Game vs. Show

[Whimsy]

This is the place to compare the game to the show.  Read at your own risk since there could potentially be some spoilers (or not, I have no idea).

[Danny Franks]

The voices of Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson are such a central part of the game experience that I'm just not sure I can accept anyone else as Joel and Ellie.  We'll see how things go. Bella Ramsey does sound a lot like Johnson's Ellie when she swears, which is amusing.

I did appreciate the big build to the fight with Robert, which is really just a gameplay tutorial, only to skip it all and go straight to Marlene. I didn't appreciate the change they made to Joel and Ellie meeting. I liked that Ellie went after him specifically to help Marlene. In this, she just randomly leaps out of a doorway.

I might have misinterpreted some of the dialogue, but it seemed like Joel and Tess already had a plan to skip Boston and make it to Tommy, which I'm not a fan of. I liked Joel as a completely aimless, amoral thug doing whatever it took each day to stay alive. Giving him a pre-existing goal undercuts that.

[Dev F]

7 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

I might have misinterpreted some of the dialogue, but it seemed like Joel and Tess already had a plan to skip Boston and make it to Tommy, which I'm not a fan of. I liked Joel as a completely aimless, amoral thug doing whatever it took each day to stay alive. Giving him a pre-existing goal undercuts that.

That's definitely one of the bigger changes, but to me it seemed like a smart one. In a video game, where successfully getting through one location and into the next is essentially its own reward, the MacGuffins that send your character from the first location to the second can be pretty MacGuffin-y without the player batting an eye. But in a dramatic series, when the whole point is to explore what drives the characters from one episode to the next, I'm not sure it would work for Joel's motivation to just be "Get nicer stuff to smuggle."

[cambridgeguy]

I wonder if they'll make a nod to the in-game healing mechanic.  Suffer any injury and are on the brink of death?  No problem, just soak a rag in alcohol and wrap it around your arm!

[Danny Franks]

7 hours ago, Dev F said:

That's definitely one of the bigger changes, but to me it seemed like a smart one. In a video game, where successfully getting through one location and into the next is essentially its own reward, the MacGuffins that send your character from the first location to the second can be pretty MacGuffin-y without the player batting an eye. But in a dramatic series, when the whole point is to explore what drives the characters from one episode to the next, I'm not sure it would work for Joel's motivation to just be "Get nicer stuff to smuggle."

I don't know. In the game, the only goals Joel has are - get Ellie to the Fireflies then go back to his practically comatose existence. He isn't living, he's just existing.

He goes from one location to another solely because of Ellie, and his reasons for doing it transform from 'delivering the cargo' to genuinely caring about her and then, ultimately, to rescuing her.

[thuganomics85]

Definitely remember that Tess' death in the game was being shot to death by soldiers, so I was a little surprised over how it played out this go around.

Also got a chuckle over the throwaway line about the concept of being infected by spores from the air.  I can see why they made that change because it probably would be hard to translate that onto film/television without raising a lot of questions and having to suspend ones belief for a lot of scenarios.

[mledawn]

11 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Definitely remember that Tess' death in the game was being shot to death by soldiers, so I was a little surprised over how it played out this go around.

Also got a chuckle over the throwaway line about the concept of being infected by spores from the air.  I can see why they made that change because it probably would be hard to translate that onto film/television without raising a lot of questions and having to suspend ones belief for a lot of scenarios.

When Joel kicked at the wizened tentacle on the ground I got nervous but then remembered airborne isn’t a thing in the show

[Danny Franks]

Changing Tess's death - I like that they made it Infected that she tries to hold back, because it never made that much sense for Fedra to be coming out into the city. The kiss thing was... weird and gross, but I guess it was to show she was already losing her free will.

The scenes that were direct translations from the game made me happy. The Clickers made me very unhappy, which means they worked.

 

[CrazyDog]

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask, or if needs a spoiler tag, but I swear I've read that the

Spoiler

first season may cover the first game entirely. That seems like a lot of story to cover, though I've only read about it, not played the games. I kind of hope we get a more gradual build up of the Joel and Ellie relationship.

 

[cambridgeguy]

14 hours ago, CrazyDog said:

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask, or if needs a spoiler tag, but I swear I've read that the

  Reveal spoiler

Spoiler

They've cast David, who shows up pretty late in the game.  After he's dealt with the only thing left is getting to Salt Lake City and finishing things up, which shouldn't be more than an episode.

If they do finish up the first game in then the question is will they have the guts to cover the sequel.  They cast the wrong GOT alum if they're going to kill Joel at the beginning of season 2.  Sean Bean is right there!

