How The Last of Us ENDED the Video Game Curse for good | Video Essay

so Time Heals all wounds I guess I wasn't telling that did it [Music] the last of us has come to an end with its finale and we have a new video game adaptation King on our hands Craig Mason has delivered what is arguably the greatest video game adaptation of all time definitely the best in a live action sense what was and probably will remain as the biggest show of 2023 has very well ended a curse that has plagued video game adaptations for 30 years a show that delivered such a rich and layered story with Incredible complex and likable characters and what happens to those that lose and ReDiscover their Humanity it also tells a very human story in a post-apocalyptic setting as well as exploring the dichotomy of love and what it can drive you to do The Last of Us plays with such rich and unique Concepts that separate it from the dead tropes of post-apocalyptic zombie films and shows that have exhausted their creativity but how did the last of us do it how did it break a curse that has stood the test of time for three decades how did it separate itself from every other generic Zone Story how did it become one of the richest character pieces of recent time and did it do it better than the game well let's dive deep into how The Last of Us not only broke but absolutely destroyed the video game curse once and for all but first it went from today's sponsor this video is sponsored by clean my Mac X clean my Mac X is an all-in-one Mac cleaning app to help clean and optimize your Mac to help it run as best as possible it deletes tons of junk and malware uninstalls unused apps and overall just makes Max faster safer and more organized with 25 million downloads and Counting it's also notarized by Apple and trusted with 14 years on the market and used in 185 countries and it even has a user in Antarctica which is kind of cool it also won the Red Dot award for the best designed Mac app in 2021 with the average user removing 66 gigabyte of junk per year so it's no wonder it helps keeps Mac running fast now I recently actually got a Macbook for my self and clean my Mac X has definitely helped me keep things running like clockwork my favorite feature is the Smart scan feature which is curated for Mac optimization with one button press you're cleaning up your entire Mac you're protecting it you're speeding things up all in just a few seconds I run a quick scan every time I start my MacBook up now so I know things will be running as smoothly as possible now they're also always improving their design so you've got a really really nice looking UI to navigate whilst helping your Mac reach its full potential which is always nice so be sure to click the link in the description below to try clean my Mac X for yourself and organize and clean up your Mac to help it perform at its best so check those links below and a big thank you to clean my Mac X for sponsoring this video now in order to Showcase how The Last of Us managed to break the video game curse once and for all we need to dive into exactly what the video game curse actually is where did it come from why is it a phrase used so commonly and does it actually even hold any Merit in the first place well the answer to whether or not it holds any Merit has absolutely changed in the past five or so years nobody with an ounce of Common Sense would argue that we've started to see a shift in quality of video game adaptations in the past half a decade now I know for a fact that there are going to be a boatload of people that watch this video and say something like what do you mean The Last of Us break the video game curse have you ever heard of Arcane or cyberpunk and you know what you have a point however Arcane and cyberpunk agroners may be great in their own right but how many people realistically think of video game adaptations and default to Arcane or cyberpunk I'm willing to wager not many in comparison to other mediums like live action they're probably thinking of stuff like Uncharted Mortal Kombat Sonic The Last of Us even the Witcher Arcane and cyberpunk Edge Runners are like a niche within a niche so for the broader audience this video game curse is absolutely still a thing because again the majority have no idea that these two shows even exist therefore the stigma of the video game curse is alive and well but yes credit where credit is due animated movies and shows adapted from video games seemingly work out better than live-action adaptations now there are several factors for this you can obviously do things in animation that you simply can't do in live action suspension of disbelief is a big thing that live-action adaptations have to deal with you know how can our protagonist mow down waves of enemies and still be believable like they are in the game in live action something like this is just much more difficult to pull off certain elements that make video games video games simply just translate better to animation than they do live action which is why I believe animated adaptations like cyberpunk like Arcane fare better than live action so yes the video game isn't as strong today as it was a decade ago and in terms of Animation like I said you could absolutely argue that the curse doesn't exist anymore but when it comes to live action which is the medium that the masses of film goers are watching The Curse is absolutely still a thing now let's take a trip back in time over the past few decades video game adaptations rightly earned a bad reputation 1995's Mortal Kombat pretty much carried the crown as the best video game adaptation for many people and you know looking back on it now