HBO's The Last of Us is Subtle Propaganda

HBO is The Last of Us season one has just ramped up and at the end of the day it is an almost good video game adaptation I was actually wrong when I said this was a completely pointless adaptation no it has a purpose and that purpose is to quote unquote correct the mistakes of the original game originally it was rumored that last year's remake remaster would change the original story to suit Neil druckman's vision and thankfully that rumor was incorrect instead HBO's Last of Us is his true vision for what he wanted the first game to be and to nobody's surprise at least to the people who've been paying attention since the Last of Us 2 released it is inferior to the game in every way now because I decided to stop covering this episodically I will very briefly give my thoughts on every episode and then give you my opinion of the Season as a whole now of course for episodes one through three I already covered them in detail so go check out those videos if you'd like to hear my extended thoughts but basically long story short race swapping is bad and will always be bad there is no context in which it's good and if it doesn't matter then why did they change it you know it matters the showrunners know it matters that's why they did it of course then we have the Bella Ramsay situation which I think I've said enough already but I will say once again this was absolutely a miscast and it is incredibly distracting every time the camera Zooms in on her face other than that most of my criticisms of episode 1 and 2 are nothing too major but then we get to episode 3 which derailed the entire show wasted everyone's time for a gay love story plot that wasn't in the original game at all completely ruining any subtlety around Bill whatsoever and ultimately had nothing to do with the apaga live at all so now that we're three episodes in and Joel and Ellie have barely gotten to know each other they don't like each other at all I think this is about the point that Neil druckman and Craig Mason realize that Ellie was completely unlikable up until this point so now in between episodes her character just magically changes becomes much more like the Ellie from the games more playful more friendly and so they try to salvage her character from this point forward I'm gonna be honest with you they still failed not nearly enough time was spent this season with the Joel and Ellie slowly building up their relationship and you could say that's part of the video game adaptation process but the entire point of the game is that we as a player get more attached to Ellie over the course of the game which helps us understand Joel's decision at the end so if you drop the ball on this incredibly important story component then the adaptation is completely [ __ ] you screwed up time to go back to the drawing board these next two episodes use the time that the player would be fighting off this clan of Bandits or scavengers whatever you want to call them and instead flashes them out and turns them into their own faction essentially who rebelled against fedra in the region and they are led by this short fat woman with a high-pitched voice who is not intimidating in the least there have I satisfied the necessary conditions for you to talk this is the most immersion breaking thing that has happened so far do you really expect me to believe in an apocalypse situation where the quote unquote fascist military faction has been dissolved in this region which means it is a lawless that the rebels are gonna follow this tiny fat woman who shows no leadership skills over the next two episodes whatsoever she just barks orders at people and is grumpy the whole time this is so [ __ ] stupid and they did this on purpose if you don't think every miscast in this show was done on purpose you're wrong you can call me a conspiracy theorist all you [ __ ] want it's not going to change reality that this was done on purpose to warp your mind to insert ideas in your head falsehoods that do not represent reality in any way all in the name of equality or some supposedly altruistic goal that will never happen because it doesn't represent biological reality this was just [ __ ] idiotic and it was a complete waste of time they could have handled it exactly the way the game did and you would lose nothing of value in these two episodes also represent a much larger problem with this show in that there's almost no action whatsoever now you could say gameplay is not really Canon that is a debate that goes on a lot with story based games but I think it really takes away from this Epic Quest or Adventure or Herculean task to go across the country if they only fight zombies what like three or four times over the course of the show and there's only a couple evil human faction groups and they only get in a handful of gun fights over the course of Nine episodes this show really wants to be The Walking Dead But slightly better written where it's not actually about zombies it's about interpersonal relationships between humans in moral ambiguity and all that [ __ ] which would be fine if there were still people trying to kill each other but so much of this time is Joel and Ellie just hiding and eventually when they find Henry and Sam that part is done mostly well I don't really have complaints well besides the obvious one that Sam is deaf for no reason and has been aged down I supposed to change the relationship between Ellie and Sam from being one of two kids around the same age to Ellie trying to take care of a smaller child I guess if I had to compliment something from episode 4 I'd say the scene where Joel finishes off the paralyzed kid reveals a bit of his ruthlessness that he had in the game and shortly afterward Joel teaching Ellie how to hold a gun was a kind of nice moment I suppose cutting out the encounter with the truck that had a mounted machine gun on it it was kind of lame but they slightly made up for it with a version of the sniper