The Differences Between HBO’s The Last of Us and the Game Made It Even Better
Photo Courtesy of HBO
As someone who writes about both videogames and TV, HBO’s The Last of Us has been a dream come true. Based on one of my favorite video games of all time, I was beyond excited for HBO’s adaptation. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are Joel and Ellie just as much as the games’ original actors, and I love the way the series has fleshed out the world of a post-apocalyptic America.
Whenever an adaptation of a beloved story comes along, however, there will be those who say that it doesn’t stick enough to the source material. But the differences of The Last of Us are what make the series great.
The show starts out by immediately deviating from the original game’s script. Whereas the game starts out the night of the outbreak, HBO’s adaptation starts out decades prior, back to a talk show in the ‘60s where scientists discuss the possibility of a fungal pandemic. It’s a classy way to give exposition as to how the cordyceps fungus (a real fungus that actually turns ants into a type of zombie) spread to infect humans. We get to learn even more about how the fungus spread in the following two episodes, with the second episode opening with a mycologist in Jakarta discovering the first few infections, and the third episode having Joel explain that the infection could have spread through eating contaminated food. All of these details add to the world-building of both the games and the show, giving us more information about a fascinating phenomenon based on real-life science.
Ultimately, however, The Last of Us’ science and world-building are just set dressing for the real focus: the characters. And not only does the series give us entirely original characters we’ve come to know and love, but it also fleshes out characters that already existed in the original game.
Once we jump forward to the day of the outbreak, we see a normal-looking 2003 America through the eyes of Sarah (Nico Parker), who eats breakfast with Joel, goes to school, bakes cookies, and fixes a watch at a store before coming home. Not only do we get to see the early signs of disaster before shit truly hits the fan, but we also get to see more into Sarah’s character, building a relationship between her and the audience, which makes her inevitable loss hit even harder.
Of course, I can’t ignore the biggest and best change to the series thus far, which is the majority of Episode 3 telling the story of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank’s (Murray Bartlett) beautiful and tragic romance. Other writers have already written extensively on why this episode works so well, so I won’t try to add to it, but if you wanted an example of how The Last of Us’ differences make the show better, this is it.