.
Could have been more impressive: First contact with the infected
Our next scene is based on Joel, Sarah and Tommy’s first contact with the infected “runners”. In the game, Joel kills his neighbor with a gun to protect his daughter, and later, with Tommy’s arrival, the two of us leave their home.
In the series, the events were handled a little differently and we watched Joel save Sarah after meeting her neighbor. For the first time in both the game and the show, we saw Joel “fight” with the infected, but in the show, Joel’s attacking his neighbor with a wrench was definitely not as effective as attacking his neighbor with a gun in the game. Many actors who watch the series also think that this scene should remain as it was in the original. Also, the scene where Sarah encounters her infected neighbor resembles the encounters in classic zombie movies. That’s way too cliché.
The scene where the show throws a stone at the game: Car escape and accident
This sequence is almost exactly the same as the game, where we see how the “zombie”-infested town is plunged into chaos and Joel and Sarah’s struggle to escape from this chaos. Especially the camera angles, dialogues, conveying the tension of the characters and the situation of the town fascinate many viewers in this scene.
We could clearly see the vehicle that hit us in the accident scene in the game, but the main focus at that moment in the series was the explosion of the crashing plane. Of course, since we see this scene from the focal point of the characters, we can understand that Tommy, Joel and Sarah were focusing on the crashed plane and therefore did not see the incoming vehicle. In addition, it is a fact that the falling plane scene, which is not in the game, conveys the chaos very well. At this point, we have to say that the escape and accident scenes are more impressive than the scene in the real game.
Joel’s breaking point: Sarah’s death
This sequence, which is the most striking place in the first minutes of the game, radically changes Joel’s life. Our main character tries to get her daughter Sarah out of the chaos by carrying her in her arms as her wrist is broken, but is stopped by a FEDRA soldier. Although Joel and Sarah are not infected, the soldier shoots to kill them and the bullets unfortunately find Sarah.
Since this scene is given as dramatic and striking as possible in the game, the HBO production team did not change this scene and put it in the series as it is. According to many actors, this scene is one of the two biggest breaking moments of both the show and the play. For this reason, the actors were very pleased with the successful and accurate transfer of the scene to the series.
Scenes where the series and the game start to separate from each other: Quarantine Zone
When we first transition into present-day scenes of the show, we learn of Joel and his “partner” Tess’ plans to escape the Quarantine Zone. At this point, Tess’s beating but taking revenge and being alone in the attack of the Fireflies separates the series from the game. However, seeing Tess alone and taking a look at her story shows us that Tess will be a long-term companion instead of a supporting character in the game.
In the scene where Joel and Ellie meet for the first time, it is remarkable that Ellie attacks Joel much more ruthlessly than in the game. At this point, it is not difficult to predict that Ellie in the series will be much more rebellious and aggressive than in the game. Although the scene is a little different compared to the game, it serves its purpose very successfully and beautifully conveys the departure of two characters who do not like each other at all.
One of the iconic scenes of the game and the series: Joel is killing time.
When the first game of The Last of Us was released in 2013, some scenes in the game became iconic and became a “meme” on the Reddit forums. One of these scenes was the “time killing” conversation between Joel and Ellie. In fact, Neil Druckmann, who prepared the story of the play, stated that he intended this scene to be dramatic, but strangely, he enjoyed making it a meme.
In the series, we see this scene exactly the same, down to the lines and the way Joel goes to bed.
End of first episode: Escape from Quarantine Zone.
In this scene, which is one of the last scenes of the first episode, our characters were secretly trying to escape from the quarantine zone, but were caught by FEDRA (Federal Disaster Response Agency) soldiers. In this scene in the play, Joel, Ellie and Tess were catching two FEDRA soldiers and calling in reinforcements. Later, Ellie stabbed the FEDRA soldier and there was confusion. The character’s little secret was revealed, and then our characters continued on their way by overcoming the incoming support forces.
In the series, this part is a little different. While the trio of Joel, Ellie and Tess were trying to get out of the quarantine zone, they were caught by a FedRA soldier who we knew Joel was doing business with. Just like in the game, Ellie was stabbing the soldier. However, in this scene we see Joel’s main motivation for attacking the soldier. Remembering his daughter’s death, Joel, without a second’s hesitation, jumped on the FEDRA soldier and punched the soldier, leaving him to be fed with a straw.
At this point, we saw that the scene in the series was much more striking than the one in the game and that a father-daughter relationship would develop between Joel and Ellie in the future, as in the game. At this point, I think Joel will accept Ellie much faster than the game and try to protect her more in their adventures.
So how consistent is the first episode overall?
The first episode, which is about the first hour of the game, despite some character choices and minor changes in the story, was liked by many viewers who played or did not play the first game. It is a great success that the series not only makes the players happy by sticking to the original story, but also connects the audience who are not related to the games.
Of course, it should not be forgotten that this is a series and there will be many extra adventures compared to the story of the game, which ends in about 17 hours. In other words, it is possible to encounter scenes that are not in the game but are consistent with the story of the game in the following episodes. The fact that Neil Druckmann, who wrote the story of the first two games, is also a writer in this series is proof of this.
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