[0:00] do we need this that question hangs
[0:02] around HBO's adaptation of the hit video
[0:04] game The Last of Us like a noose there
[0:07] was a tendency among a fair portion of
[0:08] fans of the game to roll their eyes at
[0:11] every new bit of news about this
[0:13] adaptation because of that question and
[0:15] grappling with that question seems to be
[0:16] one of the main things the showrunners
[0:18] themselves were preoccupied by do we
[0:20] need this obviously obviously not right
[0:23] so then why do this okay yeah Fair The
[0:27] Last of Us was a game that was already
[0:28] as close to a movie or a television show
[0:31] as a video game could possibly be it's a
[0:34] linear narrative experience and a pretty
[0:36] much linear gameplay experience too it
[0:38] was technically a video game but in
[0:41] contrast to the rest of the industry it
[0:43] was not one sold on the appeal of the
[0:45] player getting to shape the narrative I
[0:47] suppose you have the choice over
[0:48] precisely how or maybe if you murder
[0:51] each group of enemies as you progress
[0:53] through the game but the corridors
[0:54] themselves Lead You inevitably from
[0:56] point A to point B you will watch all
[0:58] the same cutscenes listen to this same
[1:00] banter see the same ending as anyone
[1:02] else who plays the game it actually kind
[1:04] of melted people's brains at the time
[1:05] because of just how much it went against
[1:06] the grain of what so many other major
[1:08] video game Publishers were doing in
[1:10] 2013. in an era where so many other
[1:12] games let you do a Choose Your Own
[1:14] Adventure pick blue for boring pick red
[1:16] for psychopath style gameplay this
[1:18] sequence at the end of The Last of Us
[1:19] was legitimately surprising and that it
[1:22] uses all of the conventions of those
[1:24] kinds of games and leads up to a moment
[1:25] where you expect to have a choice only
[1:27] to not have a choice Joel kills the
[1:31] Doctor Joel always kills the doctor it's
[1:34] a linear experience and not for nothing
[1:36] a good one so why do this
[1:40] the motivation for adapting a story or
[1:42] at least the most like pure motivation
[1:44] for adapting a story is that you think
[1:45] the story will benefit from the shift in
[1:47] mediums to explore parts of the story
[1:49] that the original just couldn't an audio
[1:51] visual medium provides storytellers new
[1:53] ways to enhance a story told previously
[1:55] as a book or as a comic book music can
[1:57] create a different emotional reaction to
[1:59] a scene and bringing something that was
[2:01] only previously in the realm of
[2:02] imagination into real life can be
[2:04] extremely satisfying but the last of us
[2:06] was already in an audio visual media and
[2:09] it used that Medium to its fullest or
[2:11] rather it used it in a way that ape the
[2:13] conventions of film the composition of
[2:15] its shots the editing the music its
[2:17] motion capture performances all of it
[2:19] working in tandem to create a
[2:21] well-crafted experience that kind of
[2:23] feels like
[2:24] well it kind of feels like a Prestige
[2:26] HBO drama Naughty Dog Games stand up
[2:28] from the rest of the video game industry
[2:29] for this reason when two characters have
[2:31] a conversation in a naughty dog game
[2:32] it's either happening in gameplay or
[2:34] it's a performance captured cutscene
[2:36] that emphasizes the subtleties of each
[2:38] character's emotions they never just
[2:40] have two characters cycle through four
[2:42] or five generic animations while the
[2:44] player chooses from four or five
[2:45] dialogue options that's not a criticism
[2:48] of games that do that but an observation
[2:50] that those games want you to feel like
[2:53] you're interacting with the story while
[2:55] The Last of Us wants you to feel like
[2:57] you're watching a story The Last of Us
[2:59] did all of this extremely well pretty
[3:00] much better than any other video game it
[3:03] created dozens and dozens of really
[3:05] effective moments between characters
[3:07] that have stuck in my mind for a decade
[3:10] you're not my daughter
[3:14] and I sure as hell ain't your dad
[3:17] so if you're adapting a story like this
[3:19] you're in an extremely tough spot
[3:21] because you don't just want to
[3:22] thoughtlessly Echo something like this
[3:24] and yet the scenes are so good on their
[3:26] own your story would be less good if you
[3:28] didn't include them right you're right
[3:32] you're not my daughter
