Lessons in video game adaptation. Contains spoilers.
Adaptation
Perhaps the most anticipated adaptation moment of both games…
… seems to have met the moment in the series:
S2E2 could have hinged solely upon “the event“, yet it also delivers multiple relentless and thrilling action set pieces, one of which is up there – I’ll say it – with Helm’s Deep (each has even been referred to as “its own movie”)…
… and in both the HBO series podcast and their interview with Variety, game creator and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann reveals that this choice was even able to be made because in the show “we’re not playing any one particular character”, and so “we could jump back and forth in a way that we can’t in the game, and that could raise the tension”:
Also in the E2 podcast: the showrunners explain the choice to reveal Abby’s backstory right from her first appearance, rather than as a later twist. “If it’s better, we deviate,” says Druckmann of expanding a throwaway line in the first game into an entire poignant episode , S1E3 ‘Long Long Time’:
Color Palette Cinema breaks down the colour schemes of shots across season 2:
Interpretation
Entertain the Elk argues that The Scariest Scene Isn’t The One You Think:
Series co-showrunner Craig Mazin explains that spores, which figured prominently in the first video game story, have only been introduced into the adaptation of the second game (clipped from the longer interview with Josh Horowitz):
Production
Naturalistic Lighting in The Last of Us featuring Eben Bolter, BSC (via Aputure):
Much more BTS shared by Eben Bolter:
Further Viewing
The playlist of HBO Max’s official videos from the series is a film school in itself, with episode-by-episode behind-the-scenes featurettes, interviews with key crew and cast, and podcast conversations with the show runners:
“To say gamers had strong reactions to Joel’s death in [ video game The Last of Us ] Part II is putting it mildly,” explains Nick Romano in Entertainment Weekly‘s The Last Of Us S2E2 cover story, “a barrage of toxic responses, including death threats, against the creators. In the Grounded II documentary, Laura Bailey, the original actor behind Abby, recalls through tears how people went as far as to threaten her newborn”:
Craig Mazin, together with screenwriter John August (Big Fish, Go), hosts the Scriptnotes Podcast, where they interview successful writers and writer-directors. They’re part of our look at How to Make a TV Show Pilot: