I have a whole top row of one of my collectible shelves dedicated to Last of Us, CE's/figures/etc. I feel like I'm predisposed to judging this severely, so I'm both excited and nervous. :D
It looks really fantastic. I don't think I like the Ellie actress, she will have to win me over. Loved her in GOT though. I LOVE that they included the Take On Me song, call back to TLOU2. Made me go and download the song and added it to my forever playlist. Just a fantastic cover of it even if it was almost unrecognizable. Ugghh the games had such good music.
> I thought it was terrible, boring and miscast. Hope it gets better. Yikes.
Really? I enjoyed it quite a bit! Ellie was miscast but that's been said since the initial news. Still, she's a strong actress and I'm optimistic she'll play the role well.
Wish they would have released two episodes to kick off like many others do.
Well, I am well known to like... Damn near everything. Might not be the best judge here but both my wife and I enjoyed it. Wish I woulda replayed the game before watching though. After Ys (which gdamnit is so good! 35 hours in), I may go play it instead of Tactics Ogre / Dead Space.
As someone who only started playing the game last night and therefore have no over attachment (yet), I thought the first episode was extremely well done. I heard on Harloff?s show that most reviewers claim the first episode was the ?worst? (not actually bad, just the weakest of the batch) and that the show only gets stronger from there. I?ll keep on watching.
I?ve rewatched it. I think it?s hard to watch this knowing the story and see the pace that it unfolds. It feels like forever before it gets to Boston- and knowing how quickly that into part of the story ends - it feels like a large waste of almost 1/2 the episode. It?s great TV but man how will they tell this story without like 5 seasons?
> I?ve rewatched it. I think it?s hard to watch this knowing the story and see the
> pace that it unfolds. It feels like forever before it gets to Boston- and knowing
> how quickly that into part of the story ends - it feels like a large waste of almost
> 1/2 the episode. It?s great TV but man how will they tell this story without like
> 5 seasons?
As someone who played Remastered years ago on PS4 and recently played the PS5 Remake, the story itself isn't long or complicated. It was a 17 hour game give or take and a lot of that is gameplay. Considering the 9-episode first season is planning to cover the whole first game and the DLC and they have added content for the show, they will be just fine. When playing the Remake recently, I was surprised how quickly the game ended when going into Winter and then Spring.
> I?ve rewatched it. I think it?s hard to watch this knowing the story and see the
> pace that it unfolds. It feels like forever before it gets to Boston- and knowing
> how quickly that into part of the story ends - it feels like a large waste of almost
> 1/2 the episode. It?s great TV but man how will they tell this story without like
> 5 seasons?
If it takes them 5 seasons to tell the story of part 1, they would definitely lose me - talk about padding and not moving the plot forward. That would one up some Game of Thrones seasons in terms of nothing happening. Considering the game is made of large chunks of gameplay which is time they can instead use to further focus on character/story development, I think using 1 season to tell the story will be perfect. Pacing is everything and they could mess it up, but first episode has me confident so far
They practically more than doubled the length of the prologue. I think the reason the show is not hitting with me yet is because there is not a dearth of action long periods in the game. The amount of great story in that 15-20 hour experience is a part of its brilliance. Hopefully the show picks up and I enjoy it but seeing more stuff about the upcoming episodes it looks like it may get a GoT type multiple character / stories ongoing that interconnect type treatment. This will require lots of backstory and new / supplemental material. annnd- it?s HBO. They have a penchant for creating brilliant TV when given source material but inevitably destroying the best stuff by padding it out too much. True Blood, GoT etc- some of their best shows were cancelled and never got watered down. Like Deadwood, Rome, Carnivale etc.
The first hour of cutscenes mirrored what happened in the first episode (of 9 total this first season), leaving 4 hours for the rest of 8 episodes. Some key gameplay portions will get trimmed down into a few action sequences for the show. The rest of the gameplay is filler and won't need to be reflected in the show.
Major story points would be Bill & Frank, Sam & Henry, David, Salt Lake City, and Riley from the Left Behind DLC. Each of those can be covered in a single episode, maybe 1 and a half for some characters.
Maybe it was just me, but Gabriel Luna as Tommy sounded just like the Tommy voice actor. And casting Marlene's voice actor to actually play Marlene in the show was awesome.
There will likely be a ?before the outbreak? episode or at least an after the bombing type episode.
He did sound exactly like Tommy. I was confused as to the casting Tommy VA as another toon and using that dude as the character- he?s pretty great.
Another insight- the prologue took more time partly because the ability of the game to tell the story by exploring the items in the house etc had to be more visual and less intuitive. That?s one of the perks of a video game. Tons of the story- and especially back story- is told through item descriptions/ files / photos, in game dialogue etc. that will all likely be realized through television by longer runtimes.