[3:34] I'm not sure as hell ain't your dad oh
[3:37] my God they shot it from a different
[3:39] angle
[3:40] which means that any adaptation of The
[3:42] Last of Us is destined to instantly be
[3:44] cut up by the internet into shot by shot
[3:46] comparisons The Last of Us season one
[3:48] side-by-side scene comparison The Last
[3:49] of Us episode 1 TV show versus game
[3:51] comparison The Last of Us episode 2 TV
[3:54] show vs game comparison episode three
[3:56] four five six seven eight nine TV show
[3:58] versus game comparison so why do this
[4:00] and more importantly how and more
[4:03] importantly why for a moment I just want
[4:05] to set aside the obvious answer to this
[4:07] which is money The Last of Us is an
[4:10] extremely recognizable IP and any
[4:11] adaptation of it good or bad was bound
[4:13] to make HBO a tidy profit but that
[4:16] doesn't really answer why these specific
[4:18] creatives would want to be involved with
[4:20] this Craig Mason the showrunner for The
[4:23] Last of Us was fresh off a huge success
[4:25] with Chernobyl a show that won or was
[4:27] nominated for all of the awards he could
[4:31] presumably have been part of whatever he
[4:33] wanted to make he chose this so why
[4:36] fungal infection of this kind is a real
[4:38] but not in humans true true fungi cannot
[4:41] survive if its host's internal
[4:43] temperature is over 94 degrees and
[4:46] currently there are no reasons for fungi
[4:48] to evolve to be able to withstand higher
[4:50] temperatures but what if that were to
[4:51] change what if
[4:52] for instance the world were to get
[4:55] slightly warmer unlike the game the TV
[4:58] show opens with a lengthy interview
[4:59] scene between a TV show host and a pair
[5:01] of doctors which in my mind immediately
[5:03] seeks to answer the question at the top
[5:05] of this video in the scene one of the
[5:07] doctors outlines how a fungal pandemic
[5:09] could be orders of magnitude worse than
[5:10] a viral pandemic he explains how the
[5:12] fungi could burrow into people's brains
[5:14] and turn them into puppets handling a
[5:15] bunch of the World building for the rest
[5:17] of the show but he also reframes the
[5:19] central Catalyst of the Apocalypse from
[5:21] what it was in the game tying it
[5:23] directly to climate change that Craig
[5:25] Mason would do this is not that
[5:26] surprising when you compare this to what
[5:28] he did in Chernobyl the guest that show
[5:30] is about telling a story around the
[5:31] Chernobyl nuclear disaster but it's not
[5:34] just about that it's about climate
[5:35] change hot take guys Chernobyl had
[5:37] climate change themes institutions
[5:38] repeatedly ignored the warnings of an
[5:40] environmental disaster because of their
[5:42] own political agendas and then in the
[5:44] midst of the crisis attempted to
[5:45] continuously downplay how bad things
[5:47] could get but nuclear radiation doesn't
[5:49] care about International politics or
[5:50] what's happening inside the Kremlin so
[5:52] you know can we please deal with this
[5:53] thing before it kills us all in The Last
[5:55] of Us video game there was no
[5:57] explanation for the apocalypse it was
[5:58] just something that happened but I think
[6:00] you can make a compelling case about the
[6:02] original Last of Us that while it is
[6:03] never explicitly stated to be about
[6:05] climate change that it was subtextually
[6:07] about climate change it's a game where
[6:10] most of the settings are Urban
[6:11] environments that have been reclaimed by
[6:13] Nature where the main enemies are a kind
[6:15] of fungi and where the central themes
[6:17] are all about pitting individual needs
[6:19] against what is good for society as a
[6:22] whole a theme that has some extra
[6:24] resonance when seen through the lens of
[6:27] climate change in the show a guy just
[6:29] says it what if the world was to get
[6:31] slightly warmer he just tweeted it out
[6:34] and it's in this way this method like
[6:36] not just the scene but this way of doing
[6:38] things that the show justifies its own
[6:40] existence if it can't tell the story of
[6:42] The Last of Us better than the last of
[6:43] us already did then it can at least tell
[6:46] the story more explicitly it can make
[6:48] the subtext text I want to make a
[6:51] distinction here for the kind of subtext
[6:52] and talking about I'm not talking about
[6:54] what we could call conversational
[6:55] subtext so in many a well-written scene
[6:58] in both versions of The Last of Us two
[7:00] characters are talking to one another