encounter in the next episode though all the infected erupting out of the ground in the chick not just shooting Henry when she has him right where she wants him has to do like her evil villain monologue thing except it's supposed to be all emotional and deep no it's functionally the same as a stupid villain dramatically mocking the hero and then getting killed and also the tweak to the end of Henry and Sam's story where Ellie knows that Sam's infected is also very stupid and adds nothing of value to the story so I'd say episode four and five are just okay they're not bad they're not really good either I guess I was mostly entertained outside of the tiny Rebel leader woman that [ __ ] was cringe now if it was a roided out monster like Abby leading the rebels maybe I would believe it now episode 6 is where it goes to [ __ ] again it starts off with Joel giving his name to two Boomers that he has at gunpoint and you could say okay maybe that'll have no consequences but there's a reason why you shouldn't get give your name to strangers in this apocalypse situation for those of you who played The Last of Us Part 2 you might think of one reason why shortly afterward Joel and Ellie arrive outside of Jackson yes Jackson not the power plant from the game and the survivors there use a dog to sniff out if someone's infected that they find and of course there's this big build up dramatic tension moment because the dog is not sure if Ellie's infected or not and honestly I didn't really have a problem with this obviously you could argue it was pointless there's no way the dog was going to bite Ellie because then the show is [ __ ] over there's no way Joel could kill all of them but whatever it's far from the biggest problem this episode so now Joel has finally reunited with his brother Tommy and he's married a black woman I'm not gonna do what I did for the first episode review because apparently facts make people uncomfortable but let's just say I'm a noticer and I'm noticed sing right now you want to know what another thing I noticed that apparently Jackson is a communist Community even though they have democratically elected officials figure that one out and once again the show has a suspend or disbelief that people would honestly vote for this woman to be the leader and there's even a cameo from Big schnoz herself truly my favorite character from The Last of Us Part Two honestly what's even worse than Jackson being a communist Community is that yet another classic masculine hero character has been emasculated in these last two episodes it looks like Joel's having a heart attack or a stroke they're not quite clear as to what it is until now they explain he's been having panic attacks because he doesn't think he can deliver Ellie because he's getting too old does this sound anything like the Joel from the game [ __ ] no you're lying to yourself if you still think this Joel is anything like the original at this point this is a pathetic shell of a man which is what I've been saying since like episode [ __ ] two in these reviews there is no way that Pedro Pascal's Joel would have survived 20 years with this personality type and you could argue okay maybe he was beaten down over all those years but not once in this show does he act like the vicious Joel the ruthless Joel that we know from the original game the fact that he cries he actually cries man I don't have a problem with male characters crying when it feels earned this is not earned it comes out of nowhere the idea here is that they're changing the context as to why Joel wants Tommy to take Ellie the rest of the way to the fireflies in the original game it's because Joel was getting too attached to Ellie and he couldn't let him sell love her like he loved his daughter in the show it's more like he already loves her which again is not earned because the characters haven't had enough interactions it just feels like a switch was magically flipped off screen and so of course Ellie is listening to this conversation and instead of running away and Joel and Tommy have to chase her down and kill some more evil Raiders of course there's no [ __ ] action in this show so instead we just skip to one of my favorite moments from the game but of course the acting is inferior in every way to the original I'll just show you a side by side here what do you want admit that you wanted to get rid of me the whole time I could talk to you no way you're still here if you're gonna ditch me ditch me Tommy knows this area well I'm sorry I trust him better than I trust myself stop with the bull what are you so afraid of I made this the way better off with Tommy he knows the area better than I do you give a [ __ ] about me on of course I do then what are you so afraid how many close calls have we had well we seem to be doing all right so far and now you'll be doing even better with Tommy not her you know what Maria told me about Sarah Ellie you are treading awesome Mighty thin eyes here I'm not her you know Maria told me about Sarah and no don't say another word I'm sorry about your daughter Joel I have lost people too you have no idea what loss is everyone I have cared for has either died or left me everyone [Music] for you so don't tell me that I would be safer with someone else because the truth is I would just be more scared sorry about your daughter Joel but I have less people too you have no idea what loss is everybody I have cared for has either died or left me everybody [ __ ] except for you so don't tell me that I'd be safe with somebody else because the truth is I would just be more scared [Music] you're right you're not my daughter and I sure as hell ain't your dad you're right you're not my daughter I'm not sure as hell ain't your dad and then magically overnight Joel decides no he is good enough to take her across the state and since there's no evil Raiders no action no killing no moment of realization that only he's good enough to take her across the country again it just doesn't