The Last of Us - Part 1

[Fero McPigletron]

Well, that's the finale. They had budget for a tall monster!

From what I remember, they tried to cross a water area and kinda drowned but got rescued, which is different from what happened here.

Even with the game, I swear, I would have done it differently.

 

[The Predaking]

I loved that episode! I only have an issue with it just ending. No cliffhanger, no problems to solve, and they haven't even made it back to the commune. Joel going beast mode on the fireflies, that apparently can't aim, was great! Although, did he pick up an M14 and the magazine from the AR15? Cause those don't work together. I freaking loved the flashback scene! Although, if the infected are blind how did that one know where to go find Elle's mom?

 

[Fero McPigletron]

Hey, yeah, she wasn't making that much noise. Her groans of pain are probably blocked by the door anyhow.

Actually, I've been very queasy about how brutal Joel (and Ellie) could get, since the previous episode with the preacher and his men. It was a bit too much, for a 'good guy'. But it is what it is.

As far as I remember, the ending was exactly the same as the game. Even the lying part. Would have been funny if they included a dream sequence alternate choice but naaaaah.

 

[Pocket]

I just had a horrifying thought.

This isn't over, is it.

There's no way the own-fart-huffing morons at Naughty Dog were going to let their baby get made into a TV show unless they also agreed to cover the events of the horrible sequel. Especially not after they insisted on rebranding the rerelease of the first game "Part I", something even movies with good sequels almost never do.

 

[The Predaking]

Was the sequel that bad?

 

[Caldwin]

Yes

 

[Pocket]

I haven't seen any footage firsthand (the Super Best Friends broke up before it came out), but from what I've heard, it's like if a bunch of fans who completely missed the point of the first game created a fangame that somehow got picked up and published. Despite the fact that it was, as far as I know, the product of the same creative team as the first game.

Which, I mean, it wouldn't be the first time; that's kind of how I'd describe BioShock Infinite too.

 

[The Predaking]

Bioshock had such a great story, smooth gameplay, and some fun minigames, that they got to make two crappy sequels to it. Which then Ken Levine fired off his entire company while raking in sales on the third game, so would you kindly not bring up that game again.

 

[Caldwin]

Season 1 is now available on iTunes and Amazon Prime. I get paid Friday so I'll probably check it out then.

 

[The Predaking]

It is definitely worth a watch. The wife and I really enjoyed it.

 

[Pocket]

Season 1 is now available on iTunes and Amazon Prime. I get paid Friday so I'll probably check it out then.

I'm still not on board with DRM- and platform-locked digital media, but I'm glad they're making it available to "purchase" in some form rather than keeping it exclusive to their streaming platform (until such time as it gets delisted and becomes exclusive to nowhere, just like all the Cartoon Network shows).

 

[Caldwin]

I would've preferred physical media. But that's a conversation that I've had ad nauseam lately. I just want to see in whole what so far I've only been able to see in bits with other peoples reaction videos.

 

[Caldwin]

I went ahead and got the first episode to watch off of Amazon Prime. i'll get the rest of the season tomorrow when I get paid. So let's start this.

Spoiler: Episode 1

It was actually prettier good. Different medium focuses on different bits, but they hit a lot of the same beats.

There is a different kind of feel between Sarah dying when you've been the one to play her for the past half hour and seeing someone else play her out on the screen. But all and all, it was a good first episode. Only dissapointment maybe was that Marlene took out Robert instead of Joel/Tess. In the game it was a rather brutal moment, but really shows how well Joel and Tess work together.

Over all though, good episode.

 

[Caldwin]

Spoiler: Episode 2

Well, the museum was pretty intense. I think it's a real testament to whoever came up with the sound of the clickers that, even knowing how this story turns out, just hearing one of those things made me shudder.

In the capitol building where they were supposed to meet up with the Fireflies: game/show difference, in the game it was Fedra soldiers who had them surrounded, not clickers. The wording of what Tess tells Joel to get him to leave her was different, but the message was the same. "Guess what, Joel, we're shitty people.

She also didn't tell them to go to Bills. She told them to go to Tommy's, because in the game Joel knew full well how to find him. They were simply alienated from each other. Bill was Joel's idea on a way to get transportation to get to Tommy.

I think I prefer the game's way how that played out. It was another example of how people were the real monsters. But over all, it was another good episode. That museum part was hugging intense!