[7:01] and because they are human beings and
[7:03] not robots when they say things they
[7:04] don't always say everything they mean so
[7:07] Time Heals all wounds I guess
[7:15] Jules puppy dog eyes fill in the blanks
[7:18] of what his words imply the text is it
[7:20] wasn't time that healed his trauma the
[7:22] subtext was that it was meeting and
[7:23] bonding with Ellie that healed his
[7:25] trauma both versions of the story have
[7:26] moments like this which are very good
[7:28] because both versions are very good so
[7:31] when I say HBO is The Last of Us turns
[7:33] the subtext of Sony's The Last of Us
[7:34] into text I don't mean everyone starts
[7:36] saying what they mean literally I'm
[7:38] talking more about the themes and plot
[7:40] points that the game originally left
[7:41] ambiguous cordyceps mutated
[7:44] someone that got into the food supply
[7:46] probably a basic ingredient like flour
[7:49] sugar example number one Joel and Tess
[7:52] now if you're a freak like me when
[7:54] you're playing the original game there
[7:55] are probably a bunch of times during
[7:57] scenes with Joel and Tess when you
[7:58] thought to yourself they [ __ ] come on
[8:02] make this easy for me
[8:04] canonically the answer is probably
[8:06] probably like probably not definitely
[8:09] but but when you watch the show one of
[8:11] the first times you see them together is
[8:13] they're together
[8:17] in the original game there was something
[8:18] ambiguous that players wondered about
[8:20] and now in order to give this new
[8:22] version of the show some kind of
[8:23] identity that is different from the game
[8:25] but which doesn't outright contradict
[8:26] the game the show gives a solid textual
[8:29] answer to that thing that was previously
[8:31] ambiguous example number two communism
[8:33] hey isn't it kind of funny that in the
[8:35] post-apocalypse the healthiest most
[8:38] productive most just and safe place in
[8:40] the entire game is kind of a
[8:42] narco-communist like Tommy and his Pals
[8:44] over here are communists aren't they and
[8:46] isn't it you know doubly funny that we
[8:48] put this location in Jackson Wyoming the
[8:51] state with the heaviest Republican lien
[8:52] in the country 20 years of Apocalypse
[8:54] turned all these Macho conservative
[8:56] Cowboys into Macau bakunan well uh in
[8:58] the show everyone pitches in we rotate
[9:00] patrols food prep repairs hunting
[9:03] harvesting everything you see in our
[9:05] town
[9:06] greenhouses livestock all shared
[9:08] Collective ownership
[9:11] so uh communism
[9:13] ah I didn't like that it is that
[9:16] literally this is the commune we're
[9:17] communists
[9:19] example three David is well even worse
[9:23] than than the game says okay so in the
[9:25] game Joel gets injured and the player
[9:27] gets to play as Ellie for a little bit
[9:28] where she Encounters this guy David who
[9:30] manages to gain Ellie's trust before she
[9:32] learns that he and his gang are a bunch
[9:34] of cannibals who are going to eat her
[9:35] but there are a couple of moments in the
[9:37] game that make you feel like David is
[9:38] even worse than a cannibal like this
[9:40] moment when he tries to regain Ellie's
[9:42] trust and they hold hands or in the
[9:44] final fight scene which can be read as
[9:45] merely David attempting to murder her or
[9:48] is he trying to
[9:49] you know the fighting is a part I like
[9:52] the most there's no fear in love oh okay
[9:55] so he's just full-on pedophile okay got
[9:57] it
[9:59] example four Bill and Frank now I take
[10:01] the master stroke of the series is how
[10:03] they handle its queer representation in
[10:05] the game Joel and Ellie meet one of
[10:06] Joel's old friends a complete [ __ ]
[10:08] named Bill Bill lives in almost total
[10:10] isolation and has protected himself from
[10:12] the outside world with a series of booby
[10:14] traps in his level of the game the three
[10:15] of them work together to make it to the
[10:17] other side of town so that they can
[10:18] acquire a car battery bill has exactly
[10:20] one friend named Frank who lives on that
[10:22] side of town but they find that he has
[10:24] hanged himself when they get there for
[10:25] many players it's pretty easy to miss
[10:27] the fact that bill is a gay man because
[10:28] that fact exists mostly in the subtext
[10:31] of how Bill reacts to Frank's death
[10:32] which could imply a romantic connection
[10:34] between the two of them but can also
[10:36] very easily be read by a straight