Some cool discussion of the source of the outbreak. Especially with the foods mentioned in the prologue. My theory is sugar, soy or flour (which would be because it has sugar in it.)
This is not a huge spoiler and won?t ruin anything for you as it?s speculative- just respect.
I enjoyed the pilot... Since I played the games I already knew about the beginning, but I thought it was pretty good and sets up the show nicely. Does anyone else picture Pedro Pascal as the Mandalorian during certain scenes and laugh a bit? I'm just waiting for him to say "This is the way" in a scene...
>> I haven?t watched it, but just looking at the pics I hate the casting of that
> girl
>> as Ellie
>
> You wanted to creep over a 19 year old actress playing a teenager, huh?
Huh? no. I wasn’t thinking about age (or that) at all.
I just think she has almost no likeness (IMO) to Ellie. Even the pics I’ve seen of her from the show, the looks on her face and stuff, doesn’t really make me think she was a good choice.
I’ve watched GoT, she did a fine job in that for the smaller role she had. She has some chops for sure.I don’t dislike the actress.
Now I could watch it and maybe she does a great job and does mannerisms and nuance that youd never be able to tell from still photos of her. I could be blown away by how great she does even if she initially seems like a poor casting choice (a la lots of ppl with Tom Cruise as Lestat in Interview With a Vampire), but she just doesn’t seem to look like a good representation of Ellie I guess, to me. I’m open to being wrong. I’ll give it a shot for sure.
Yeah I saw that. Like she loves seeing him batter someone for her. Yikes.
Im afraid they’re going to have her manipulate his protective nature more than we’re accustomed to. Seems to be a big thematic goal after seeing the after credits.
Watched the first episode last night. I think they did a wonderful job. I don't think Bella is the perfect Ellie but she is acting the part well. It really did capture the feel of the first game. Honestly after digesting the second game for a bit, I do quite love it too. So the 2nd season should be great.
> Watched the first episode last night. I think they did a wonderful job. I don't think
> Bella is the perfect Ellie but she is acting the part well. It really did capture
> the feel of the first game.
> Honestly after digesting the second game for a bit, I do quite love it too. So the
> 2nd season should be great.
>
>
If season 2 even is the second game.... I haven't read much but I could expect them to end season 1 after the Colorado part where Joel gets hurt and it transitions to that snow but where you play as Ellie solo for a bit.
After reviewing the few cast details for each of the 9 episodes on IMDB, I retract my previous thoughts about the first season covering all of the first game. It seems like they won't get through all of it since they've adding a lot of backstory and some new characters. That's fine with me because the Indonesia scenes at the beginning of Episode 2 was great.
Second episode was fine but kinda boring. Other than the whole fungus concept, it seemed to be a very “by the numbers” episode of “zombie” TV, and it was fairly predictable how it was gonna end up.
Show is good and looks great, but doesn’t blow me away like it seems to do for most folks. But tbh that goes for what I’ve played of the game so far too, in my opinion at least.
> It's a bit too similar to the game. But with most game adaptations, they usually
> stray so far from the source it just sucks as a result.
This. I think they should just stick to the game and see what happens. Literally every adaptation is usually just wallpaper that resembles the game that is glue to a pile of crap script. Just do the direct adaptation with minor tweaks.
> If season 2 even is the second game.... I haven't read much but I could expect them
> to end season 1 after the Colorado part where Joel gets hurt and it transitions to
> that snow but where you play as Ellie solo for a bit.
The little bit I heard/read said Season 1 was going to be part 1, and season 2 would be part 2. With no plans for anything after that. Though Naughty Dog has hinted part 3 is in production.
Ellie is growing me a little bit... But man, that forehead and that weird facial expression she makes. Is she surprised? Is she being sarcastic? Is she smelling poop? I don't know!
> Ellie is growing me a little bit... But man, that forehead and that weird facial
> expression she makes. Is she surprised? Is she being sarcastic? Is she smelling poop?
> I don't know!
Saw episode 2 and yeah she's growing on me. But you are right... she's this generations' equivalent of Kristen Stewart with facial expressions. I do think she acts out Ellie's sense of humor very well though.
I'm personally hyped Season 2 was announced. I can't wait to love/hate Abby.
Settle for what you got. But work your ass off to live. It’s flicted. I agree with the idea that living ain’t life without other people for sure. Other people are our purpose. However this is gonna get bombed.
> Settle for what you got. But work your ass off to live. It’s flicted. I agree with
> the idea that living ain’t life without other people for sure. Other people are our
> purpose. However this is gonna get bombed.
I thought the same, that butt-hole general Joe was gonna lose their crap over the episode for the wrong reasons (hello Lightyear), but it really was done quite well and was such an awesome message that almost made ya forget that we were watching Last of Us.