 

[Caldwin]

Spoiler: Episode 3

Okay, differences. In the game, Bill and Frank had a falling out. Bill was still alive when Joel and Ellie found him. They later come across Frank who's hanging from a noose in his home because he'd be bitten and didn't want to turn. If you look around, you can find a not so kind note from Frank.

Well, Bill

I doubt you'd ever find this note cause you were too scared to ever make it to this part of town. But if for some reason you did, I want you to know that I hated your guts. I grew tired...

If you have Joel give Bill the letter, Bills response was "That's how you feel. Well hug you too."

Sooooo, no romantic mutual-suicide thing...which as someone who's had suicidal thoughts in the past and is now on anti-depressants, I take issue with romanticizing. I understand Frank was terminal from some undisclosed illness. But Bill...not so much. In the game, there was no romanticizing Frank's suicide. It was someone who was bitten and desperate. Look, I just can't get into it. But how that whole bit ended was not good.

Also, because Bill is now dead, there were some important conversation bits that were in the game.

Okay, so Ellie has a gun. In the game, she didn't have a gun until Joel allowed it (and he did eventually allow it...finally).

 

[Caldwin]

Spoiler: Episode 4

Ellie needs to learn that gun is not a toy.

Okay, the bit with the magazine in the truck was spot on shot-for-shot like the game.

Ellie doesn't like coffee? She and I are enemies now.

The part where Ellie saves Joel by shooting the guy is a case of "same scene, different location." And the guy wasn't alive enough to plead for his life afterwards.

I also don't know who this Kathleen is. But in the game, Henry was trying to meet up with his group. We never see the group. But there was certainly nothing to connect Henry with the group that ambushed Joel and Ellie.

Nice moment with Joel teaching Ellie the correct way to handle a gun. I mean, in a non-post-apocalyptic world you wouldn't want to have to teach a kid that. But here, he trusts her now but wants to make sure she kn how to not hurt herself. It wasn't a part in the game, but it's a nice moment.

Oh! A bit of realism here. Joel is hard of hearing in his right ear because of a life time of shooting. Not too many movies/shows that actually seem to realize...guns are loud!

And Joel laughs!

And here's Sam and Henry. But it's getting late. I'll have to save the next episode for some other time.

So there were some breaks from the game and even some parts that were in the game were given different context. Still, that's bound to happen in any story that Changs medium. It's a pretty good episode, and we finally see full on a group that proves that humans can be just as bad as the zombies.

I'm torn about watching the next episode. I like Henry and Sam...but I know how it ends.

 

[Pocket]

Regarding Bill and Frank: big oof there, both for the reason you're describing, and because Bill's arc was one of my favorite parts of the game. I might have already gone through this in the thread we had on the old forum so apologies if I'm repeating myself. This is a zombie survival game. And as fun as those can be, they tend to have the stink of power-fantasy for survivalist types. You know, the people who hoard supplies and weapons in their basement and secretly (or not so secretly) long for the day when it all goes to hell so they can hole up and become the Last Man Standing. And if the hell it happens to go to involves a zombie plague, then they even get the opportunity to personally mow down all those pesky fellow humans they always resented sharing a planet with, 100% guilt free because they're not even human anymore, woohoo!

...I'm not fond of those kinds of people.

And when they show up in zombie media, they're pretty much always portrayed positively. If not as one of the heroes, then as someone they're glad they ran into. But in The Last of Us, you have Bill, who has turned his hometown into an obstacle course of traps that are just as likely to kill you (or any other hapless human survivor who wanders into town) as one of the zombies, isn't happy to see a familiar face, and only helps you because it's the easiest way to get rid of you. But there is one person in the entire world he had feelings for. Feelings that might have been what kept him going. And when he discovers that person is gone, he finally shows some human emotion. Not just grief, but likely guilt, since Frank would probably still be alive if Bill hadn't been so stubborn and insisted on staying when Frank wanted to leave. Even his response to seeing the note feels like a façade. You don't get over being sad about a dead loved one just because they were snippy with you in their final moments.

So now it's just him, and the two of you, and the truck that's your ticket out of that hellhole, the truck that Frank died trying to get his hands on, and for a moment it even looks like he's decided to come along for the ride. But then he tells you to stop and let him out. Even after all that, he'd still rather go back to his empty life, his empty home, his empty town. Whether he genuinely wants to die alone or is just too afraid of being emotionally vulnerable to speak up, it just hammers home how pathetic and/or pitiable this lone wolf really is. And Joel, for his part, doesn't broach the subject either, and I think we're supposed to get the sense that what's wrong with Bill is also wrong with him. And that, if not for what was to ensue, Joel would end up the same way.

