The Last of Us (series) on HBO Max: finally a good video game adaptation

I joined most of the world in collectively groaning at the atrocity that was the Resident Evil series released on Netflix in 2022. While I wasn't a huge fan of the games I had played one or two of them and thought it would be really neat to have some sort of a "slow burn" series that was in stark contrast to the all out slugfest that was the films with mostly Milla Jovovich. Those films were "ok" but at the same time they were crazily paced and were simply action films without much substance IMO.

I had high hopes for the series because it looked like Netflix was putting quite a bit of money into it but in the end it was the usual preachy social-justice girl-power anti-racism garbage that Netflix is thankfully starting to step away from. It was cancelled after a single season.

HBO is one of the few studios out there that hasn't truly bent the knee at any point as far as politicizing their content is concerned so when I found out that they were making a series based on a popular PlayStation game (that I have never played but watched it being played a few times) I was excited about it.

I have now seen a mere two episodes and I have to say that for the most part I am really impressed although there were a few silly moments that may have been necessary as far as sticking to the premise of the game was concerned but didn't make much sense as far as human decision making would be concerned.

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I just realized that the creator of Chernobyl was involved in this series as well and that is a good thing. I remember how lauded that series was at a time when HBO needed a hit badly since Game of Thrones had just ended after 8 seasons.

The Last of US isn't really a unique premise. It is quite common actually in that some sort of virus has attacked humanity making most of the population into zombie-like creatures. Thankfully, they are not the usual zombies like we have seen in so many other zombie-like films and series, but a faster, more varied, and more "intelligent" type of enemy that has to be dealt with. Just like with other zombies though, if you get bit, you are done although it does seem to take a bit longer before the disease fully sets in.... which was nice because the time-scale in bite-to-zombification was getting extremely ridiculous in series like Black Summer where the time-frame would vary from weeks to mere seconds before one "turned."

Again, I have no knowledge of how the video games work, but I would imagine that most of the players (and there are a lot of them) would be quite happy with how this ended up being represented on the screen.

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I do like seeing Pedro Pascal as one of the main characters "Joel" although I will admit I halfway expect him to start talking about busting cartel members due to his heavy involvement in the "Narcos" series.

Although I am too early on in the story to actually know, I think that Ellie is meant to be a main character if not THE main character in the show. I spent a lot of time looking at her thinking to myself that I know her from somewhere and I remembered that I really liked her in something I had seen not that long ago. Turns out she is one of everyone's favorite minor characters from Game of Thrones.

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That's right! None other than Bella Ramsey who you may recall as being the absolute bad-ass 8-year old Lyanna Mormont that talked down to other house lords that were 5 times her age.

Thus far she has done wonderfully as Ellie but again, i have no video game knowledge to base my opinion on and the fact that I like her character without having ever played the games says even more about the series at least up to this point. It is one thing to be a superfan of a game and enjoy a series adaptation but another entirely to have almost no knowledge of the backstory and still enjoy it. Perhaps I enjoy it a bit more that someone who is going to be super judgmental due to being familiar with the "real" story.

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one thing that I really admire about what they have done is that they have done a damn fine job creating a dystopian Boston and while I am very aware that most of this has to be green screen tech, it is done in a way that never looks fake. They have done an absolutely dynamite job on creating realistic-looking scenery.

If I was going to be at all fussy about anything that has happened thus far it would be that a few situations' hardships are created by very stupid decisions that a rational person wouldn't make. Case in point: There is a door that is blocked from the other side and instead of just using brute force to open it one of the crew precariously climbs along the exterior of a building to open it from the other side. A few minutes later we hear a bookshelf or something being slid across the floor and you expect us to believe that this was unmovable from the exterior? You can do better than that! There are other examples but I will not spoil this because I think people should watch it.

Should I watch it?

I can't think of any particularly good reason not to at this point but then again, I am only 2 episodes deep right now. I am looking forward to continuing my journey and so far I have been really entertained about how they incorporate not just the present state of the world into the series but also the extreme situations that had to happen in order for the world to end up the way that it is. This is something that other dystopian and zombie-like films and series have done in a rather subpar way. IMO The Last of Us has done an extremely good job of juggling the present situation with the events that lead to it being that wain the first place.

I am thoroughly enjoying this so far and between two episodes I haven't picked up my phone even once, and this is always a good sign.