Rent The Last of Us: Series 1 (2023)

Outstanding Adaptation - The Last of Us: Series 1 review by GP

Outstanding adaptation of one of the greatest video games of all time.

Very much different from other post apocalyptic dramas and completely addictive.

The best adaptation of a video game ever made. Wonderful acting, story & production values - The Last of Us: Series 1 review by Timmy B

The curse of the video game adapted into film/TV series is a cliché that is 30+ years old. Some of the most barrell-scrapingly bad & atrocious films ever made are adaptations or inspired by video games, which were themselves amazing but only worked well within that gaming world. The moment you tried to transplant it onto the big/small screen, the magic was lost & you ended up just watching a poorly-made facsimile, wishing you were playing the actual game instead. There was, of the ones I've seen, only 1 of these adaptations that I really enjoyed, which was the 1st Hitman with Timothy Olyphant. It managed to, mainly through casting as well as some great action scenes, buck the trend of terrible films.

So when it was announced that The Last of Us, one of the most beloved games of the last few years, was going to be brought to the small screen, there was the understandable nerves, as well as the usual outcry when certain fan-favourite actors were not chosen (I have never followed this way of thinking, remembering the bile that was hurled at Daniel Craig when he was cast as 007.) But there were also extremely encouraging choices, the main ones being that HBO were financing it, so the budgets would mean the world could be fully realised, as well as making both the creator of the game as well as the man responsible for Chernobyl (another incredible HBO series,) showrunners. And the result is flawless.

Joel (Pascal,) is a burnt-out, emotionally destroyed man who in the first episode loses his daughter as the outbreak of a deadly fungal infection turns people into zombies. He is then tasked with transporting a difficult & challenging teenage girl, Ellie (Ramsey,) across America due to her potential of creating a cure for this deadly disease. Whilst at first the two clash, eventually they begin to trust & bond with each other as they struggle to reach the medical facilities.

Everything in this series is perfect. And this extends to decisions which you may think would cause uproar amongst the fan base or annoyance for fans of the game like me. Certain storylines are changed or significantly cut down; characters are excised completely or their story arc completely changed; significant events in the game are gone from the show, replaced instead with new characters. I mean the list goes on. But it all works perfectly.

Mentioning characters whose story arcs are changed completely, the best episode without question is the story of Bill. A minor character in the game and whose presence in that is thankfully limited (there is only so long you can be around a conspiracy theorist, unstable nutjob before they really start to grate;) in the TV series, he becomes a fully-rounded, vulnerable & extremely interesting character. The relationship he has with Frank is the beating heart of this series.

As Joel, Pascal is again incredible casting. His chemistry with Ramsey, who has the almost-impossible task of playing a precocious, teenage girl with an attitude the size of an ocean, is amazing. You can tell the deep bond they had & have in real life.

But there is also for me another reason why this series hits so hard: the world was emerging out of the COVID pandemic, so the number of parallels here mirrored what we as a people were coming out of. And you could feel the influence & impact of the mental exhaustion/fear that so many had which was expressed through The Last Of Us.

I have not played the 2nd game as yet, so will not watch the second series until I have done. But the impact this 1st series has had on me is profound. This is the absolute peak & cutting edge of incredible TV drama, taking the amazing source material of a game and turning it into an emotional rollercoaster which makes you laugh, cry and root for these characters every single step of the way.

In other words, what great cinema/TV can do to you