“I'm taking a ride with my best friend” - The Last of Us on HBO (2023)

xp sounds like a Sarah Sherman sketch tbh

It IS formulaic, the video game is an extended riff on the escort mission video game trope, so at the end of every "chapter" you're going to see all the NPCs die or otherwise leave the narrative so the next chapter can begin with Joel and Ellie alone again.

y’all ever read Roadside Picnic, Dhalgren, things of that nature?

I don't think Dhalgren would make a very satisfying video game.

I don't feel like Joel and Ellie are invincible because I've only known these characters for a few hours of screen time, and we were introduced to Joel + Ellie + Tess who were together for two episodes of the five we've seen, and Ellie's already been bitten once. She just happens to be the magical child.

i kinda like the way the show operates in dialog with the conventions of video game plot, ephemeral "missions" and all. because in the game (which nb i have not played), joel and ellie are not invincible, and in fact die horribly dozens upon hundreds of times per playthrough. it's fun for me to think of the series as a compilation of all the successful playthroughs, and all the times that joel accidentally fell off a building are on the cutting room floor.

turns out every action movie ever made is just a cheater's speed run

I don't feel like Joel and Ellie are invincible because I've only known these characters for a few hours of screen time, and we were introduced to Joel + Ellie + Tess who were together for two episodes of the five we've seen, and Ellie's already been bitten once. She just happens to be the magical child.

unrelated, but i just learned that the actress who plays marlene (in the game and the show) also played alyx in the half-life series. mind blown!

Travels With Charley: Post-Apocalyptic Remix

huh - I hadn't thought of the (obvious) fact that the protaganists inevitably die horribly again and again in the game whereas that can never happen in a regular narrative, kind of an interesting difference narratively.

Any way didn't mean to harp on and on about the deaths. It's really more of a pacing/narrative construction thing than anything. Maybe I just wanted to see Ellie and Sam hang out a bit more, that was nice.

it's fun for me to think of the series as a compilation of all the successful playthroughs

the protagonists inevitably die horribly again and again in the game whereas that can never happen in a regular narrative, kind of an interesting difference narratively

This is literally the plot of "Edge of Tomorrow" - a film that was not adapted from a video game but borrows video game tropes. I am not a gamer (of this sort_ myself but I can see the same tropes nodded at in "Groundhog Day," "Ready Player One," and "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

Infinite tries to achieve a goal, frequent catastrophic disappointments, frequent tragedies - video game culture imports and adapts the preexisting epic and picaresque plot structures.

In a chicken/egg way I do believe that games and scripted entertainment and reality TV are on a collision course to eventually be all one type of product. Not sure exactly how this will play out but additional syntheses seem inevitable as long as the audience with disposable income is congruent with the audience for this sort of entertainment.

I re-watched Edge Of Tomorrow this weekend. It really deserves more love than it gets; I think it’s one of Tom Cruise’s best movies.

It's great, Cruise makes a surprisingly great loser (acting!).

Was it the New Yorker piece on "The Last of Us" that brought up the issue of dying and dramatic stakes? I think either Mazin or Druckmann note the dynamic of video games is indeed "dying" and again and again, and the same goes for NPCs who are killed again and again and then reset for another round. Of course that doesn't work in a TV show, and they apparently put a lot of thought into the depiction of violence (vs. the game's more ... generous approach to the same).

A funny easter egg that game people liked about this episode is that when Perry is killed by the big monster fungus, his death is a direct nod to the way Joel repeatedly dies to the monster in the game.

NPCs who are killed again and again and then reset for another round

Kinda the job description of a zombie tbf

xp the nymag piece by andrea long chu definitely brought up that issue

"Probably the most video gamey feeling part of it was Ellie scrambling through the infected horse"

I like this typo because of the specific alternate universe of video game tropes it imagines

lol I actually was like woah I missed the infected horse!

Which is the bad Romero sequel where they realize the zombies might be perfectly happy eating animals rather than people? "Survival of the Dead"?

"Groundhog Day," "Ready Player One," and "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

Bandersnatch

man that ending wrecked me
i think i hate the apocalypse, it’s TOO SAD

but yeah re characters dying each episode, i mean it’s hard to invest to have them go out like that each time but i like it for the reasons mh noted upthread

and realizing that lynskey’s character wanted henry so that she could kill sam in front of him and just yknow get down with her old testament self was *shudder* … i was glad to see her go at that point, nowhere to go but down from there

Just one more person saying "Edge of Tomorrow" has been underappreciated

Melanie Lynskey has been killing people since 1994, y'all

First episode of this was nice enough - did a good job of recreating the opening parts of the game (which is all I've played). I've been reticent about this because I mean, zombies AGAIN? But it seems to at least be trying a few new tricks at least.