 

[sandrajane]

12 minutes ago, Starchild said:

So Frank and Bill weren't in the game? Or they were but not like this? Or they were just mentioned in a backhanded comment?

They were together in the game.  There wasn't much of a backstory, though.

According to my nephew.  He played the games.  He just explained some things to me and how they changed it a bit for the show.

Edited January 30, 2023 by sandrajane
more thoughts

[TheOtherOne]

I posted this link in the episode thread for those who wanted to know about game Bill/Frank, and it was deleted so it's evidently forbidden, but here it is for those interested. Their story was darker and sadder (and not told as in-depth) as in the episode.

https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Bill

[DesertCyclist]

In the game, Joel and Ellie never meet Frank.  They do meet Bill, and he's an asshole gay "survivalist" like in the show.  However, he lives in run-down, overrun downtown instead of the suburbs, and Frank, who's still his lover, lives elsewhere and is discovered to have hanged himself.

I liked the deviations from the game, but I do miss some of the interactions between Ellie and Bill and some awesome fight scenes with the infected.

Edited January 30, 2023 by DesertCyclist

[PurpleTentacle]

This was quite a departure from the games. But it was sweet, seeing those two together. The ending was quite a bit more tragic than one leaving the other, even if Frank also died in the games. We never met him, so we never built an emotional connection.

I can't say I wasn't disappointed that Ellie didn't read and comment on gay nudie mags as they were driving away, but I guess that wouldn't have fit the mood. Also I don't think anybody but Ashley Johnson could have made that scene that hilarious.

-

May I reiterate that not being able to compare and contrast in episode threads takes quite a bit away from the discussion and that I'd like to know spoiler-free background information to shows I don't know the source material of? Thank you.

5 hours ago, DesertCyclist said:

However, he lives in run-down, overrun downtown instead of the suburbs, and Frank, who's still his lover, lives elsewhere and is discovered to have hanged himself.

If I remember correctly Frank had broken up with Bill, because he just couldn't take his stubbornness anymore. Something they adressed in this episode, with the relationship also close to breaking. But here Bill bent a little and that kept their relationship alive.

Also I think Frank was either bitten or trapped and that is why he hanged himself. He wasn't suicidal per se, if I remember correctly.

From the episode thread:

18 hours ago, Demian said:

Man, the rabid gameboys are going to freak the fuck out when they see all the gay.

Bill and Frank were very gay in the games too. Also (putting it in spoilers in case you get pinged and don't want to know)

Spoiler

Ellie is very very gay.

Also from the episode thread:

18 hours ago, Raachel2008 said:

The same rabid gameboys who are bashing Bella Ramsay because she doesn’t look like Ellie, I.e., they don’t think she is pretty as a fucking avatar? I hope they do freak the fuck out.

Ellie was modeled pretty blatently after Elliot Page, pre transition. Elliot even commented on it at one point.

So people who look like that certainly exist.

For me personally it's more jaring that Ellie doesn't have the voice and personality Ashley Johnson brought to the role, but I ackknowlege, that Johnson is a bit too old to play Ellie. Although she still does a pretty convincing teenager.

-

Also also from the episode thread:

8 hours ago, diebartdie said:

Regarding "rabid gamer guys", TLoU wasn't "queer" in any way, nor was it "straight" but TLoU2...well it was basically it's own giant Pride Parade (and I loved it for that). Maybe a day will finally come when we are just part of the tapestry of humanity and not noteworthy, not some "thing" to be enraged by. Episodes like this one go a long, long way towards building that future for all of us.

Well Bill and Frank were in 1, even if they weren't shown together and Ellie and her first girlfriend were in the DLC of the first game. So not exactly no queer representation in that one.

The second game had a lot of queer representation, but sadly it was also pretty bad. Too much free reign for Druckman, it seems.

Edited January 30, 2023 by PurpleTentacle

[Raachel2008]

2 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Ellie was modeled pretty blatently after Elliot Page, pre transition. Elliot even commented on it at one point.

So people who look like that certainly exist.

For me personally it's more jaring that Ellie doesn't have the voice and personality Ashley Johnson brought to the role, but I ackknowlege, that Johnson is a bit too old to play Ellie. Although she still does a pretty convincing teenager.

I didn't say it, I said - and I maintain it - that rabid male gamers (and females too) are having a hissy fit across the web because Bella Ramsay doesn't look like a pretty avatar. Pretty people and representation of pretty people exist, but that's not my point. My point is that bashing this  young actress because she doesn't look like an avatar is pathetic, wrong and one of the reasons I don't give a fuck if the rabid gamers have a heart attack if the show deviates from the game and show two gays kissing and having sex. They can choke up on their misoginy and homophobia and die, for all I care.