feel earned then at the end of the episode we skip ahead they reach the University of course the fireflies aren't there we see the escaped monkeys that were experimented on and we finally get a moment of confrontation with just one guy Joel barely wins a 1v1 and gets stabbed by a broken baseball bat how do we go from the game Joel killing hundreds of people and infected to the show version maybe killing a dozen of each over the course of the entire season is it more realistic yes but it is also way more boring and contributes to this Joel just being far inferior and aesthetic and weak and it makes it seem like luck is the only reason he was able to deliver Ellie across the country this is what happens when you go from a video game to a TV show is it arguably a better medium to cover a game's story than movies I would say yes but because this season is only Nine episodes long this ends up feeling like a Cliff's Notes of the first game for all these people saying they can finally enjoy the story of The Last of Us with their parents did you really come out of this feeling like it was the actual story from the games game play itself can be an important part of video game storytelling to me it's the most important part by far given that video games are an interactive medium so when you actually cut out all of the gameplay they don't even attempt to convert 95 of the encounters into a scene in the show that contributes to it being a bad adaptation I feel feel like if you're arguing otherwise you don't even really like video games do you you just want to play an interactive movie which explains why Sony games are so popular these days then we get to episode 7. the second time the entire plot gets derailed at least this time it was a Canon story though I couldn't even tell you how accurate it is because I refuse to this day to actually play the Left Behind DLC as not only is this when Neil druckman took over the story of The Last of Us but it's also an underage lesbian love story give me a single reason I should care about this for all the people who told me wanting atreus and angry Boda to show any kind of romantic interest in each other is pedophilia you guys sure do love your underage lesbian love stories I know calling you people a hypocrite is a waste of [ __ ] time you have no standards you have no f ethics you have no morality if your side does it it's okay if my side does it it's bad I get it that's been drilled into my head for like eight years at this point so I think actually reviewing this episode is a waste of time much like actually reviewing episode three would be a waste of time we all know why this exists it's virtue signaling its normalization it's propaganda you know and hopefully eventually the normies will wake up and smell the roses with this [ __ ] but probably not so I really have no sympathy for them at this point so on to episode 8 this one was actually almost a great adaptation if not for one little subtle change in there that again I think most people probably didn't even notice but the cannibal pedo is also a Christian priest but a fake priest as he was a teacher before the apocalypse and claims he found God but guess what it's all [ __ ] how many times have we seen this Trope before I know I've seen it several times already and it's always a priest you're never gonna see an evil Rabbi I can promise you that but honestly other than this small change it was decently faithful to the game I'll say that any problems that I might have had with this episode's story or the sequence of the game honestly isn't really even worth mentioning yeah it's pretty hard to believe that a 14 year old girl did all this [ __ ] but in a video game all of that is much more believable especially if you're playing as the character my major complaint here is they once again cut out a major encounter with the infected in the abandoned lumber mill which was a pretty cool sequence by this point in the show you'll probably have even forgotten it's a [ __ ] zombie IP because zombies are really only a plot device in this show much like The Walking Dead which honestly is just lame I've seen that [ __ ] before I used to watch The Walking Dead regularly even when it was kind of mediocre I don't want to see that same crap again just with The Last of Us coat of paint on it and my other minor complaint is that Joel once again seems super weak here yes it makes more sense considering he's still injured but this was yet another missed opportunity of him killing at least a handful of people on his way to Ellie that could have at least been kinda cool oh and they completely dropped the ball on the fact that this sequence is supposed to take place during a blizzard they throw a light smattering of snow in one shot and that's pretty much it I will say one minor cool detail this episode is that Troy Baker does play pedo Cannibal's right-hand man so the actual real Joel at least is in the show and he gets killed by Ellie which there's something poetic about the fake Ellie killing the real Joel so now we get to the finale of the show and it starts right off with some unnecessary additional cringe as we see Ashley Johnson the original Ellie is playing Ellie's mother in the show and she runs to some house in the country which I believe is supposed to be the one from The Last of Us too and apparently she's fleeing a zombie while heavily pregnant with Ellie she locks herself in a room the zombie breaks in and bites her she knifes it to death and then gives birth to Ellie right there yeah this is some soap opera tear writing [ __ ] so later Marlene shows up Ellie's mom makes her promise to take care of Ellie as they were friends for life and so Marlene Mercy kills Ellie's mom and then we get back to the present this part also is pretty one-to-one with the game it even has the draft moment which was pretty nice and once again another encounter with the infected is cut out of the show and in instead the fireflies find the group and