I don't know if this is a problem with me and my dwindling attention span but I find a lot of American action-dramas like this a bit slow-going a lot of the time. Westworld was the first time I noticed this - lots of time being used so that caharacters can gaze into the middle-distance while dramatic music plays. I'm a busy man with things to do.

How do you get to be like the huge fungus monster guy who came out of the pit?

And why did he rip dude's head off I thought they were all just wanting to infect and assimilate?

boss level portobello has achieved sentience and is a reet nasty one

zombies AGAIN?

In your head
In your head
They're still biting

How do you get to be like the huge fungus monster guy who came out of the pit?

The game mythology is you get infected, then you go a little nuts, then you start to sprout, then you go full mushroom head, but if left alone for years or however long, the mushrooms cover your entire body in layers, making you pretty tough (in both senses). Why you would then turn into a rage monster, I have no idea. Maybe it was just mad to have been locked in the basement for so long.

there is def no thought put into it beyond “what if there was a really big guy,” this was the case with resident evil as well, it’s fine

lol for sure that was the case with Resident Evil games/movies.

Yup working backwards from the game developer incentive to make a "boss" style zombie enemy.

I was listening to the official podcast, and it provides a pretty fascinating glimpse into the choices they made for the show. For example, why Sam, who is not deaf in the game, is deaf in the show. As they point out, in the game you never spend any time with just Henry and Sam, it's always those two along with Ellie and Joel. So Mazin thought to himself, hmm, how do we distinguish the relationship between Henry and Sam so that it's not more or less replicating the parental dynamic of Ellie and Joel? Their decision was to make Sam deaf, to give their relationship a different sort of intimacy, but also one less reliant on standard chatter or banter.

And then the next step was to find an actor who worked for what they wanted to do, which as you might expect, was kind of tough. They needed a black actor between the ages of 8-11 who was smaller than Bella Ramsey (who is not big), fluent in ASL (which is not a sure thing at that age, and also not Black ASL, which is also a thing), who, at the end of all that, could also act. They were striking out everywhere, so much so that Mazin eventually had their casting person put out an open call over *Twitter*. They thought they would get dozens of responses, but apparently they got ... five.

I love this kind of nuts and bolts stuff that reveals just how much thought and work they put into this adaptation. On the game thread I posted a keynote from Neil Druckmann that was filmed right after the game came out in 2013, and it was similarly illuminating.

That's fascinating. And the actor they got was so good!

he was so good

Okay first two episodes were big standard zombie fare, E3 hooked me right in. I'm a fan now

I'm finding the podcast to lift the veil a little too much, like I'm reading along with the Cliff's Notes, which makes me feel dumb and lazy. I don't mind putting in some work when the text is as good as this is!

So big mushroom guy is called a "bloater" in the game. The normal path of infection is runner->clicker->bloater (as discussed above). Yes it's a pretty obvious addition that solves the need for the game to have some diversity in foes and additional challenges. Also, when the body dies, the fungus continues to consume the body and spread a bunch of spores, however the show eschews this aspect of reproduction for some reason (get rid of masks? honestly curious why...), which is weird because I'm unaware of a single cordyceps fungus that doesn't reproduce via spores! What's confusing to me is it's somewhat implied that spores are what got in the food supply (in the show), causing the initial spread, but it's not mentioned or depicted since. This omission has diminished the utility of bloaters as well. In the game, they actually throw spore bombs at you from a distance.

Honestly, if the game or film was to depict cordyceps in humans realistically, they'd be runners for a bit, and then kamikaze in a crowd of humans and their body would spontaneously sprout appendages that would explode in spores very quickly. Would be super gross, but probably manageable, preventing the pandemic as it is depicted in game and film.

if the game or film was to depict cordyceps in humans realistically

Yeah "realistically" isn't my favorite term when we are referring to murderous TV zombies.

How about "Non-Fun Fungals"?

"Shroomericans"?

"Sporesfans"?

"Shiitheads"?

"Those who have become Portabelligerent"?

Fun Guys

Fun Gals too!

In the game, they actually throw spore bombs at you from a distance.

OK, this is the one thing I am now desperate to see incorporated into the show. Does this happen while you're climbing up a rickety scaffolding that tilts back and forth and eventually gives way, or running across a pathway over a lake of molten lava?