I loved the episode. The acting was fantastic. I know the major points of the game, but not many spoilers, so I had no idea what was going to happen except that they were a couple. Did we know what Frank did before the apocalypse? I was worried he was playing Bill for shelter and food, and was going to turn into a psycho. I'm glad they found each other and fell in love and fought and were friends, and survived as long as they could, like any couple in a long term sucessfull relationship. I enjoyed the small touches, like the pavement getting older, the chipped paint, the shredded flag, how the flowers were not the same as before (not the same high maintenance flowers as from the beggining of their relationship). 

I was pleased they didn't shy away from showing intimacy between two men AND as important as that, two man in their late 40's early 50's and past that.

I want to know what happened in those 10 years between the Tess and Joe visit to Bill and Frank and their escape with Ellie; because both Joe and Tesse are very different. It is not just the clothes or the packing on years, you can see that whatever sort of upper hand they had in their situation changed for the worse. I wonder if FEDRA just became even more totalitarian and crushed small dealers and smugglers like them, or if the number of infected became so high they couldn't travel more and that had an impact on their business - they said they hadn't been in downtown Boston in what, a year?

Loved the small detais, like Joel, the contractor pointing to Bill how is fence was going to fail, and how Ellie was happy to see the  box of tampons and putting toillet paper in her backpack, both Ellie and Joe taking a shower and immediately looking fresh and better and in a good humor. 

Speaking about Ellie, I think she is acting tougher than she really is, but at the same time, she is a child of the post-apocalypse, raised in a Fedra orphanage. They burn children bodies in the middle of the QZ. Fedra kills people on streets and infected without thinking twice. They are on ration cards. Joel talked about pancakes, I was expecting her to say 'I never had a pancake'. This kid is not our 2023 normal world kid. Who is to say that was the first mass grave she ever saw?

For the record, I don't find it bizarre that Ellie is taking the whole thing as a field trip. I think that... attitude, for the lack of a better word, is very common among teenagers, and yes, it is a horrible world, and such, but it is all when there was no hoard around.

Someone mentioned, though, last episode, that the swearing was too much. I'm no prude and swear a lot myself, but I'm over Ellie swearing in all her lines. I never palyed the game, so I don't know it is how the character is or something they decided for the series, but make it stop.

Other than that - Joel and Ellie are at their best together.

[Anela]

I follow a streamer who is loving the show, but was disappointed they didn't show something at a school? 

[cambridgeguy]

9 hours ago, Anela said:

I follow a streamer who is loving the show, but was disappointed they didn't show something at a school? 

There's an enemy they run into at the school that they're pushing back.  They probably decided it's too early in the season for that to happen.

[Anela]

This is one of those times when I'm glad that I couldn't afford to play the game. I got back into gaming in 2016, and don't have a console, only a gaming pc. I can be "that person" when it comes to book adaptations. 

[sandrajane]

On 1/30/2023 at 7:09 PM, Raachel2008 said:

I didn't say it, I said - and I maintain it - that rabid male gamers (and females too) are having a hissy fit across the web because Bella Ramsay doesn't look like a pretty avatar. Pretty people and representation of pretty people exist, but that's not my point. My point is that bashing this  young actress because she doesn't look like an avatar is pathetic, wrong and one of the reasons I don't give a fuck if the rabid gamers have a heart attack if the show deviates from the game and show two gays kissing and having sex. They can choke up on their misoginy and homophobia and die, for all I care.

 

I stumbled upon a youtuber who who thinks Bella was miscast because she's not "adorable" like Ellie is in the game.  Ellie is a foul mouthed, annoying little turd, there's nothing adorable about her.  But he kept mentioning it and it was clear it was a roundabout way of him saying something about Bella's looks.  

[Danny Franks]

So they did a 180 with Bill and focused on the happiness of his life with Frank, and how Bill was able to change and be less dogmatic.

In the game, Bill is the guy who tells Joel that caring and trusting will get you killed. He drives Frank away and is surely going to die alone. He's what Joel could be, if he doesn't let anyone in.

In the show, he's an example of what Joel could be if he does let people in. Yes, it's going to hurt, but it's worth it.

I did miss Bill and Ellie bickering like they do in the game, but this was powerful television.

[PurpleTentacle]

On 1/31/2023 at 1:09 AM, Raachel2008 said:

I didn't say it, I said - and I maintain it - that rabid male gamers (and females too) are having a hissy fit across the web because Bella Ramsay doesn't look like a pretty avatar.

