HBO’s Exact Copy of ‘The Walking Dead’ – Rolling Stone

among many I can give compliments HBO‘s The last of us is that it finally made me forget it was based on a video game.

This is not a jab at video games, but at the different and conflicting nature of gaming versus watching movies or TV. One is interactive, inviting you to turn the story into your actions; The other is asking you to get sucked into a certain story that you have no control over. Translating a concept from one medium to another isn’t easy, especially traveling the way from games to movies or shows, which is why so many of these mods are so terrible.

The last of us Despite this, the game has a reputation for being more “cinematic” than its counterparts, to the point where its cutscenes are as engaging as the gameplay itself. Set 20 years after the zombie apocalypse destroyed life on Earth as we know it, the film follows Joel, a taciturn and brilliantly violent loner, as he leads 14-year-old Ellie on a dangerous cross-country journey. Although there is an abundance of action as the pair are besieged by various threats, both human and non-human, the game is also packed with rich character, poignant drama, and even some comedy. Since HBO announced its plans to create a new We delay series, gamers have pointed to as one that will finally remove the stigma associated with game adaptations, perhaps helping along the way legitimize the concept of video games as non-gamer art.

The series was co-created by Neil Druckmann, one of the main brains behind the game, and Craig Mazin, who Chernobyl The miniseries was one of the best shows of 2019. The first episode, written by Druckmann and Mazin and directed by Mazin, feels like a tug of war between the two men, or perhaps just between the two mediums. There are extensions that only focus on Joel (played by Pedro Pascal from The Mandalorian) and his teenage daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) in the quiet hours before the zombie storm, and another later that shows what life has become for Joel and all the other survivors in 2023. Then there are the action scenes that Mazen shoots in POV style, as if we were suddenly on Twitch or YouTube watching someone Another is playing the game. There’s a drawn-out chase, for example, as Joel, Sarah, and Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) drive out of town with the carnage raging around them, and it’s hard to resist the feeling that you have to have a controller in your hand to choose which way they should turn next. .

This first episode is efficiently made and has some shocking moments. But as a non-player

, I didn’t come out of it to understand why so many of my friends were so excited to see this particular show come true. Despite this, two things happen quickly. The first is that Mazin and the other directors on the show stop trying to mimic the visual language of the game, so that when violence does occur, it feels like a filmed action sequence, rather than a level you’re not allowed to play yourself. Even in my younger years, I was at my best a button-up, and thus smiled at a scene in a later episode where we see a friend telling Ellie to push buttons when they’re both old.

Mortal Kombat II Arcade game for work. The second, and more important, development is that Druckmann and Mazin soon began to delve deeper into these characters, assembling such an impressive group of actors to play them,

The last of us He becomes at least as engrossed in his quiet moments as he is in his frightening ones – and arguably even more so when he’s just focused on who these people are rather than the dangers they’re fleeing from. In many ways, the show is a triumph of typecasting. Once again, Pedro Pascal plays a few-word action hero who has to lead a cute young consignment through hostile territory. A colleague joined him game of thrones Alum Bella Ramsey, and if Ellie is warmer and more playful than underage Stark house ally Lyanna Mormont, Ramsey plays a girl who had to grow up very early, and engage in a lot of violence, due to circumstances from the broken world around her. But even though they both play the kinds of roles they once did, they do it amazingly well; Both are compulsively watchable and likable almost instantly. Ramsey carries great emotional weight without apparent effort, but also brings plenty of lightness to what could otherwise be an oppressively bleak story. Although Ellie has lived her entire life in this terrible reality, she knows life before

The last of us Lean Henture / HBO Almost everyone is represented in this familiar and effective way. The third episode, for example, highlights the relationship between misanthropic, Bill’s doomsday prep, and social lover of finer things Frank. It’s hard to imagine two more obvious options to run than, respectively, Nick OffermanAnd Murray Bartlett . But it’s also hard to imagine two actors who could do it better – to make Bill and Frank feel fully lived, empathetic, and beautiful in the space of just one episode. which is a (admittedly very) frontrunner for Best TV Part of 2023.Melanie Lynskey

She appears for a while as the leader of a heavily armed militia, and a ruthless woman with the demeaning demeanor of a third grade teacher – aka the kind of duplicity she has displayed throughout her career, especially in

Yellow jackets . All of the cast – including Anna Torv as Joel’s partner Tice – serves as a handy shorthand for each character, so we can get to the emotional heart of things. Said episode is 76 minutes long, which is usually indicative of something slow and self-indulgent. Instead, he earns every one of those minutes, doing better precisely because of the amount of time we get to spend with Bill and Frank. And perhaps to compensate, the next one is only 46 minutes long. Regardless of individual length, none of the episodes feel welcomely outdated.This does not mean that

The last of us It aims to be a fine art. It’s basically smarter and better implemented the walking Dead

with higher production values , and a smaller, stronger crew. (I never had a problem with Andrew Lincoln, but the upgrade from him to Pedro Pascal in such a story can’t be overstated.) In this world, a zombie plague involves a race of mushrooms vanishing due to climate change, allowing the makeup team to create an entirely new and exciting genre. To worry about the undead, most of whom (referred to as “infected”) have fungus growing on parts or all of their bodies. It’s absolutely disgusting and scary.

walking dead He should have remained in such a place for at least half a season to justify the cost of building the set; Here, the characters spend about 10 minutes there before moving on. But the character work soon becomes so intense that there are long stretches without any injury, and the series never seems to lack dramatic tension or memorable incident. There’s at least one action sequence that struck me with the arrival of some zombies, because that episode so neatly laid out the conflicts between the various human characters involved. In that sense, the post-apocalyptic tale it can sometimes resemble — especially in standalone episodes like that of Bill and Frank, or flashbacks to Ellie and her best friend Riley exploring a shopping mall — is HBO Max’s great story.

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