the ending is almost one to one except for one very important detail change that I hope you noticed in the original version of the game the ending was purposely left ambiguous as to whether or not the fireflies would actually be able to produce a cure which is pretty realistic much like we have yet to produce a cure for AIDS or cancer or really any other number of things that we haven't yet figured out right especially in an apocalypse scenario where we don't have access to all the same knowledge or technical skill that would certainly Aid in producing a vaccine or whatever other type of cure they would need now of course this is a TV show for idiots and Neil druckman wants you to hate Joel that is exactly why he killed him in The Last of Us Part Two and he has said multiple times in the past that were supposed to view Joel as sacrificing all of humanity for one person in fact he says it in the Creator commentary at the end of this episode we've seen Joel kill we've seen him lose loved ones how do you take that any further what if it's between saving all of humanity or this one girl it's the easiest choice he's ever made in his life so they have now in this version inserted a line where Marlene explains why Ellie's immune our doctor he thinks that the cordyceps and Nelly has grown with her since birth why is she in surgery it produces a kind of chemical messenger it makes normal cordyceps think that she's cordyceps it's why she's immune he's going to remove it from her multiply the cells in a lab produce those chemical Messengers and then I can give it to everyone now you can already probably think of multiple problems with this first of all wouldn't that mean that all the zombies would completely ignore her because she would effectively be one of their like hive mind or whatever but we clearly see her being attacked by the zombies multiple times in this show so I guess only the fungus itself knows she's one of them and not the zombies which are being controlled by the fungus how does that work you could also make the argument that why would cordyceps not grow inside her just because there's already existing cordyceps inside her according to the chemical messenger why couldn't there just be more fungus inside her body that would eventually kill her even if she didn't turn into a zombie I would imagine that [ __ ] growing inside you would probably eventually kill you another arguable plot hole is that somehow the doctor AKA Abby's dad knows exactly how Ellie is immune Within hours I mean Joel is knocked out which realistically he would only be knocked out for a few minutes unless he had permanent brain damage but you can just call that a nitpick whatever let's say he was out cold for a few hours right somehow in that time the doctor discovered exactly how Ellie's immunity worked so I guess Abby's dad is a [ __ ] Super Genius and he probably would have saved Humanity by the show's logic another plot hole I came up with after thinking for a while is that Marlene explains that they would reproduce more of these chemical Messengers by multiplying the cells if that's the case even though it is attached to her brain wouldn't they just be able to cut off a tiny piece of it just to reproduce more why would they have to kill her to reproduce more cells of this thing you can't tell me their surgical skills have regressed to the point where they can't do this surgery non-lethally if they simultaneously also have Super Genius scientists that can figure out exactly what's wrong with her that fast but honestly at the end of the day none of these arguable plot holes matter because the real purpose of this additional plot point is to one remove the ambiguity of the ending to make you hate Joel like I mentioned and two to subliminally tell you to trust the science that scientists are like gods and anything they come up with is indisputable fact the scientific method is [ __ ] meaningless if the government tells you something it's correct now I'm sure some people are going to call me a schizo over that one but I'm telling you that's exactly what they were going for dude you can choose to believe me or not but the fact that they basically are telling you in your face that Joel doomed Humanity by Saving Ellie means that they believe that Abby's Dad could have come up with a cure or at least with the assistance of all the other unnamed unseen Firefly scientists that I guess exist or something now if I had to complain about something else I would also say the sequence where Joel fights his way to Ellie is also far less epic and engaging and interesting in the game it was such a tense important moment because you want to do anything to save Ellie unless you're a psychopathic anti-natalist Millennial apparently there's a lot of those and why Ellie to die just so that they're I mean uh her life has meaning how is it that a cynical hateful bastard like myself as more of a heart than the average [ __ ] redditor dude and I hate to restate all my points from The Last of Us remake remaster video but the point is Ellie cannot consent it doesn't matter if she thought that sacrificing her life for Humanity was her choice it's not she's a child her brain is not finished developing right that's why kids can't consent right some of you don't think women can consent till they're 25. so how can they consent to sacrificing the their life but again if you remove the ambiguity and say well Humanity would have absolutely been saved then I might actually change my opinion around the ending but you know what I absolutely believe in death of the author and honestly Neil druckman isn't even the [ __ ] author that's the truth look into that [ __ ] Bruce Straley is the author and honestly I believe Amy Hennig was more of an author of The Last of Us than Neil druckman I refuse to attribute any good part of this franchise to him we've seen what happens when he has full creative control and I can't wait till all the normies see season two and they get to