Calling Ellie at her current age an avatar is a bit of strech. In the first game you only play her for a very short amount of time, towards the end. So mostly she is an NPC.

Also Elliot Page was very much cast and seen as "the girl next door" at the time. So certainly not the height of beauty and again what you call "an avatar" looks very much like her.

I agree that american TV and cinema needs more average looking people, like british TV has. But I also think it's a very, very small minority of people who don't like Bella Ramsay because of how she looks.

Like I said, my critique is that she doesn't quite capture what I'd expect form Ellie. As an actress she doesn't seem to have the greatest range. That's okay in principle, she is still young and can still improve. But if I had my way, they would have switched her and Nico Parker. We only saw a short glimpse, but she seemed to be a better actress. Parker might be a bit more conventionally attractive. But a black Ellie would have pissed off the bigots all the same.

On 1/31/2023 at 1:09 AM, Raachel2008 said:

I loved the episode. The acting was fantastic.

No arguments there. The episode and Nick Offerman should get an Emmy... but of course won't.

On 1/31/2023 at 1:09 AM, Raachel2008 said:

Loved the small detais, like Joel, the contractor pointing to Bill how is fence was going to fail, and how Ellie was happy to see the  box of tampons and putting toillet paper in her backpack, both Ellie and Joe taking a shower and immediately looking fresh and better and in a good humor. 

Though how Bill and Frank still had toilet paper after 20 years is a mystery to me. Must have had a killer bidet.

Also not sure how they still had electricity. Gasoline goes bad in about a year and i don't think that generator was natural gas powered. Even if it was, 20 years is a long time for that station, where Bill opened the valve to supply it and not spring any leaks.

On 1/31/2023 at 12:02 PM, cambridgeguy said:

There's an enemy they run into at the school that they're pushing back.  They probably decided it's too early in the season for that to happen.

Are we talking about the bloater? Because they pretty much commented last episode that that's not going to happen. Ellie mentions hearing rumors about one and Joel and Tess say "yeah no, that doesn't exist". No zombies that vomit spores at you, because there are no spores.

On 2/1/2023 at 3:26 AM, Anela said:

This is one of those times when I'm glad that I couldn't afford to play the game. I got back into gaming in 2016, and don't have a console, only a gaming pc. I can be "that person" when it comes to book adaptations. 

The Last of Us Part 1 (remastered last of us) is coming to PC in March. So maybe you can play it once season 1 is over. I'm not sure if they'll get through the first games story in season 1 though. Depends on how much they stretch.

[cambridgeguy]

6 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Are we talking about the bloater? Because they pretty much commented last episode that that's not going to happen. Ellie mentions hearing rumors about one and Joel and Tess say "yeah no, that doesn't exist". No zombies that vomit spores at you, because there are no spores.

It might not end up throwing spores, but one shows up in the trailer.  They might treat it like a big Clicker.

[Danny Franks]

4 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

It might not end up throwing spores, but one shows up in the trailer.  They might treat it like a big Clicker.

As long as it isn't like the Rat King, from TLOU Part 2. That thing still gives me the shivers.

[CooperTV]

  

4 hours ago, paigow said:

Game Of Thrones producers not involved...

Neil Druckman, however, is involved.

[Danny Franks]

So this episode was the first one where I didn't like the changes from the game.

Humanising the Pittsburgh group made them far, far less effective as a threat. The game made them terrifying from the off, but in the show they were just a hapless bunch being ordered around by a woman with the air of someone who's had enough of bad customer service.

But all the Ellie and Joel stuff was great. The parts lifted from the game and the new parts.

[Danny Franks]

Henry and Sam in the game absolutely gutted me. The fact they spent weeks with Joel and Ellie made what happened so powerful, and so painful for Ellie, in particular. 

The way they adapted it here felt, for the first time, so much less than it was in the game.

[Nashville]

On 2/9/2023 at 2:45 PM, Danny Franks said:

The game made them terrifying from the off, but in the show they were just a hapless bunch being ordered around by a woman with the air of someone who's had enough of bad customer service.

Two minutes into EVERY scene with Kathleen and I’d find myself wondering, “Why Kathleen, when the character’s name should so obviously have been Karen…?”

Edited February 16, 2023 by Nashville
Typo

[mcree]

23 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

Henry and Sam in the game absolutely gutted me. The fact they spent weeks with Joel and Ellie made what happened so powerful

Not weeks. They meet during daytime. They wait until dark. Stuff happens, and they encounter the sniper during the day, where Sam is bitten. It ends in the morning. Maybe 40 hours. 