[10:38] audience as just a man mourning his
[10:41] friend
[10:42] he was my partner but Bill squaredness
[10:44] also exists as non-mandatory content in
[10:47] Frank's house the player might find a
[10:49] note from Frank to bill which expresses
[10:51] Frank's growing resentment towards bills
[10:53] stuck in his Way's Behavior again the
[10:55] player needs to read between the lines
[10:56] here to understand that this is a queer
[10:58] relationship
[11:00] I'm sure your friend will be missing
[11:02] this tonight
[11:04] the only tangible piece of evidence of
[11:05] Phil's homosexuality is when Joel and
[11:07] Ellie are driving to Pittsburgh and
[11:09] Ellie starts looking at a magazine she
[11:10] got from Bill's house which is a male
[11:12] porn magazine in each case it does
[11:14] require the player to think about what
[11:16] they're seeing in order to come to the
[11:18] conclusion that bill is gay now this is
[11:20] all a bit
[11:23] problematic the fact alone that Bill's
[11:25] queerness is hidden to this degree is
[11:27] worth criticizing and it was like in a
[11:30] game which again was almost entirely
[11:32] linear the one important character
[11:34] detail that's consigned to optional
[11:36] content or blinking you'll miss its
[11:38] story beats being the pieces of evidence
[11:40] that lets you know that there's a queer
[11:42] relationship going on here at all is not
[11:44] exactly what you'd call good queer
[11:46] representation it's the kind of
[11:47] representation that is slipped in so
[11:49] that it's not noticed by most
[11:51] heterosexual audiences because that way
[11:54] the game avoids a reactionary backlash I
[11:56] guess but come on is that really
[11:58] something to worry about oh yeah I guess
[12:00] so now arguably this moment of queer
[12:01] representation is better than nothing
[12:03] but the showrunner is wisely understood
[12:05] that they had to do more than this in
[12:07] the adaptation so in the third episode
[12:08] of the show they raised the queer
[12:10] subtext to queer text it's the biggest
[12:12] narrative departure from the game by far
[12:15] the writer's craft an entire episode
[12:16] that is almost completely separate from
[12:19] Joel and Ellie's Journey telling a
[12:21] positive impactful story worry about
[12:23] Bill and Frank falling in love with one
[12:24] another it's a very good episode but
[12:27] it's also a little irritating that in
[12:29] order for them to tell a good queer Love
[12:30] Story it seems it has to be entirely
[12:32] sequestered away from the rest of the
[12:34] narrative so what are we to make of all
[12:37] these decisions in the case of the bill
[12:38] and Frank episode the show adds so much
[12:40] more to the story than anyone expected
[12:42] that it sort of ceases to be an
[12:44] adaptation of The Last of Us and more of
[12:46] a standalone one-hour movie that happens
[12:48] to cross over with the last of us with
[12:50] that exception though the general
[12:51] strategy of raising the subtext up to
[12:54] the level of the text is pretty much the
[12:56] only way that this adaptation is able to
[12:58] establish its own identity separate from
[13:00] the game but are these really ideal
[13:03] changes I sometimes vote while watching
[13:05] the show that I was less watching HBO's
[13:07] Last of Us than I was reading Craig
[13:09] Mason's PhD level thesis on the Last of
[13:12] Us The Last of Us climate change and the
[13:14] decay of American Community The Last of
[13:16] Us querying the post post-apocalypse the
[13:19] last of subtexts oh wait that's mine in
[13:21] calling out all of the sub text of the
[13:23] original story though HBO is The Last of
[13:25] Us doesn't have much subtext of its own
[13:27] all of its Mysteries are thoroughly
[13:28] explained all of its character
[13:30] relationships explicitly detailed and I
[13:33] don't know it's it's fine or whatever
[13:35] but like do we need this
[13:39] one of the things I love about the last
[13:41] of us is its unique World building all
[13:43] these interesting fungal creatures in a
[13:45] world with different factions it's just
[13:48] a well-realized post-apocalyptic story
[13:50] for me World building is one of the most
[13:52] enjoyable parts of writing and if you're
[13:54] a writer who needs a little help
[13:55] organizing their ideas then I recommend
[13:58] checking out World Anvil the sponsor of
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[14:58] everyone
[15:17] [Music]
[15:25] thank you
[15:27] [Music]
[15:42] laughs