The Last Of Us on Prime Video: the two major differences between the video game and the series


If the series The Last Of Us is a faithful transcription of the famous video game, there are still two notable differences between the source material and its television adaptation. What are they ? Warning, spoilers.

Warning, spoilers. It is advisable to have seen the first episode of The Last Of Us before continuing to read this article.

In broadcast since January 16 on Prime Video in France, The Last Of Us is already a phenomenon after the release of its first episode. The series signed Neil Druckmann (creator of the video game franchise) and Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) is the adaptation of the famous video game of the same name, which marked many gamers.

As a reminder, The Last Of Us tells the journey of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), two survivors of a pandemic, who cross a post-apocalyptic America and ravaged by a virus originating from a fungus and infecting humans.

This highly anticipated adaptation by video game fans received an excellent reception from the press, but also from the public. The two showrunners made sure to stay faithful to video games in order to satisfy fans, but they also had to make some changes, including two major ones.

A different timeline

When players discovered The Last Of Us game in 2013, they discovered a story close to them since it took place exactly the same year, the day of the start of the epidemic (“Outbreak day”, in the original version) , namely September 26, 2013.

It’s also about the day Joel loses his daughter Sarah, shot and killed by a soldier as they try to flee the chaos of their home with Tommy. After this opening sequence, The Last Of Us transports the player twenty years later, in 2033, in order to start the journey that will link Joel to his new protege Ellie.

HBO

When it came to thinking about the series adaptation of the game, Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin asked themselves the question of the appropriate timeline. And they decided to place the start of the epidemic in 2003, so that the real action of the series begins in 2023, namely the year of the broadcast of the series and therefore of viewing by the public.

Craig Mazin thus explained to Inverse why this change of timeline was coherent so that the spectator’s experience was optimal and almost realistic and that he felt close to a plot linked to a pandemic, especially since the whole world recently experienced it:

“I have the impression that if I watch a series in 2023 and its action is set in 2043, it will seem a little less real to me. Even if I watch a series in 2023 and it takes place in 2016, it It’s also less close to the real thing. I thought it might be interesting to just say, ‘Hey look, in this parallel universe, this is happening right now. It’s happening this year’.”

Spores do not exist in the series

The other big difference between the game and the series is how infection with Cordyceps, the fungus that caused the outbreak, spreads. In the game, the brain infection by cordyceps has spread to humans through infected agricultural products. And it spreads through spores that travel through the air. This gave rise to a few sequences with masked characters in the video game work.


HBO

Now, there is no trace of spores in the serial adaptation. The infection is spread by fungal tendrils which become an “interconnected” network. Craig Mazin explained this major change to Collider with a purely scientific reason:

“We wanted to base this series on a plausible scientific basis. The game did that very well, especially for a genre where it would be easy to say ‘Oh, there are zombies, but zombies come out of the ground.’ is a fascinating concept and it’s absolutely real. We wanted to push that a bit further. We wanted to pull as much of the reality as possible because the more real it is, the more we identify with the characters in the game.”

On the other hand, viewers having actually experienced a pandemic recently, they have acquired some real knowledge and fears about this type of disaster. For Craig Mazin, it was necessary to register the infection inherent in The Last Of Us in reality, so that the public is taken seriously:

“It was also important for us to recognize that the public is more knowledgeable about pandemics than they were five years ago. We don’t want to pretend people don’t know anything.”

This is why the first episode of The Last Of Us starts with a debate on viral pandemics in a TV show in the 60s. This contextualization helps to raise the tension in the viewer and to explain that a danger which seems impossible to us can turn out to be a reality, and this, more quickly than we think.

The Last Of Us series is broadcast in US+24 on Amazon Prime Video in France.



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