[cambridgeguy]

I suppose getting stabbed by a broken baseball bat is more survivable than falling onto an exposed piece of rebar.  In reality both are fatal wounds, especially since Ellie has no medical training, but the rebar would have been pushing it too far.

I wonder if that girl who was watching Ellie eat was supposed to be Dina.

Edited February 20, 2023 by cambridgeguy

[Dobian]

On 1/30/2023 at 4:09 PM, Raachel2008 said:

I didn't say it, I said - and I maintain it - that rabid male gamers (and females too) are having a hissy fit across the web because Bella Ramsay doesn't look like a pretty avatar. Pretty people and representation of pretty people exist, but that's not my point. My point is that bashing this  young actress because she doesn't look like an avatar is pathetic, wrong and one of the reasons I don't give a fuck if the rabid gamers have a heart attack if the show deviates from the game and show two gays kissing and having sex. They can choke up on their misoginy and homophobia and die, for all I care.

I've only watched a couple of episodes so my opinion might change.  But from what I have seen so far, it isn't just that Bella doesn't look like game Ellie.  And let's be clear - and this gets into a general condescending view people have of video game characters, that what they look like doesn't really matter.  Because it does.  For example, if they decided to continue Harry Potter from right after the fall of Voldemort but had some actor who looks nothing like Harry Potter play him, people would have a fit.  But when it's a video game character, no big deal.  I had the same issue with Uncharted the movie, where young Nathan Drake didn't evoke anything of game Nathan Drake for me.  But setting appearance aside, the real issue is that so far, Bella hasn't captured Ellie's personality very much.  She's angry, arrogant, and snarky.  But she also lacks the innocence, warmth and compassion of game Ellie.  She is basically playing her Game of Thrones character, which doesn't work for me here.  They also seem to be making her a Mary Sue, while game Ellie grew as she learned how to survive from Joel.

That said, I would have preferred the actress - who is black - who played Joel's daughter to play Ellie.  She seemed a much better personality fit to me for the role, and I could have quickly accepted her as Ellie versus Bella.

As for gay men having sex, this story really isn't the place for that, just as it wouldn't be the place for straight people having sex.  It's not that kind of story.  It doesn't make you a misogynist or a homophobe because you don't want to see certain things in certain stories just for the sake of shoehorning them in.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Dobian

[Danny Franks]

So the show kept the pivotal Joel/Ellie scene intact, for the most part and it worked really well. Some minor changes, and I'm kind of glad they skipped the bit where she runs off and Joel has to chase after her. That worked for a game, where you need the mechanics of fighting your way to her, but the show doesn't need that.

One little scene I was sad to lose was at the dam, after the attack, where Ellie rushes up to Joel, talking a mile a minute about what happened and Joel is just trying to get her to shut up so he can ask if she's okay. It's such a father/daughter moment, and Tommy seeing it is what convinces him to take Ellie. He sees what this is threatening to be, for Joel, and how much pain it could cause him.

We saw Shimmer, her horse from Part 2, as a foal. I wonder if that girl that Ellie challenged for looking at her might have been a young Dina. 

[CooperTV]

8 hours ago, Dobian said:

just as it wouldn't be the place for straight people having sex. 

But Neil Druckman disagrees! The only ever sex scene in the game franchise belongs to heterosexual couple, and that scene happened to be a giant meme because how hilariously cringe it was. I really hope they will reenact that cringe-fest in live action, though.

[cambridgeguy]

6 hours ago, CooperTV said:

But Neil Druckman disagrees! The only ever sex scene in the game franchise belongs to heterosexual couple, and that scene happened to be a giant meme because how hilariously cringe it was. I really hope they will reenact that cringe-fest in live action, though.

Plus it's not just a straight couple that indulges in sexy times during the second game, even though they don't show it explicitly.  I'm sure HBO will be happy to do so, though.  Fair is fair!

[Raachel2008]

On 2/20/2023 at 5:34 PM, Dobian said:

I've only watched a couple of episodes so my opinion might change.  But from what I have seen so far, it isn't just that Bella doesn't look like game Ellie.  And let's be clear - and this gets into a general condescending view people have of video game characters, that what they look like doesn't really matter.  Because it does.  For example, if they decided to continue Harry Potter from right after the fall of Voldemort but had some actor who looks nothing like Harry Potter play him, people would have a fit.  But when it's a video game character, no big deal.  I had the same issue with Uncharted the movie, where young Nathan Drake didn't evoke anything of game Nathan Drake for me.  But setting appearance aside, the real issue is that so far, Bella hasn't captured Ellie's personality very much.  She's angry, arrogant, and snarky.  But she also lacks the innocence, warmth and compassion of game Ellie.  She is basically playing her Game of Thrones character, which doesn't work for me here.  They also seem to be making her a Mary Sue, while game Ellie grew as she learned how to survive from Joel.

