Set Design, Costumes, etc: A world built, A World Destroyed

[diebartdie]

I'm starting this topic because I am just so blown away by the visual world building in this show. Pedro Pascal LOOKS like he's pushing 60 but he's only 47! Anna Torv LOOKS like she's had a HARD 50+ years but she's only 43! That's cool but easy, right? Yeah but LOOK AT THE BUILDINGS and the highways and the cars and seriously, LOOK at that cityscape! Now if you're like me, you watched your fair share of The Walking Dead and how many times were you jarred out of a scene due to a well manicured lawn? Roadways with the shoulders mowed down nicely? Hell, working cars and motorcycles and the fresh, clean gasoline to go into them? Now here's The Last of Us and EVERYTHING looks like shit. Glorious, beautiful shit, devastation on screen that you can really FEEL. Just looking at the cityscape causes my mind to instantly fill with all the untold stories. How many people were still alive in that building when it slumped over onto another building? How many people had to just abandon their families in those cars on the highway? How many proud Americans surrendered sheeplike to the fascist FEDRA just to have a CHANCE at a meal? Why did people move from one city to another? Everywhere I look, I see stories and stories and more stories and it's just incredible. It all looks real, looks like hell.

And there there are the infected and honestly, right now I can NOT say they are "better" than TWD zombies because on TWD, ALL the money went into those zombies, never had a complaint about them. However, these Last of Us infected (not zombies as they are not dead) look amazing. Difference is (at least to me), zombies retain enough humanity in their faces it's hard not to feel sadness, empathy, pity. TLoU infected, especially those nasty "clickers" look much more like straight up monsters to me so they do not trigger empathy. Monster? Kill it!

So, I am REALLY enjoying this show, it has far exceeded MY expectations and it really looks like every doller it cost to create is right there in the screen. It's awesome, it's haunting and it is carrying it's weight in a way TWD never ever was able to do.

 

[Anela]

Proud americans died to the fungus, some because they didn't listen to instructions, and stay inside. Are the authorities specifically fascist in the game? I don't think the people in the quarantine zone are sheep. We've seen some of what they're dealing with, and I don't think everyday things like school, jobs, any sort of hobbies, shopping, etc, would have survived anyway, had the army just let people do whatever they wanted. 

I do agree with the rest, though. 

 

[bilgistic]

31 minutes ago, Anela said:

Proud americans died to the fungus, some because they didn't listen to instructions, and stay inside. Are the authorities specifically fascist in the game? I don't think the people in the quarantine zone are sheep. We've seen some of what they're dealing with, and I don't think everyday things like school, jobs, any sort of hobbies, shopping, etc, would have survived anyway, had the army just let people do whatever they wanted. 

I do agree with the rest, though.

It's almost as if the show is a metaphor for real life.

[TivoFan]

As a Jeopardy addict, I’m wondering if Canadian champion Ray Lalonde was the set designer. (He designed sets for Handmaid’s Tale.) I wish credits on tv series were as comprehensive as credits at the end of films. I also wish Netflix and others wouldn’t move them into tiny boxes and cut them off prematurely, but that’s an off-topic gripe.

[nodorothyparker]

On 1/26/2023 at 3:04 PM, diebartdie said:

it really looks like every doller it cost to create is right there in the screen. It's awesome, it's haunting and it is carrying it's weight in a way TWD never ever was able to do.

This show also reportedly has a budget larger than the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones. It looks absolutely incredible in a Life After People meets current-day Chernobyl mashup, but as show HBO is willing to throw that kind of money at it should look a lot better than a basic cable show that spent its early seasons fighting for money to be able to show zombies at all.

[paigow]

TWD also lost funding for light bulbs besides the SFX budget...