realize what we saw in 2020 that Neil Rockman is a [ __ ] hack that said I am glad they stuck to the rest of the ending even with the change in ambiguity I still was on Joel's side and it still even made me tear up a little bit even though Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are far inferior to the original versions of the characters Joel still made the right choice because I still don't believe in the capability of post-apocalyptic scientists to create a cure and you know what honestly screw humanity care about the people who care about you right Joel cares about his family and they care about him and no one else gives a [ __ ] in that heartless world that's like the point of the story honestly for me everyone's trying to kill him infected or human so Joel's family are the only people who should matter to him Humanity as a whole can go [ __ ] itself so final thoughts on the Last of Us season one like I said at the beginning it's an almost good adaptation I'd say as a whole it's about 80 percent accurate to the parts of the game that were actually adapted because plenty of it was cut out like I said 95 percent of the combat encounters possibly more and episode 3 was zero percent accurate to the game so honestly it's maybe closer to 70 percent accurate to the game and the fact that they covered the DLC means that two out of the Nine episodes had almost nothing to do with the overall plot I really don't care about Ellie's backstory at all Joel is the main character no matter what anybody will tell you yes Ellie and Abby are the main characters of the sequel but the sequel sucks Joel is the main character of The Last of Us it's his story Ellie is a [ __ ] plot device that we as the player base grow to love like a daughter over the course of the game that's the point and that's another way that the show kind of just dropped the ball because Joel and Ellie's relationship was not nearly as developed as the game now of course it never quite stood a chance but if they had at least covered all the most important moments it would have been a bit better than this and again I'm just gonna leave out Bella Ramsey as a whole from that equation but I do think disregarding her looks her acting is also somewhat questionable as well I just think it's difficult for her to emote maybe it's part of her I can't even [ __ ] say this with a straight face whatever you you get what I'm trying to say and Pedro Pascal's Joel is not Joel is a weak emasculated beaten down old man instead of a hardened killing machine who's closed his heart to everything because his daughter died and he's been through some real [ __ ] horrible horrible things so of course he's not gonna let himself love another person that's partially why his intest's relationship was left ambiguous at least that's what I believe because he couldn't let himself love someone again but then over the course of the game he finally opens up his heart and he can't sacrifice Ellie right that's the whole point of the story how do you mess that up and somehow I almost forgot to mention you may notice none of the major characters in this show are straight white males Joel and Tommy are Hispanic Bill and Frank are gay Henry and Sam are black I guess there was that one military Terry guy who served alongside the short shrill psycho woman but he's certainly not a major character I'm not even sure if he was given a name and pretty much every other major character is female and again if you don't think that's intentional you're either naive or you're lying so Joel's race swap is even more important when you put it in this context so yeah I think that the midwit take on this show is going to be that it's the greatest video game adaptation ever because look at all these scenes and exact lines from the game okay sure but all the finer details were screwed up as I covered extensively in episode 3 is just inexcusable seriously how can you come up with any good reason as to why that's in this show you can't not to mention it butchered one of the better one-off characters from the game so at the end of the day is it a terrible show no and like I said I was watching this with my own mother as some of you have been and and she enjoyed the show so that's why I think a lot of the normies are going to end up enjoying this but for people like me who actually did like the game and yeah it's not one of my favorite games but I think it's one of the last truly great story games ironically it's also been blamed for popularizing movie games that are now everywhere in the last nine years and I really had no expectations for a video game adaptation to be good but it does infuriate me when people pretend it's way better than it actually is it's definitely overrated no question so yeah sure it's not a terrible show I probably could come up with good things to say about it but I don't really see what the point is for my audience at least the people I'm trying to talk to when I make these videos you can just play the game and get a much better experience in watching the show so there's really no reason for the show to exist for people like you and me so yeah I guess at the end of the day it probably is one of the better video game adaptations but but that does not mean it's good so I guess I'll reluctantly call it an acceptable adaptation but all the political propaganda puts such a bad taste in my mouth that I can't really recommend it to anybody I despise all the wokeness crap the fact that a game that is not even 10 years old yet and don't think I didn't notice that Craig Mason got that wrong in the commentary at the end the ending is something that people have been arguing about for over a decade it has to be modernized for the new far left audience that is trying to appeal to all the crazy [ __ ] woke [ __ ] it's just gross to me I've got really nothing else to say about it I guess as a last note I'm looking forward to the backlash against season two of the show see you next time guys