it's probably been defroned a few times and you know you of course had the Resident Evil films come along which were pretty popular and I don't care what anybody says those first two are great but then you get your Super Mario Brothers the house of the Dead's blood rain Assassin's Creed alone in the dark street fighter Max Payne Silent Hill Tomb Raider Doom like I could go on and on and on dozens upon dozens of sometimes well financially backed video game adaptations that turned out abs absolutely terrible like the best thing you could probably say for a lot of the better ones are yeah they're average so when average is your best rating for one of the better video game adaptations then yeah there's a problem there like while researching for this video I stumbled across a website that had the 41 worst video game adaptations of all time and legitimately the best ones that still feature on that list so even the best ones are still copping heat to this day and even if we look at the top 10 best video game adaptations on Rotten Tomatoes guess what's in the top 10. Halo yes you read that correct according to critics the Halo TV show is in the top 10 video game adaptations of all time so yes the video game curse is still very extremely real now these countless terrible adaptations helped coin the phrase video game curse and this has been a very real thing for a very long time the reasons for poor video game adaptation Nations range from filmmakers that know nothing about the source material to out-of-touch Studio Executives thinking they know what's best for pre-established IP low budgets poor acting Terrible Special Effects scripts that suck out any of the charm that the game had and the list goes on and on but one major and rather overlooked and unknown reason that most video game movie adaptations in the 2000s were terrible was actually because of a tax loophole in Germany yes because of a tax loophole this is actually something that a lot of video game adaptations were involved in around this time now I'm not going to bore you guys with a painfully in-depth lesson on German tax regulations in the early 2000s so I'll give you guys the more condensed version essentially a man called OE ball would basically make terrible video game movies to exploit a German tax law that allowed the wealthy in Germany to invest and write off income taxes on [ __ ] films that flopped at the box office he'd found a way to make profit of making absolutely terrible films and it was all completely legal that is one of the main reasons for so many bad video game films in the early 2000s think of House of the Dead blood rain and alone in the dark they're some of the main offenders now this was until the law changed in 2005 and then the loophole could no longer be exploded but weird tax loopholes aside a lot of it just came down to the fact that some video games just don't lend themselves to have a story told in the filmmaking medium but some of them do like the last of us yet despite many video games not having a story or even characters that suit the film or television medium it still happens now this is something that to Hollywood's credit I can't believe I'm actually giving Hollywood credit especially these days but they have become a little more selective over which games to adapt in recent years they're picking and choosing what adaptations to funnel money into much better than they used to but more importantly they're letting fans of the games take creative control over these adaptations like Craig Mason with The Last of Us and letting the game's producers and Riders get closer to the projects like Neil druckmann with The Last of Us you're sensing a bit of a pattern here on why the last of us actually worked now don't get it twisted there are still some stinker video game adaptations to this day that are so out of touch it's not even funny take Uncharted just last year for example let's take a look back at the past five years specifically because the past half a decade has been very transformative for the video game curse so you've got Sonic 1 Sonic 2 detective Pikachu The Witcher and the last of us but the highest rated video game film of all time also came out in the past five years it's called werewolves within you ever heard of it yeah me neither but that's apparently the best video game film of all time critically which is kind of sad to be honest something that most of us have probably never even heard about but in terms of video game shows The Last of Us is easily by Far and Away the number one even surpassing werewolves within so in terms of live action across the board The Last of Us is actually the most well received live-action video game adaptation of all time now a lot of people are going to point to films like Sonic 1 and 2 and detective Pikachu as the ones that broke the video game curse at least in a live action sense now to be fair those three films are you know pretty good in their own right but when we're talking about adaptations and what other mediums like book to screen adaptations have been able to achieve with films like the Lord of the Rings or shows like Game of Thrones the earlier Seasons let me be very very clear on that why do you think I came all this way [Laughter] game adaptations hit the Cinematic Heights of properties like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones with these book to screen adaptations why is detective Pikachu the best that we can hope for why can't we get a video game adaptation that our boy Marty would classify as Cinema moral of the story we just haven't had that yet that is Until the Last of Us came along to end the curse completely something so high in quality that it goes beyond being just a great video game adaptation it's not just arguably the best video game adaptation ever made but it's one of the greatest shows produced in the past 10 years across any sub-genre within the film and TV medium now we're going to show that virtually copies The Game beat for beat it's impossible to avoid comparisons in fact I think they should be embraced as it highlights just how great of an adaptation this show was so let's look at the world itself in this show it's very much a more realistic take on what would likely happen if this all actually happened the cold opening of the first episode proved that Mason was going for a more realistic take on this insane world to help with audience immersion whereas in the game things are a little less grounded to fit the medium an example of this is in the game infected are literally everywhere cities forests sewers random houses you name it but in the show they ground things in reality a little bit more if you go to what would have been a previously densely populated area such as a town or a city then you're more likely to come across a bunch of infected but if you go to the forest or the middle of nowhere then there's probably gonna be barely any infected at all because well if there were barely any people there in the first place why would infected be there now it would just make no logical sense other zombie-related stories have them legitimately everywhere so it's nice to see a show of the same liking do something different with this and actually make it seem a little bit more realistic because after all it's easier to believe this world when well it's more believable creating a more immersive post-apocalyptic experience for the viewer this isn't a knock on the game by any means but it's just an example of using what works best for the different mediums another example are the changes to the infected how they work and how the infection spreads again Mason uses what would likely need to happen in real life for this to work the hive mind idea of the infected is grounded in reality with how cordyceps fungus actually works in real life as for the spores whilst they're not in the show the reason they're not was more than fair enough in the real world it's just harder to justify that spores localize in one specific area like they do in the game but if you brought that logic into a live action show it just wouldn't really make sense it all comes back to knowing what to keep and cut in the adaptation process and small things like infected not being in the woods just shows you the eye for detail that the creators went through when adapting this show into a more realistic experience than the game as for characters the show and game both pretty much hit the nail on the head some characters are better in the game than the show and vice versa let's talk Joel and Ellie both show and game absolutely nail their Journey the key beats of their relationship hit just as hard in each medium one thing the show does better than the game though is it uses other characters to help build the dynamic between Joel and Ellie in the game characters like Tess Henry and Sam are used to do this very well but the show not only does that but it expands on it specifically with Bill and Frank now there were a lot of very sad people that review bombed the bill and Frank episode because apparently anyway it was filler and sidetracked things and didn't progress Joel andelli's story even though it very clearly did and made a very clear point of spoon feeding you why this side story was important to Joel specifically but Bill and Frank's little Side Story was the true moment where Joel really opened up to the idea of protecting and saving Ellie at the beginning of the episode he's closed off to Ellie still but at the end you start to see a different side to him after he hears Bill's letter we see this in the car scene Bill's letter showcase the parallels between himself and Joel Bill talks about how much he hated the world and everyone in it but then he found someone worth saving and that people like him and Joel have a job to do to protect when this specific part of the letter is read out by Ellie the camera intentionally lingers on Joel's static face for about 20 seconds without cutting away to really hone in on just how important this information is for Joel's character yet again despite this people say this episode was pointless Villa it truly blows my mind like it really does we saw Bill and Frank's relationship over the course of the episode so this moment carried more impact for Joel's character and the same goes for the flashback with Riley and Ellie although I don't think it was executed as well as the bill and Frank stuff what bill and Frank's episode did for Joel the Riley episode pretty much did for Ellie now we also see strong parallels throughout the series between Joel and Ellie and how each of the two act at the beginning of the show and how they act at the end once Joel fully accepts Ellie as something much more than just cargo we start to see him open up a little bit more in the early episodes Ellie is always the one driving conversation she's the one who won't shut up whilst Joel stays mute but in the finale Joel is the one driving the conversation whilst Ellie is silent as Joel's obviously opened up to Ellie a lot more and found something worth actually protecting and living for whereas Ellie has become more emotionally damaged across the journey they've essentially swapped it just highlights how far the two of them have come and it's followed up by an incredible scene where Joel makes it clear to Ellie that he now has