Widescreen: HBO's 'Last of Us' shunned actual gameplay to become the best video game adaptation ever
Sunday's season finale of “The Last of Us,” at 8 p.m. on HBO, doesn't need to air for me to call the series the best dramatic adaptation of a video game ever.
The shocking nine-episode retelling of the PlayStation game's post-apocalyptic road trip has affirmed Pedro Pascal (“The Mandalorian”) as a superstar, birthed a new one in Bella Ramsey (“Game of Thrones”) and proven that you don't need nonstop zombie action in a show that many assumed would be built upon it.
That last one is the key. Revisiting the 2013 game episode-by-episode has revealed that the actual playing of it — the reason these things even exist — is the least satisfying part of the “Last of Us” experience. Some hard-core fans have complained the show doesn't feature enough action and skips over key gameplay segments, but what are they missing? Monotonous duck-and-cover shootouts? Sneaking around hallways and avoiding zombies? Searching endless cabinets for duct tape and scissors? (You do that a lot in the game. A LOT.)
“The Last of Us” is the best video game adaptation because it sticks to what works in the game: the characters, the story, the dialogue. The drama has always outweighed the button-mashing in this franchise — though 2020's “The Last of Us Part II” did have some nifty combat in its Seattle sequences — and creator Neil Druckmann is to be commended for making all the right dramatic choices for the TV show, which he writes and produces alongside “Chernobyl” showrunner Craig Mazin.
Most video game adaptations fail because they cannot replicate the rush of gameplay, and they never will. “The Last of Us” doesn't even try — the people in charge are smart enough to know better. The show works because we care about Joel (Pascal), a violent man who needs to fill the hole in his heart, and Ellie (Ramsey), the immune wild card who could save the world if she doesn't burn it down first.
It also benefits from being truly episodic, shifting moods and settings week to week. Two of the eight episodes that have aired took nearly their entire running times to flesh out tangential characters in flashbacks; instead of being merely interesting diversions, they were the two most enriching, world-building installments of the season. Episode 3, “Long Long Time” — in which we see a survivalist couple's entire relationship among the ruins of the American countryside — will be on lists of the best TV episodes of all time until we die. (And this former Randhurst employee may have liked the mall-set Episode 8, “Left Behind,” even better.)
What's next?
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” hits theaters on April 5, and the animated re-creation of the Italian plumber's world, go-karts and all, will almost certainly be the biggest movie since “Avatar: The Way of Water.” (It could even hold up as the biggest movie of 2023.) Its goals are decidedly different from that of “The Last of Us” and will appeal to 40 years' worth of fans who have played more than 200 games starring Mario and pals.
It needs to be bright, cute, funny and fun — 92 minutes of delight. Directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic of “Teen Titans Go!,” a cartoon sendup of DC superheroes, seem to make a good fit.
This is shaping up to be a watershed year for video game adaptations, setting the bar absurdly high for future productions like “God of War” (Amazon) and “Assassin's Creed” (Netflix). We've come a long way since that “Pac-Man” animated series I used to watch on Saturday mornings.
• Sean Stangland is an assistant news editor who is looking forward to playing Immortals: Fenyx Rising when it joins the PlayStation Plus catalog later this month.