HBO: The Last of Us

[ironwez20]

Let me rephrase it - live action adaptations. And while what you listed are great, they generally stay within the gaming audience.

That basically takes you down to Sonic. And all these years later, all of these leaps in the quality of game writing and presentation...and it's Sonic the ******* Hedgehog that somehow succeeded making the transition.

I hope this show is what the medium needs. Long format, serialized presentations that are true to a given game. Shows are an opportunity to allow a 20+ hour game narrative to be accurately recreated, rather than condensed.

Yes that’s damn right. Sonic the hedgehog did succeed? You know why? Cause it’s a damn iconic property. Sonic was always that guy. Don’t count out the hedgehog

 

[ironwez20]

With them most likely doing a Season 2 for Part 2, I'm curious to see how it's done. I imagine we'll probably see a kid Abby cameo during the finale of this season. Essentially allowing them to tweak how Part 2 story is told and handled with them having a lot more time to tell it rather than rushing it like the game did.

Gosh I hope they don’t introduce her and those characters. I hate the second games story. Felt like it ruined what made the first one good. They seriously would need to tweak Abby and her arc if they ever adapt it

 

[K1NG J0RDAN]

We’re only talking about the first game, right?

There is only one...

Hate to break it to you all but both games are masterpieces.

 

[snoop101]

Hate to break it to you all but both games are masterpieces.

As far as gameplay goes, yeah they’re both amazing. But if you’re referring to the story in part two as a “masterpiece”, well…. I hate to break it to you but the majority of the last of us fans would disagree with you.

 

[K1NG J0RDAN]

As far as gameplay goes, yeah they’re both amazing. But if you’re referring to the story in part two as a “masterpiece”, well…. I hate to break it to you but the majority of the last of us fans would disagree with you.

Season 2 is going to be fun. I wanna see how the non-gamers react.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Season 2 is going to be fun. I wanna see how the non-gamers react.

The Walking Dead was a huge sleeper hit that peaked at averages around 15+ million viewers through it's fifth season.

After the 7th season opening episode, when Glenn met his fate, the ratings dipped with staggering PERMANENT losses of up to 7 million viewers within the next four weeks.

At least Pascal has a track record of headlining a hit TV show. Does anyone believe a prestige TV network like HBO will put an entire possible franchise into the hands of Bella Ramsey?

HBO allowing S2 to play out like TLOU2 is basically asking some HBO executives to lose their jobs, their salaries, their bonuses and possibly the rest of their careers. AMC slogged through because it had no choice, TWD was it's "flagship" original programming.

It's entirely possible that HBO and Mazin will go this route, and it would be clear financial suicide.

 

[BeefEaster]

Personally, I'm a big fan of both games. I thought the first game was great as a stand alone story that didn't really need a sequel When I heard they were making a sequel with the same characters I knew it was going to have something to do with the consequences of what happened at the end of the first game, and I thought the story they came up with was pretty clever. They had to do something that made a big emotional impact to set things off like in the first and what they did was just that.

Plus, the gameplay in the second game blows away the first one.

 

[choombaz]

The Walking Dead was a huge sleeper hit that peaked at averages around 15+ million viewers through it's fifth season.

After the 7th season opening episode, when Glenn met his fate, the ratings dipped with staggering PERMANENT losses of up to 7 million viewers within the next four weeks.

Doesn’t surprise me. I haven’t watched an episode since that one.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Love both games and have played the hell out of both.

Abby was my favourite character in part 2.

 

[choombaz]

Pedro Pascal looks like to have a hell of a year.

 

[ironwez20]

As far as gameplay goes, yeah they’re both amazing. But if you’re referring to the story in part two as a “masterpiece”, well…. I hate to break it to you but the majority of the last of us fans would disagree with you.

Pretty much. The story was very trash. I don’t care that a certain character dies. It’s how they did it. Then you play as buff chick and this kid throughout so we are supposed to feel for them. Even though this person killed as much as the character she was after did. Horrible story.

 

[R_R_X]

I didn't like the execution of the second game but I actually think the concept it has a lot of potential, the game itself is a technical marvel and amazing to play but the story is just poorly structured and in my opinion focused too much on ideas and not characters, it also has an intense case of ludonarrative dissonance so Part 2 is where the show can really improve and bring the source material to new heights, in my opinion season 2 should introduce Abby while we're still with Joel and Ellie following the events of the first game, give viewers time to learn about her and sympathize with her and then bring the club down.

 

[ironwez20]

But I enjoyed the show. Felt like a great adaptation with some new elements put in. I like that. But for some reason resident evil make a good game adaption even though it’s way simpler than last of us.
Also halo fumbled the bag aswell. Hilarious

 

[Johnny Utah]

I’m wondering why people are laughing at my Abby post. Are people still butthurt she killed their video game daddy

 

[R_R_X]

Saw these, pretty cool and also insane how the graphics in the remake compare to real life.