purpose and they really allowed the journey to that point to not be a straight line either we see in Jax and Joel is wrestling with the idea that he's allowing himself to get closer to Ellie and when he comes to that full realization he doesn't hesitate to let Tommy continue taking her he cares but he's afraid of a repeat of the past when Ellie brings up Sarah Joel immediately puts that wall back up that had been slowly getting chipped away in previous episodes and to be honest one of the best scenes of the show but when Joe becomes Gravely injured and Ellie manages to keep him alive and then they cross paths again after Ellie's been through hell with David he doesn't let that wall go back up again like he did in Jackson he Embraces it and lets Ellie basically in as his surrogate daughter now I binge through the entire show again after the finale and there are seriously so many key moments where you can just keep peeling back the layers of character depth with these two and it's honestly such high tier character work the show also expands on Marlene's character to help make Ellie even more compelling which to be honest they really had to do that reason being in a game we are the character so we're naturally more engaged with them shows don't have that luxury it comes back to games being an active experience and films and shows being a passive experience so films and shows they've got to work a little bit harder to make us care about their characters so they need to be adding more to them again they do this through Marlene we see more of her side of the story why is she so attached to Ellie it gives Marlene and Joel incredible exchanges in the show that hit harder than they do in the game because again the parallels between the characters are there we see why Marlene cared about Ellie which we don't see in the game so we now have the context for what Marlene is willingly giving up by allowing the doctors to kill Ellie to find a cure whereas Joel simply can't do that because of what he's been through this show is very smart in how it uses other characters to just build up and complement Joel and the show does it with Henry and Sam as well they do it virtually identical to the game and that's why it's so strong so this wasn't really something they added to the show with original material like with Bill or Marlene but the Henry and Sam stuff in this show was just as incredible as it was in the game now look I have been singing the show's praises and how it builds on the incredible foundations of the game but there are a few things that the game just does slightly better still now this only really became apparent to me in the finale the fact that the finale was the shortest episode of the season does leave me feeling a little bit confused whilst I love what they managed to cram into that 43 minute run time that means the finale was just under half as long as the pilot it could have benefited from the extra time to let the major beats of the episode breathe a little bit more because I felt like some moments of the finale were a little rushed in comparison to the show's pilot specifically in the pilot they took their time with telling you everything that was going on but in the finale it just kind of felt like they were just rushing through now look I understand why Joel's Rampage didn't go on for 30 minutes or something like it would in the game it Harkens back to them making things a little bit more realistic the longer Joel takes everyone on the harder it is to believe that he's you know not gonna get him self-killed but overall the show's finale just felt like a super potent but very condensed version of The Game's iconic finale again it was great but I feel like it could have used an extra 10 to 20 minutes to really let those major moments linger instead of powering On Through To be honest the entire show could have benefited from an extra episode and really allowed the extra run time to supplement the missing gameplay element that the show just doesn't have in the game the gameplay allows the major story beats to brew a little bit longer to allow you as the player to live in the world before and after events to really soak it in it's like if you took the gameplay out of the game and just watched the cutscenes elements of the story would feel rushed and I feel like that's what the show was doing at times missing that in-between content to let those major plot beats Brew in the viewer's mind a little bit longer but back on a more positive note the finale did have an incredible moment that I believe was not in the game and that was the added detail that not long after Sarah's death Joel tried to well unalive himself I can't say the word or YouTube will probably demonetize this video which actually reminds me announcement time we have a channel members program set up to help soften the blow of YouTube's copyright and age restrictions of videos so become a channel member through the join button below if you wish anyway self promo aside this added detail of Joel's failed s word hit like a ton of bricks the scar on his head wasn't because someone shot at him and missed it was because he shot at him and missed it really just highlights just how broken Joel was after Sarah's death and it highlights how much he has changed because of his journey with Ellie it's moments like this where I feel like it actually helped an almost Rush finale to still work in terms of hitting the emotional benchmarks that it needed to after all Joel is faced with the Dilemma of saving the surrogate daughter that has saved him from the grief and misery of losing his real daughter he's not ready to go through that again