You may want to watch the other episodes then, because Ellie is not a Mary Sue and it not played like Bella's character in Game of Thrones (who had like 6 minutes of lines). She is doing a great job.

[Dobian]

On 2/22/2023 at 5:21 PM, Raachel2008 said:

You may want to watch the other episodes then, because Ellie is not a Mary Sue and it not played like Bella's character in Game of Thrones (who had like 6 minutes of lines). She is doing a great job.

Yeah, she was much better in episode 3.  The bit where she kills the trapped zombie was too sociopath I thought, but the rest of the time she was fine.

Edited February 24, 2023 by Dobian

[opus]

This is probably the safest place to mention (if it hasn't been somewhere else here) that the Left Behind sequence was originally a downloadable expansion pack, not part of the main game. It was eventually bundled into the game on disc in The Last Of US Remastered release.

Edited February 28, 2023 by opus

[Danny Franks]

Using Take on Me by A-Ha. Love that nod to one of the sweetest scenes in the second game.

This was a good adaptation of Left Behind. I think, if it was up to me, I might have interspersed a bit more of Ellie looking for stuff to help Joel, as the game did. In the game, she goes to another abandoned mall to look for medical supplies, which juxtaposes with her and Riley in the Boston mall.

But I can see why they decided to bookend it, showing Ellie making her choice not to abandon him, even when he told her to.

[Peace 47]

 

11 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

This was a good adaptation of Left Behind. I think, if it was up to me, I might have interspersed a bit more of Ellie looking for stuff to help Joel, as the game did. In the game, she goes to another abandoned mall to look for medical supplies, which juxtaposes with her and Riley in the Boston mall.

I know the entire stories of both games but didn’t know about the DLC until someone mentioned it in the show thread after I had posted a similar thought to this about interweaving past and present.  Didn’t “Lost” and “Alias” sometimes do those smash cuts to the past when the character is doing something in the present that evokes the memory?  I still think that would have worked nicely here.  But I get that they could not build 2 mall sets to really go all-in on a concept like that.  

With this thread marked as spoilers, what does that mean exactly?  Can we openly talk about things that happen at any point in either game as it relates to what is happening in the show?  Because when Ellie asked Riley if her surprise was a dinosaur, I had Thoughts.

 

[mcree]

After Joel falls off the horse, the game gets some mileage out of “is he alive” before Ellie returns to the basement and we see him. It’s notable that the DLC is entirely separate, and you play it after; there is no option to weave it into the main game, which is what the show has done, and shows that Joel is Not Dead Yet immediately.

Main game without DLC:

1. Joel kills a dozen guys at university but is wounded
2. Joel falls off horse
3. Cut to black and start of Winter
4. [stuff happens with Ellie]
5. Ellie returns to basement with Joel

Show:

1. Joel kills one guy and is wounded
2. Joe falls off horse
3. Ellie is in basement with Joel
4. As shown in preview, next episode [stuff happens with Ellie]

The DLC happens between steps 2 and 3 in the game. It is set entirely in a mall in Colorado, with the flashbacks to the mall in Boston. Yes, they would not have gone to the effort and expense to create two mall sets — one was tough enough. In the DLC, the mall is an opportunity for Ellie to kill a few dozen men and infected. But that would be counterproductive for the show. In both the game and the show, Ellie as action hero will (presumably for the show) first happen during the [stuff] which has a whole story behind it, and not some generic combat. When you play the DLC, the player knows who these guys are, even if Ellie doesn’t (not that it matters to her).

[PurpleTentacle]

Calling the episode based on the left behing DLC, "left behind" may not have been the height of creativity, but I did love the content.

On 2/2/2023 at 10:46 AM, cambridgeguy said:

It might not end up throwing spores, but one shows up in the trailer.  They might treat it like a big Clicker.

For me a defining characteristic of the bloater is that it is bloated. What we got in the show was a very swole boy, not bloated at all.

On 2/20/2023 at 1:21 PM, cambridgeguy said:

I suppose getting stabbed by a broken baseball bat is more survivable than falling onto an exposed piece of rebar.  In reality both are fatal wounds, especially since Ellie has no medical training, but the rebar would have been pushing it too far.

