Pretty pumped that they are airing the next episode on Friday so it doesn't conflict with the Superbowl. Currently this is the only show that I am actively looking forward to seeing each next episode and I'm glad they are having positive viewership growth each week.
This has been very good so far. I want to play the games but I really don't want to get spoiled or even have an idea of what direction things are going to go so I think I'll at least hold off till after this season.
Episode 3 was so good. I really loved that they inserted such a personal story into show, especially in such a clear and dramatic way. So many times I'm told to care about the plot or the people because of some 2-minute blip of a flashback or a snippet of dialog. Episode 3 showed some lives in the middle of all of the chaos, clearly characterized the people involved, over a long in-show timespan, then closed out the plot line in a single episode, and still kept it from being a non-sequitur. It felt like a little piece of TV magic.
Now that they’ve proven they can do random character episodes and have them be impactful, I would like to see more of them. 20 years is a very long time and it’s almost too long to gloss over what happened to people during that timeframe.
Yup, I'd be happy to see a small variety of character stories that showed how different types of people spent their lives.
Damn. That was a tough episode. Is the Spoiler the big infected beast unkillable?They shot the shit out of him.
Man, the apocalypse turned Rose into a bitch. The Last of Us Podcast is really good. Lots of info behind the scenes from the producers.
Spoiler In the game, they're the hardest version to kill, but they're not unkillable. Typically the easiest way to kill them was by using fire, so either flamethrowers or molotov cocktails. So, it'll remain to be seen if they use that same method in the show, if they encounter another one.
Finally watched Sunday's ep. So good. I really enjoyed the first few seasons of The Walking Dead, but this a tier above that. The cast is so good. Elaine Miles and Graham Greene just casually being in this episode! I haven't seen her in anything since she played Marilyn in Northern Exposure. What a treat.
I agree, it was good to see Graham Greene still kicking it. The episode was good, but at someone who never played the games, are they going to run out of content to draw from in a season or so? It seems like they’re moving very quickly.
This first season is supposed to cover the events of the first full game. After that, there's the whole sequel to work through. Now whether or not they try to do that in just one season or spread it out is still to be determined. Regardless, the game creators who are also the showrunners have said they don't have any intentions of creating "new" material once they complete the existing source material, ala GoT.
It would have worked okay in GoT if the showrunners didn't rush the last season to go work on a Star Wars movie.
Other shows need to take note here. This kind of story telling is what gets people invested in characters, and that creates the experience of the viewer having a stake in the show's characters. Showing people being their human selves, forming relationships, finding happiness and joy, creating bonds... the story tellers for this show are killing it. I haven't played the game so I'm not sure how much of this story was already canon and how much is just good writing.
I haven't played the games either, but I think it's fair to chalk it up to good writing. We've see shitty video game adaptations that were true to the source material (e.g. Rampage) and shitty ones that took a ton of artistic liberty (Super Mario Brothers: The Movie). So bringing something like that to screen and having it essentially be prestige TV is a pretty big feat.
And now they basically poisoned their own well with their selfish dumbfuckery. Any project with their name on it gets flamed into the ninth ring of hell. All showrunners since then should learn their lesson from them: don’t fuck up art with impatience.
So far, a very large part of the story has been pulled directly from the first game and it's DLC (this most recent episode was pretty much the whole DLC story). Episode 3, which was the story of Bill and Frank was based on a couple of characters from the game, but their actual story in the game was very minimal compared to what was filmed for the show. That being said, the games creators are also the main show-runners for this, so even in areas they need to write out a larger story, they can very easily work with the original creators to keep it well within the canon of the game.
Got it. I guess what I really meant wasn't exactly, "does this fit within the game's universe," but rather a question of how much of the story was explicitly told in the game vs. being new writing that was just for the show. Not to take away from anyone involved, just curious on how much of the story is simply a good adaption for TV and not brand new writing. The Bill and Frank example being a good one, where you're saying it was a small part of the game but obviously a big part of the show. So it sounds like the writers and show runners here are just doing excellent work. Whatever it is, I haven't been this invested in the actual characters of a series for a while. I like Andor. I like the Mandalorian. I am cheering for Ellie.
Having played the game, I'd say it's a good mix of both. The story in the game was well fleshed out in some places, but like the aforementioned Bill and Frank story, it was alluded to in a manner that was completely different than how it was both portrayed, and expanded upon in the episode. (Here's a good article comparing the difference between the show and the game.) Spoiler The most recent episode was a separate DLC released after the initial game, and the whole mall story was pretty much a complete retelling of that portion of the game. There were obvious stylistic changes to the show to make it more TV friendly, but the actual story itself was directly pulled from the source material.