It's both a one-act tragedy and a brilliant deconstruction of the archetype, and it majorly sucks that the show decided to chuck all that out the window. What was even the point of turning this into a TV show if not to take the best moments of writing that translate equally well to non-interactive media and bring them to a new audience?

 

[Caldwin]

LoU is not a game that pulls punches.

Umm...first two minutes of episode 5...dayum!

Also, yeah, I'm doing a bunch of "in the game this, in the show that" simply because I know that some people here *coughferocough* either haven't played the game or have dim memories of it. It's mostly so they can know what some of the differences are (though it's probably not an exhaustive list). I'm not judging either way...in most cases.

Spoiler: Episode 5

Okay, I thought Kathleen was a bit vengeance obsessed in the last episode. But just the first few moments of her speech to these people...she's hugging psycho!

Just getting this out of the way right here. In the game, Sam was not mute.

Dang, I love Henry and Sam. I hate knowing how it's going to end. But it's nice to see their story fleshed out from before meeting up with Joel and Ellie.

Joel: That's your great plan?
Henry: No, that's my dicey as hug plan. But as far as I can tell, it's the only shot.

Great line. Going to just put that there so I can remember where it comes from.

Wow! They have Ish's underground community. I was expecting they'd have to cut a lot out if they were going to make it into a single episode. But it rocks that they kept this in...at least in some form.

Huh! No infected in the tunnels? Now that is a huge thing that was in the game. There were infected in the tunnels and for a time, Joel had to team up with Sam and Henry had to team up with Ellie because they got separated. Yeah, I was fully expecting that some things would have to be taken out. That is a huge lift though.

Oh..sniper from the window...I absolutely hated this part of the game...because in the game, the sniper did not have "jive aim."

Dude! Joel had the drop on you. He was giving you a chance! Are all survivors so stupid?

Now you see, in the game that was a tank and it had someone pop out of the top with (if I remember right, grenades or Molotovs or something like that. You shot the guy and the tank exploded. I loved that bit. Much more impressive than simply shooting the driver.

Ho...ly...jive! In the game, there were humans and there were zombies. But...that's a crap ton of zombies!

Okay...in the game, the Bloater was introduced in a highchool gym. I think Bill was still with you at that point. Putting it here...I don't know that it's any more or less scary...because damn, it's scary both ways. But...umm...bloater!

Dang! child clicker is creepy AF!

Okay...that whole scene was intense. Scuse me while I go change my shorts!

Okay, like I said before, Sam wasn't mute in the game. But this conversation of being scared did happen in the game. Different actress for Ellie, different reading of the lines. But yeah. It happened.

Okay, in the game, Sam did not show Ellie his bite. She told him she was scared about ending up alone. He told her about being scared of becoming one of those things and wondering if they're still the same people inside. Then it got into whether or not Ellie believed there was a heaven. Then she left to go to her own sleeping place. It wasn't until after she left that he showed the bite to the camera (the player).

This thing of Ellie trying to help with her blood and staying the night was a huge risk...one she didn't take in the game. She never knew he was infected until she tried to wake him up the next morning for breakfast. Just...damn!

The morning bit with Henry and the gun and the suicide...that was very much shot for shot.

It wasn't any easier to watch in the game.

The burial wasn't in the game. After Henry shoots himself and Joel reacts, it cuts to the next chapter. This...I actually think it's a damn good addition...especially Ellie's reaction.

Damn, that was gut-wrenching.

 

[Caldwin]

Spoiler: Episode 6

Okay, the couple in the shack at the beginning, not in the game. But a damn good addition.

"Must've missed all the street signs in the enormous ******* forest." Holy hell, I love this kid!

Uh, no river of death in the game. Sooooo...huh! Nothing. Anticlimactic.

Oh, giving the kid alcohol. Nice, Joel.

Hah! "Still gross." I mean, yeah, having played the Left Behind DLC, I know what that's in reference to. But I have to imagine Joels like, "what now?"

Also in the game, Winter didn't start until the David chapter.

Okay, in the game Joel actually did try to explain how the dam worked...and Ellie called him out on having no idea. So it's kinda humorous that here he said not to even ask because he had no idea and Ellie said she would've believed him. Cute.