Channel: Synthetic Man

Views: 98,964

Keywords:

Id: DfK_EBPNsko

Length: 33min 8sec (1988 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 14 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/Sleep_eeSheep]

"Subltedeese" is not a term I'd use to describe this show.

[u/Arintharas]

It’s annoying because he’s like a roller coaster. He goes on to make a point that actually makes sense and has good evidence, but then he spirals out of control goes full conspiracy mode. Stop.

[u/Aspie_Gamer]

Synthetic Man aside...

The Last of Us (TV Show) was, to use a Gen Z term, "mid".

- Tess has no agency compared to the original game

- Bill is excised from the plot (instead having an entire episode of the show wasted on his relationship with Frank only for both of them to be dead in the present day) whereas he's vital in the game both for getting Joel and Ellie a car and for showing Joel on a personal level what he could end up like if he doesn't start being nicer to Ellie which to put it bluntly, is the first chink in Joel's cynical armor.

- Spores don't exist which ruins the nature-based survival horror aspect of the original game

- The Infected barely factor into the show despite the first two episodes setting up how the infection works here vs the original game.

- The Fireflies will shred you to pieces in the game if they spot you therefore it should've been impossible for Joel to go full Rambo on them in the season finale.

- Many of the exchanges Joel and Ellie have with each other in the game that helps to build their gradual father-daughter relationship were excised for the TV Show leaving us with a much less believable relationship overall.

And that's just off the top of my head.

[u/Nit_Picker219]

Subtle Propaganda

Az, Nerdrotic and Sargon usually have similarly reasonable - albeit culture war oriented - takes on whether something has propaganda in it or not, and I would have listened to Organic Boy over here if I hadn't known better.

[u/SambG98]

Were you expecting anything different from him?

[u/MistbornTaylor]

*sees who it is* ohhhhhhh boyyyyyyy