I mean, it depends on how lucky you are. If it doesn't hit any major arteries or organs, both are very survivable without much medical training, as long as you have antibiotics. That is a big "if" of course, but this is fiction, so the authors can just decide that is the case. It becomes unrealistic, if it happens repeatedly, but I will give any show at least one pass for something unlikely to happen, because unlikely does not mean impossible.

On 2/20/2023 at 9:34 PM, Dobian said:

But setting appearance aside, the real issue is that so far, Bella hasn't captured Ellie's personality very much.  She's angry, arrogant, and snarky.  But she also lacks the innocence, warmth and compassion of game Ellie.  She is basically playing her Game of Thrones character, which doesn't work for me here.  They also seem to be making her a Mary Sue, while game Ellie grew as she learned how to survive from Joel.

That was my crique as well. But seeing more episodes, they actually did give her Ellie's playfullness, jokester personality and compassion. She also learns things form Joel and isn't good at everything right away.

Your mileage may vary, but I think it was not Bella, but the writers who made Ellie too reserved in the first episodes. Not sure if that was a good choice or not, but it seems to have been deliberate and not any lack of talent on Bella's part, which I thought was the reason for a long time, too.

12 hours ago, Peace 47 said:

Can we openly talk about things that happen at any point in either game as it relates to what is happening in the show?

Yes. It's a bit inconvenient for people who only want background information to current show events, but it is how it is.

5 hours ago, mcree said:

After Joel falls off the horse, the game gets some mileage out of “is he alive” before Ellie returns to the basement and we see him. It’s notable that the DLC is entirely separate, and you play it after; there is no option to weave it into the main game, which is what the show has done, and shows that Joel is Not Dead Yet immediately.

Not even in the remastered version (haven't played that one yet, will when it comes to PC)? That's just weird. If you remaster a game, you'd think you'd integrate something that is supposedly happening at a specific point in the story into taking place at that specific point...

[CooperTV]

5 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Not even in the remastered version (haven't played that one yet, will when it comes to PC)? That's just weird. If you remaster a game, you'd think you'd integrate something that is supposedly happening at a specific point in the story into taking place at that specific point...

Probably for the best they cut it out, though. Deus Ex Human Revolution has its DLC inside the game itself, and it's like, nominally five hours of content player can't skip.

[Dev F]

12 hours ago, mcree said:

The DLC happens between steps 2 and 3 in the game. It is set entirely in a mall in Colorado, with the flashbacks to the mall in Boston. Yes, they would not have gone to the effort and expense to create two mall sets — one was tough enough.

My guess is that it was more a narrative issue than a production issue. First, slotting the Left Behind story chronologically into the main narrative meant it now had to serve an additional purpose: whereas the DLC only had to explain why Ellie chose to stay with Joel and try to save his life, the episode also had to establish the basic fact that she does save him, something the original game had already taken care of in the main narrative before the DLC came out. This means that the episode couldn't really jump forward to show Ellie scrounging around a mall, because viewers would be distracted wondering whether Joel was still alive, how Ellie stabilized him, etc.

But once you're sort of locked into portraying the earliest stage of Ellie saving Joel, it seems most natural to focus on the most emotionally significant part of that stage—when Ellie decides she's going to do whatever it takes to save him. And if you've committed to showing both Ellie deciding to save Joel and the backstory that explains why she saves him, it's logical to have them come to a head at the same time. That way, we're not just seeing flashbacks to the events that motivate Ellie's current actions, we're watching Ellie herself reexperience them and be motivated by them. And that's the emotional climax to both the flashback and the present-day story, so there's really nothing gained by drawing out the present-day story beyond that point.

That's especially the case because the show can't replicate the nonnarrative logic that informs the interlocking past/present storylines in the DLC. There, one of the big points of the flashbacks (as the showrunners point out in the episode podcast) is to take the same controls players have been using throughout the original game to murder fungus zombies and outlaws, and use them in a totally new way: to take Ellie through a fun date at the mall. By intercutting the alternate gameplay of Ellie's date with more traditional gameplay of Ellie fighting through waves of bad guys in the present—e.g., in one she and Riley are having a water gun fight, while in the other she's shooting infected in the head—the DLC reinforces the connections between Ellie's experiences with Riley and her determination to save Joel.

In the show, on the other hand, the only obvious connection would be that both events take place in a mall, and trying to draw more specific parallels by, say, cutting directly from a water gun fight to a firefight would pretty quickly get labored and heavy handed. It's probably for the best that the writers decided not to go there.

