The Last of Us, even at the beginning of the year, can already be considered one of the biggest premieres of 2023. HBO's new series is based on one of the most successful video game franchises.
The program, which premiered on January 15th, is the creation of Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, also responsible for the Chernobyl series, considered one of the best live-action games.
HBO Max, the series' streaming platform, brings the first season in weekly episodes released on Sundays at 11pm, until completing 9 episodes lasting 1 hour, with the first chapter lasting an hour and a half.
The Last of Us – The Video Game
Originally, The Last of Us is a game that has a very strong narrative component, where you control the characters and advance the story. Between these moments we have the cuts, which are small scenes, with different camera angles that focus on the characters' faces.
The cast stars Joel and Ellie, who are played by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, respectively. Both worked on Game of Thrones (GOT): Pedro Pascal was Oberyn Martel and Bella Ramsey was Lyanna Mormont. Therefore, they are already very loved all over the world.
The Last of Us has suspense, action, terror and lots of drama. It's a story about a middle-aged man Joel and a teenage girl who cross the United States many years after an epidemic has devastated society, in a world suffering from a recent zombie apocalypse.
The contagion begins in 2013, but the series presents us with the year 2003. The story really begins 20 years later, in 2023. The form of infection (in the series and in the game) is through the bite of an infected person in another human being or by consuming food contaminated by the Cordyceps fungus, responsible for the spread of the disease.
Those infected become extremely aggressive to the point of attacking other humans. From there we have several stages of contamination.
Aggressiveness, as previously stated, is the main characteristic. Throughout the evolution of the fungus in those infected, we see pieces of mushroom transform into a fungus and these people become increasingly monstrous and irrational, as the mushroom creates a new world and an internal voice in the affected person.
We have different types of infected people depending on how long they have had the fungus. See below what they are:
The Mushroom Stages
- Runner/Runner – these are recently infected people, and their main common characteristic is constant running.
- Stalker/Stalker – These were infected 2 weeks to 1 year ago and hide in the darkness to attack. They use echo location through hearing that sticks to the wall to spread the fungus throughout the environment.
- Clicker – They are ex-humans, infected for over a year. When reaching the victim, there is no defense left;
- Pufferfish/Bloater: Infected for many years, slow and extremely strong, in the game, it only dies with many shots.
- Trôpego/Shambler: infected for many years, lives in flooded areas and releases spores that cause burns. When it dies, it explodes, releasing several spores into the air.
- King of Rats/Rat King- It is the joining of several bodies from a Seattle hospital, which became a very powerful giant.
The plot of The Last Of Us
At the beginning there was a big attack, affecting many people: chaos.
Joel (the protagonist) witnessed the beginning of the outbreak when he lived in Texas with his family and witnessed this madness and saw his daughter die in his arms. After that, the story jumps 20 years: here Joel is already 50 years old and lives in Boston.
The Last of Us shows people trying to survive on their own with military groups, fighting and a civil war for power.
To this end, quarantine zones were created, which are large isolated cities so that no one can enter or leave, thus preventing the spread of the disease caused by the fungus. There are also other communities, each with its own rules.
There, information does not circulate, since electrical energy and other resources are controlled. There people don't talk to each other either, because they are at war.
Joel lives in a quarantine zone controlled by military personnel who form the Federal Disaster Response Agency. There still remains a form of government that dictates the rules, chooses who enters, the times people can leave, in addition to who will receive the rations, doses of “food” that are distributed.
The Fireflys or Vagalumes, are a group that seeks a revolution and is rebellious to militarism in the quarantine zone, and who have their own training.
However, Joel, who wants to work in the shadows, survives in the middle, disrespecting the system like a smuggler. And, since he has knowledge about weapons, fighting, and the region, he starts buying and selling things in the quarantine zone.
In one of these jobs Joel and Tess (his partner in the smuggling schemes, played by Anna Torv), end up meeting Marlene, one of the Fireflies.
Joel didn't want to get involved, but he has to perform a service for a leader of the Fireflies that Marlene passes a human cargo (the teenager Ellie) to them outside the quarantine zone.
A teenager is the protagonist of the game, she grew up inside the quarantine zone, she doesn't know the world and has to be handed over to the Fireflies.
We still have the Lone Wolves who try to survive alone.
The Last Of Us: The Game vs. The Series
One of the most striking features of The Last of Us series is its similarity to the video game: buildings, roads, shopping malls, laboratories, museums, libraries, etc. In both media, it is possible to see a visual trope called Nature Takes Over, which shows how nature behaves in cities abandoned by humans.
A curiosity about the HBO production is that the cast of the series was instructed not to play the game before recording, so as not to interfere too much with the performances, because the video game The Last of Us has two well-known actors playing the characters Joel (Troy Baker) and Ellie (Ashley Johnson), who will appear in the series.
For those who have already had the opportunity to experience the video game, we inform you that changes to the cast will occur: some original characters have been confirmed, but new survivors and rebels are to come.
Will there be a second season?
The second season of the series is confirmed: The Last Of Us was second only to House of the Dragon (spin-off the Game of Thrones) which has a mark of 9.98 million viewers, with an audience at the premiere of 4 .7 million viewers.
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