Huh! In the game, Joel and Ellie actually made it across the Dam and to the gate of the community before seeing anyone. Then Tommy's wife pulled a gun and then Tommy showed up. So...no horses coming out to meet them like in the show. The dog was a nice piece of suspense, though.

Ah family reunions can be so awkward!

Okay...not being a female, I had to google "last of us gift that Maria gave Ellie" because I had no idea WTF that was...and...umm...yeah, very important gift in a post-apocalyptic world. Not something you normally think about watching these shows. I...have no idea what else to say about this so I'm just going to move on.

Oh my! This is probably the first movie Ellie's ever seen. Wow! Even the peaceful episodes are poignant.

Wow! In the game, Joel tells Tommy that Elly's immune and tries to push her off on him. But this total breakdown he's having was not in the game. And holy hell! This is a gut punch!

This conversation between Joel and Ellie is probably my most...I hate to say favorite because dang, it's a gut punch. But it's a hell of a moment. In the game, Ellie steals a horse and runs away. Joel and Tommy catch up to her in an abandoned house where they have this conversation. I can see why if they had to condense things though, it would be a lot easier to do it this way.

Damn! Some of the lines were changed...but that had every bit of the emotion. Just...damn! It's a real testament to the material when you absolutely know what's going to happen right down to the lines...but it still packs a hell of a punch! They changed some of the lines and the circumstances, but they did this scene proud. Just...damn!

It's good that they left with Joel and Tommy on a good note.

Oh, the part where Joel teaches Ellie to shoot the rifle...okay...in the game, Ellie had already shot the rifle by this point. It was what made Joel concede to giving her a gun. That said...I love the moment. If in this world, children that young have to carry a gun to survive, it's a good thing that they learn the proper way to use it. So...yeah, good addition.

So much of the music is straight from the game. Absolutely love it.

Okay, in the game, they were still in a building and Joel and another guy went over a balcony and Joel landed on rebar. Then it was a slow walk out with Ellie having to do a lot of the shooting. Here he got stabbed with a splintered wooden bat. It gets us to the same point, but it's been really condensed.

Where they ended the episode is where they cut to black in the game before starting the Winter chapter. So...yeah. Talk about your cliff hangers.

Okay, so I have three more episodes to go. But I'm calling it now, I think this is probably going to be my favorite episode.

 

[Caldwin]

Spoiler: Episode 7

The game (well, for this episode, it's actually DLC), didn't go into a normal day at the school. It started with Riley sneaking in and waking Ellie up. However, there was a comic book "The Last of Us: American Dreams." I haven't read it in a while and don't remember much. But it also into Ellie's days at the academy before "Left Behind" happened. I'm guessing this is taking some cues from that.

They're vastly expanding on this, but in a good way. I like how they're going into the relationship here.

Okay, escalator, not in the game. But it was damn cute!

Lingerie shop, not in the game. There was a halloween mask shop though that you could interact with a bunch of stuff.

Carrousel, definitely in the game.

Picture both, absofreakinglutely in the game. In the game the booth was crapped out when it tried to print the pictures though.

Arcade, it was in the game but none of the games where working and Ellie closed her eyes while Riley described playing the game to her. And it was a legally distinct "please don't sue us" kind of Mortal Kombat game that wasn't Mortal Kombat.

Yeah, they are being pretty loud. Not very smart.

Argument, kinda in the game...but with different lines pretty much leading up to the same thing.

Okay, so they did put in the halloween mask shop. Nice!

And the dancing...even used the same song. They freaking nailed this.

In the game, there was more than one zombie and it was a bit of a chase. But this actually worked better for the show. Different media, different needs.

This point between Ellie and Riley where they're discussing their "options." Almost word for word. Little differences here and there, but for the most part, word for word, shot for shot. Damn!

In the game, Joel and Ellie were a mall, not too dissimilar to the one Ellie and Riley were in. It would have a scene of Ellie trying to find medicine in the mall and then a scene with Ellie and Riley. Ellie actually did find an actual suture needle in a crashed plane/helicopter (I forget which). Here it looks like she's using a sewing needle and thread. Not exactly the best option, but I guess in the apocalypse, you use what you can find.

Oh geeze, they go into detail on the sewing. *wince*

*shudders*

Okay, I'm going to take a small breather and I'll get onto the next episode. But...wow. Just that one episode...emotionally draining, I don't mind saying.

There were some differences here and there. But over all, they stayed very faithful to the DLC...a lot of it shot for shot. I honestly can't believe just how faithful they were to it. Amazing! But yeah...I need a breather.