[Peace 47]

Going back to episode 6, one minor difference between game scene and show that I thought was a good change related to Joel and Ellie’s argument in the house about Tommy taking Ellie to the Fireflies.  Before they really get into it, Ellie asks in the show whether Joel cares about her at all, and he answers, “Of course I do.”  I think that was a good touch, given how harsh he then is in the argument.  Not everything needs to be spelled out, but in this case it seemed like the right choice to underscore how Ellie knew that Joel was reacting out of fear.

[PurpleTentacle]

11 hours ago, CooperTV said:

Probably for the best they cut it out, though. Deus Ex Human Revolution has its DLC inside the game itself, and it's like, nominally five hours of content player can't skip.

As long as the content is good, why would you want to skip it? You don't skip any other parts of the game either. Also you could make it a toggleable option.

Only thing I could see is that it would take too much rewriting to slot it in perfectly.

[CooperTV]

58 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

As long as the content is good, why would you want to skip it? You don't skip any other parts of the game either. Also you could make it a toggleable option.

I'd rather DLCs were available outside of the main game. Just like it was done in The Last of Us game. The show should take notice of that too because Left Behind was left behind in the bin for a reason.

[Danny Franks]

3 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

As long as the content is good, why would you want to skip it? You don't skip any other parts of the game either. Also you could make it a toggleable option.

Only thing I could see is that it would take too much rewriting to slot it in perfectly.

I think Naughty Dog are only too aware that some sections of the game's fanbase would be vocally unhappy about having to play the Left Behind DLC within the main game. Mainly because it's about Ellie and not Joel, but partly because of the "woke" content that those fragile snowflakes can't handle.

[Peace 47]

 

On 2/1/2023 at 5:22 PM, Danny Franks said:

In the show, he's an example of what Joel could be if he does let people in. Yes, it's going to hurt, but it's worth it.

On the subject of Bill being Joel’s mirror, I just rewatched episode 3, and it really hit me, in a way it didn’t on first watch, how devastating (in a tragically poignant way) a portion of the last scene is, when you know what happens to Joel and Ellie in both games.

When Joel and Ellie are in the “piece of shit Chevy S-10,” the setting sun is making their faces literally glow as they drive through the gate of Bill’s compound out into the world, and it’s peaceful.  The first lyrics you hear are “I think it’s [this love is] gonna hurt me for a long, long time.”  And they are having a lovely little bonding moment when he can’t help but smile at her comment that Linda Ronstadt is better than nothing (and she is clearly intrigued that she amused him), and these are the specific lyrics you hear:

“Wait for the day/ You’ll go away / Knowing that you warned me of the price I’d have to pay.”

Ouch.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Peace 47

[Peace 47]

Regarding the end of episode 8, one thing that I liked about the game cut scene is that after Joel pulls Ellie off David and he hugs her, the last bit of their exchange is overtaken by music so that the characters get a bit of privacy in that vulnerable moment to say something we don’t get to hear.  A tiny bit of me wished it had also been in the HBO show, but I was overall once again amazed at the faithfulness of the adaptation to a pivotal game scene.

[cambridgeguy]

It's now very clear that the finale will cover the end of the game, which leaves me with the question of whether or not they will (or even should) follow all of the beats of TLOU2.  For those who think HBO is afraid of pissing off "fragile snowflakes", how can you incorporate Lev?  How can they get away with what Abby does without having the fanbase make the GOT pushback look like bemused grumbling?

[william0102]

I really liked episode 8, right until the ending. For me, I'm not a fan of GameJoel or ShowJoel, but there were moments past all of his aggressiveness and attitude that I truly felt for him. In the game, when Sara dies, there's a moment as Joel is hovering over Sara, trying to stop the bleeding, looking at her, etc, and he says "I'm gonna pick you up" and then he does. Like it was gonna hurt her like hell, but he had to hold her and tell her that he was gonna be there for her, but he also wouldn't do it without warning her since he doesn't want to hurt her.

The other time is when he first calls Ellie babygirl, I just remember him clearly calling out Ellie's name over and over as he tries to get her away from David, and he just keeps talking to try to bring Ellie back to herself, with minimal touching. Because he had to make sure she was okay, had to get her back from that dark place, and unfortunately the show did not give me that same emotion. And nothing against Pedro, because I got that he cared about Ellie- it was just him coming up silently behind her, almost restraining her as she freaked out, just killed the moment. I did really enjoy his interrogation scene though. I thought Bella did great, especially really the way Bella moved around the cage to keep as far away from David as possible. 

Edited March 6, 2023 by william0102