Joel puts his own fear of loss above the possible savior of humanity and he's willing to Doom Humanity because of how strong his fear of loss has become on paper it kind of seems like an easy decision to let Ellie become the sacrifice to save Humanity but it opens up this can of worms of whether or not humanity is even worth saving these are ideas that both the game and the show play with very well and they are major reasons as to why this story is one of the best ever told and I must say I'm glad that they basically went word for word in the final scene of the show this is perfect and Ellie's okay is just the ideal way to end this story and of course lead us into the second game where things are going to get interesting now if I was to put the game and the show side by side and say which one is better it's honestly not even possible to do it because both excel at telling the same story but for very different reasons if you want a richer grounded world for this story to take place in then the show is probably for you but if you want the action the infected but still want that same Perfect story then the game is your best bet there is no right or wrong answer if I'm going to be a Sith and deal in absolutes for a second without getting too hung up on specifics I still think the game is the best version of this story but man it is close and that's a Triumph in of itself now when it comes to adapting a video game to a film or TV show I honestly don't think it could have come more naturally than with the last of us a game that lends itself perfectly to a TV show given the Cinematic nature in which it tells its story yes it is a video game after all but the majority of the game's story and character work is done with the Cinematic cutscenes there are nuggets of character work within the gameplay elements due to lines of dialogue between characters sure but apart from that the game is essentially seemingly made to be adapted now the key as to why the show was able to adapt the game so well is because Craig Mason understands what this story is really about it wasn't about a dude and a kid fighting off hordes of zombies like a lot of people seemingly thought it was no it's a very human story in a post-apocalyptic world it's not trying to be The Walking Dead it's not trying to be any of the zombie stories you've seen a thousand times before and judging from you know a fair few people's reactions to the show it's seems that a lot of people just wanted that they wanted more of the same like they were expecting a zombie show and they got a character piece instead and were like oh no they're focusing on story and character one out of ten how dare they Jokes Aside though for those who had played the game when you finished playing it you weren't really sitting around thinking about how cool the zombies were no you were thinking of Joel and Ellie they're Dynamic their journey and the moral dilemma Joel is faced with in the story's climax I think a lot of people really fell into the Trap of expecting just another generic zombie show with the last of us don't get me wrong when it delivered on that idea it was entertaining as hell and maybe you could argue that there wasn't enough infected in the entire season and to be honest I think you've got a point but when the trade-off is the deep and complex character work that we get with Joel and Ellie I can easily make my peace with that it just went to show that Mason and the game's create a new drop and really wanted to instill this notion that this story is about Joel and Ellie first and 4 almost we see this Focus being put on the characters several times throughout the entire season most notably later in the season we get a fair bit of infected earlier on in the show but it kind of goes away towards the end episode 8 specifically has no infected it focuses more on Ellie and David in a deeper more complex way dropping the section of the game that has them working together to fight off hordes of infected and the finale drops the infected Battle Before Ellie and Joel are captured by the fireflies to set up the game's dramatic climax now I've seen a lot of people take issue with this and I am pretty on the fence with it myself whilst it would undoubtedly have been cool to see Ellie and David fight off hordes of infected whilst it would have been cool to see Joel take down multiple bloaters with the constraints of this more realistic world that Mason has created with this show to help drive up the tension those two things just wouldn't have worked not to mention Joel taking down half of David's people despite being in terrible condition you know it works for the game but it wouldn't have worked in the show it's one of those things where it's really smart to leave it out but it kind of sucks that it's not there too so again if you didn't like that this was left out then I completely understand but moments like these work in the games because it's a game characters can be unstoppable forces and you think nothing of it if Ellie takes down 15 clickers with a rifle in the game then you know yeah cool whatever but if she does it in the show then question marks are going to be flying and this goes back to the suspension of disbelief thing I mentioned in part one of this video suspension of disbelief is a real thing that live action video game adaptations need to deal with The Last of Us makes it clear from the start that characters can't just shoot their way through hordes of infected the show made two clickers feel like 20 from the game which was a brilliant decision from the show's creatives it adds more tension to every situation it makes the infected more frightening