Originally released for the PlayStation 3 in 2013, The Last of Us became one of the biggest hits in the history of the PlayStation brand, which made the title also reach the PlayStation 4 in remastered form and the PlayStation 5 with a remake.
Developed by Naughty Dog, the game gained a sequel that ended up surpassing its accomplishments. The Last of Us Part II had a better reception than its predecessor among critics and most gamers, becoming the most awarded game in history.
To expand the franchise into other media, Sony teamed up with HBO in the quest to “break the curse of game adaptations”, taking to the field of series a work that already had a great focus on narrative. As always, HBO’s production lavished quality in many technical aspects, but unfortunately fell short in pace and time to decide how much it wanted to be faithful to the original content.
The loyalty that is not defined
Fans of the game developed by Naughty Dog certainly find many extremely faithful moments in the HBO series, with production reproducing in new media exactly what had been seen previously in the game. Such a point is positive when you interpret that if something went extremely well, it is not necessary to change or cut it, right?
However, the extreme fidelity of The Last of Us is lost in some moments in which the adaptation tears up what was seen in the original content and decides to walk with its own feet in a drastic way. It is important to remember that an adaptation can always find room for changes and innovations, following all, not everything works in different media and certain ideas can become even better with the right strokes.
The problem here is that adaptation delivers a very strong contrast between being faithful or not, and often this difference ends up presenting great difficulty to fit in general. To the same extent that episodes make great use of the original content and others use the general idea with great changes, other episodes seem to present cuts and go down a path that doesn’t fit with the rest of the pace of the show, which can make it less interesting. or even take away the impact and importance of different moments.
The series can’t find its rhythm
In this scenario that presents a conflict between being or not being faithful, HBO is already setting traps once morest itself to find it very difficult when it comes to finding an interesting rhythm for its adaptation. While the difference proposed by the undefined fidelity takes the pace of production by itself and makes you not really know what to expect, other elements and questionable decisions end up aggravating the problem that becomes the biggest stumbling block of the series.
During its nine episodes, The Last of Us does not seem to be able to define what kind of series it wants to be, and in many moments it approaches a patchwork or a kind of “best moments”. Delivering many scenes that work on their own and have a lot of quality, the series sees these same positive moments losing strength due to the content as a whole. One gets the feeling that, in general, the work is very rushed and fails to develop the material it presents well, which includes the outcome of characters and other events that should have more weight on the screen.
A good example of The Last of Us’ lack of rhythm is precisely one of its best episodes. The third episode of the season, focused on Bill, has an exquisite and extremely powerful script, capable of moving and impacting the audience with its final minutes, following the adaptation delivered an excellent development of characters and relationships. However, the episode seems to function as a spin-off, something derivative, which does not fit with the rest either because it does not contribute to the advancement of the main plot or because it presents narrative characteristics and other elements completely different from the rest of the episodes.
In this episode we also see the conflict between wanting to be a faithful adaptation or not, as the show might have maintained the expansion of content that it did around Bill and also found a way to link everything to the rest of the plot, but it chose to follow a path that doesn’t seem to make much sense and ends up moving this arc away from the main plot.
The lack of action and urgency
The Last of Us was never just regarding infected, it’s true. Naughty Dog’s game has always had the narrative as one of its main points, a narrative that even served to make a plot that had everything to be quite generic and cliché in the genre much more interesting.
However, it is not possible to deny that part of the success of The Last of Us is also due to the fact that the title presents a great deal of tension, action and urgency during Joel Ellie’s journey. It is certainly impossible to bring to a series the same type of action that we see in a video game, since part of that is due to the gameplay, but the adaptation fails to undo all its tension in a questionable way.
The infected are completely sidelined for most of the season, and the sense of urgency is practically non-existent. However, we must remember that Joel and Ellie’s journey is only happening because they both believe that the girl can be the cure for humanity, which means that the decision to almost completely discard the threat of the infected takes the impact of the journey. and diminish its importance.
In addition to the series lacking moments with infected solely due to the fact that a little more action and tension would be great for the overall pacing, the decision also ends up taking much of the urgency out of Joel and Ellie’s journey, with the adaptation losing its chance. to demonstrate how much their journey is necessary for humanity as a whole… the infected do not seem like a threat that makes the risks of the journey justified.
Great performances and other successes
Although Joel and Ellie from the game are still the definitive versions of the characters, the series delivers great performances. Pedro Pascal managed to find the necessary tone to be Joel and once more did a standout job in his career, while Bella Ramsey had more problems with her character. The young actress gives a show of acting and shows that she is one of the most promising names today, however the script does not seem to contribute to Ramsey being Ellie in fact, with the character being less charismatic here than she is in the game.
Just as the rest of the cast also delivers top performances, The Last of Us still sees hits that have become standard in HBO productions, including directing. Special effects and makeup once more deliver the apex we see on television, which is quite evident in the few highlights for the infected.
the verdict
With moments of brilliance like episodes 3 and 5, The Last of Us squanders its potential by stumbling in its pace. Without defining whether it was looking for extreme fidelity or its own path, the adaptation is lost when it delivers questionable script decisions.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are brilliant, and are accompanied by a great cast, but see their performances affected by the difficulty that the production has to develop moments that should be much more impactful.
Use: 6/10