Ha, no, you're stuck in a relatively small space, running around for cover.

Good essay about the fundamental differences between the game and show, for those interested:

https://www.vox.com/culture/23598009/prestige-tv-hbo-play-game-last-of-us

It's basically spoiler-free, but this part I think conveys the crux of it:

The strength of the story is wholly dependent on how you feel about its two main characters. The game’s special trick is that it doesn’t need to convince you of their relationship, because it gives you custody over it.

Take the events at Bill’s compound, which highlight two very different approaches. The show, operating from the prestige TV owner’s manual, must imagine Bill (Nick Offerman) as a fully realized human person, and basically succeeds. The only caveats are that Joel and Ellie are relegated to the episode’s margins and that Bill’s most colorful characteristic — his practical knowledge of shockingly sophisticated booby traps — is presented as a funny quirk, on par with his capable wine pairings.

In the game, Bill and his traps are part of the same bravura set piece: a series of close calls in which Joel increasingly relies on Ellie. On your way to meet Bill you stumble, as Joel, into a snare trap that hoists you 10 feet into the air upside down, your POV flipped. As Ellie attempts to cut you loose, a wave of infected appear. You’re out of reach — but she’s not. They sprint to her. Your heart in your ears, you force yourself to adjust to this new position and dispatch the fungified threats to your surrogate daughter with a wobbly 9mm.

Those five minutes make a masterclass of the game’s major modes: improvisation, disorientation, and dread. They also hint at an advantage inherent to the medium. In the game, Ellie’s survival is structural: you literally can’t go on without her. In the show, you merely expect her not to die. Death is the hallmark of any honest tour through post-apocalyptic America, and the game knows how to leverage it in ways the show cannot. There are, to be sure, dozens of deftly written and consistently grim cutscenes over the game’s roughly 15-hour runtime. But so much of its lingering power transmits through lightly scripted gameplay, and the constant low-grade suspense elicited any time you point Joel’s flashlight or pull his trigger. Even moments of relative peace or boredom feel freighted with anticipation, like when you rummage through a drawer for supplies and find a letter instead, or when you gingerly step through the rubble of a bombed-out metro station.

I've also been learning more about the gaming concept of “ludonarrative dissonance," of which "Last of Us" has played a major part of the discourse.

Anyway, psyched for another episode!

Good article, thanks! I got a PS5 in December (my previous console was an Xbox360) for 2 main reasons: to have an Ultra-HD disc player and to play TLOU. I completed Part 1 about a month ago, and Part 2 about a week ago; both destroyed me, emotionally - no other games have come anywhere close, regarding emotional impact (although I don't play a ton of games, maybe 2 a year on average).
Yes to "improvisation, disorientation, and dread" - the dread in both TLOU games hit me like very few movies have ("The Wages of Fear" and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" come to mind) and it's sustained for long periods of time. Other factors in the game vs. TV show experience:
** Feeling of accomplishment from the game (puzzle solving, or defeating a tough enemy)
** Relationship building - you're spending dozens of hours with these (fictional) people. I'm reminded of the study about friendships that said it takes 40-60 hours to form a "casual friendship". When playing as Joel, Ellie will help out during combat situations, and you're thinking "aw, thanks for stabbing that guy, kiddo, that's sweet of you." I'm also reminded of Bioshock Infinite, where Elizabeth constantly is giving you money or ammo that she finds.
** 1st person empathy (playing as a character, not just viewing), to understand irrational or unethical behavior - taken to its extreme in Part 2, particularly. Spoilers: there's the "trolley problem" ethical dilemma aspect of Part 1, and we see the flip side of that dilemma more in depth in Part 2, and morally ambiguous behavior (e.g. killing Abby's father, rather than maybe just tying him up or knocking him out? Or Ellie killing Owen and Mel, kinda of out of self-defense but not really because she was the instigator and would have killed them even if they cooperated?) from people we want to root for.

When the zombiepocalypse comes, I am really hoping that at least some people will still be choosy about wine pairings. We are not savages, after all.

goddamn mushroom zombie show making me cry all the goddamn time wtf

when all of the monkeys were roaming freely outside the labs I thought Bruce Willis and Madeline Stowe were gonna show up

bring on twitchy brad pitt

I did enjoy the kids at the movie showing looking only semi-enthused. anybody born after 2003 has no frame of reference for movies made about normal lives they never had.

what was the movie they were watching?