 

[R_R_X]

But I enjoyed the show. Felt like a great adaptation with some new elements put in. I like that. But for some reason resident evil make a good game adaption even though it’s way simpler than last of us.
Also halo fumbled the bag aswell. Hilarious

You can tell the people behind the show are passionate about the game and are commited to do it justice, the Halo and Resident Evil adaptations were just hacks taking popular properties to tell whatever the hell they thought would be better than the source material, same thing that is happening on a larger scale when it comes to modern adaptations people just take popular IPs to write what they want.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Pedro Pascal looks like to have a hell of a year.

Anything to make us forget about WW84.

 

[DarkChocobi]

I’m wondering why people are laughing at my Abby post. Are people still butthurt she killed their video game daddy

I love Abby's character, the only person deserved to die in this franchise is that lunatic psychopath Ellie, and she will be, in Part 3.

 

[BurningRage]

+1 for Depeche Mode song at the end

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Abby was my favourite character in part 2.

The original Ellie character was based off of Ellen Page ( now Eliot Page) No one disputes that. The production cycle of the first game was around the timeline when Juno was getting critical buzz and Page was seen as a rising star in Hollywood.

TLOU2 released around the timeline of Fighting With My Family and I'm still convinced Abby was partially based on Florence Pugh. Who was clearly a rising star with Little Women and Midsommar in tow.

Contenders for Abby, if she's cast will likely be

Julia Garner ( Ruth from Ozark ) as the clear favorite. Good actress. Proven. Critically acclaimed. Proven she can carry at least half of a hit show on her own. Might be seen as too old now.

Eliot Page, if only from external pressure, no matter how ridiculous a fight to the death with Bella Ramsey and Page would look on screen. (Like two 12 year olds fighting over a bucket of loose Legos... ) Mediocre performer in general ( Exhausting and pedantic in the Umbrella Academy series ) At this point, casting like this, that makes no sense but for virtue signaling, wouldn't surprise me at all.

Sydney Sweeney , HBO likes to keep the same actors in their stable. Sweeney is/was on Euphoria and White Lotus. She's about the right age and the right look and looks projectible to bulk up for the part.

Kaitlyn Dever, the original favorite for the Ellie role, might come back for this part

Liv Hewson ( Yellowjackets) can look the part but is pretty one dimensional. Not bankable as a headliner for a show.

Pugh is too big of a movie star to take this role now.

The issue with The Walking Dead was five fold. Killing Glenn was bad enough. I mean from a pure fandom perspective. People liked him, the other actors liked him, and he was there from the beginning. Second, AMC risked their larger scale international audience with that move. There are not many Asian male leads in Hollywood, so brutally killing one isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for non US markets. Third, the lead up to killing Glenn was seen as cheap and manipulative. Putting him under a dumpster and then trying to gaslight the audience was just plain stupid. Fourth, AMC kept pushing more story onto Glenn's killer, so Negan got massive plot armor and the show fell apart making everyone look incompetent for not being able to stop Negan. Fifth, AMC tried to push for Negan's redemption , which was a back door middle finger to the audience, trying to justify Negan to the audience as simply misunderstood and complex, instead of a one dimensional sadist as a pure hack like Kirkman wrote in the beginning in the comics. Anne Rice tried this with Lestat, tried to retcon him into some kind of bizarre anti-hero, and lost the last bits of her dying exhausted milked out fan base to do it.

IIRC, the TWD short term ratings peak was somewhere around 17 million viewers. They knew they couldn't hold that forever, but 15 became their reasonable consistent expectation by S5. At some point, post S9, they dipped to like 4-5 million. Sure Lincoln leaving and writing off Carl didn't help any. But AMC lost 2/3rds of their audience in a couple of years. Most of that built around being trapped into a contract with Jeffrey Dean Morgan ( they signed him and realized he was an anchor, not someone who would lift all boats ) and were too cheap to eat the money to just killed off his character.

If Mazin wants to kill of Joel, then fine. But to do it by S2 would be completely insane from a ratings perspective. Without the Joel/Ellie dynamic, you lose the appeal to family viewership. There are other reasons why the violence was toned down for this show ( they didn't want to drive away non gamers/suburban women viewers that sponsors and advertisers love so much in terms of demographics)

These are no longer the salad days of Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Sex And The City, Rome, GOT, etc, etc for HBO. They don't really have a flagship show anymore. They aren't in a great position to risk losing up to half their audience for TLOU like AMC lost for killing off Glenn.

I don't see it from a money angle, but then again, I've seen more insane things happen ( Someone deciding to make Mindy Kaling's woke self loathing vanity project, Velma, for instance....)