than they are in the game now Mason has said that the next season will have more infected because if you don't know this is going to have probably two more seasons which to be honest it needs 2 because part 2 has a lot of story to tell but again with the Last of Us overall the show was never going to be about the infected this story in the game was never even about the infected like take the gameplay element out of the equation and the game doesn't have a lot to do with the infected either apart from Ellie obviously being immune above everything else it focuses on the story and its characters first and foremost the game allows the gameplay to be the area in which the infected have a larger bearing on the experience the show of course doesn't have that luxury so it doesn't fight against it it makes the characters the stars of the show we have episodes where there are genuinely no infected and that's fine because we get to hone in on these characters even more and each character is so deep and Rich with so many layers to peel back now one issue people had with the show is that it rushes things a little bit certain story beats don't get as much time as we might have been hoping for the 5 final two episodes had a lot to do when I realized there were only two episodes left and obviously having played the games I knew it was everything going on with David and then the game's dramatic climax I thought there was just too much there for the show to have to deal with in such a short time frame episode 8 silenced that worry for me however the finale did bring it back episode 8 was the show's penultimate episode and was maybe my favorite episode of the entire season despite my initial concerns cutting out Ellie and David's fight against the infected was a smart Omission it never really had an everlasting impact on them as characters and was purely just to create a cool set piece for the game leaving that out left more time for us to focus on David and why he is probably by far the most inherently evil character in the show we first see David and he seems like a nice guy but you keep peeling back the layers and everything about him just becomes increasingly disturbing he's a master manipulator and willingly allows a daughter to eat her own father like that is actually so messed up the reveal of David and his people being cannibals was also incredibly nuanced instead of making it cartoonish they set it up as if it's dear meat but then have David drag the deer in after they've been eating it was a really disturbing way of conveying information without dialogue there are several small details like this that let you unravel how messed up David is throughout the episode with just visual storytelling such as the fact that David has larger rations when compared to everyone else this says a lot without saying anything at all to add to how disturbing David is they also make it clear that he is a p word I can't say that word either I'll get demonetized again become a member today but David is just pure evil but he hides behind the facade of this good and righteous man but in reality there is a monster underneath that Mason slowly brings out as the episode progresses and I must say David in the show is better than he is in the game I will die on that Hill overall in terms of characters the show just managed to adapt so many of these major and minor characters flawlessly whether it was Sam and Henry Bill and Frank Marlene Tommy you name it each character had all the key beats that made them great in the game translated straight to the show but every single one of them also had things added making them deeper more complex and layered characters and most of the main story beats hit their benchmarks as well with some truly expanding beyond what was set in stone in the game the extra fleshing out of the world the extra information on the infected how they work how the infection spreads and what the current state of humanity currently is there are honestly so many ways the show perfectly adapted elements of the game it borrowed what works for the medium but was more than willing to cut out what simply just doesn't translate avoiding a major mistake that many video game adaptations just don't avoid overall though The Last of Us is a truly groundbreaking video game adaptation whilst previous live-action adaptations like Sonic and the likes managed to chip away at the stigma of video game adaptations being bad The Last of Us completely killed it off for good for everyone to see whilst there are some tiny drawbacks Craig Mason has managed to create something truly special with the last of us although it could have used at least one more episode to let certain story elements have more time to breathe it didn't fail to replicate major themes of the Masterpiece of a game but it also managed to add elements that we never even thought that we needed pleasing fans of the games and newcomers alike I'd firmly consider the last of us as the best video game adaptation of all time at least in a live-action sense

Channel: Movie Overload

Views: 46,432

Keywords: the last of us, last of us, video essay, hbo, the last of us hbo, last of us hbo, the last of us show, pedro pascal, bella ramsey, joel, ellie, naughty dog, tlou, joel and ellie, the last of us video essay, movie overload, film, hbo max, the last of us game, the last of us tv show, last of us video essay, last of us series, the last of us series, the last of us ellie, the last of us series hbo, the last of us hbo show, neil druckmann, craig mazin, the last of us analysis show

Id: zZKMRND2ZMU

Length: 31min 34sec (1894 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2023