The Last of Usthe post-apocalyptic series based on the mega-popular video game of the same name, managed to please both critics and fans of the franchise in its debut on HBO, a goal that few console adaptations achieve and which its creators attribute to “the l attention and care” they put into “protecting the relationship that people have with the game.
That’s how he tried to explain his approach Craig Mazin, in a conversation with Télam and other media from the region. American producer and screenwriter who has been praised for his miniseries Chernobylabout the most famous nuclear accident in history, he admitted he adapted The Last of Us for the small screen it had been a “big responsibility”.
Set twenty years after the fall of civilization due to a pandemic of a mutated Cordyceps fungus that devastates more than half of the population and turns those affected into a kind of zombiethe series follows Joel (Peter Pascal) and Eli (Bella Ramsey).
Joel is a seasoned survivor traumatized by the loss of his daughter, who he lives in an oppressive military-run quarantine zone and is tasked with smuggling teenage Ellie outwhose apparent immunity to the fungus makes him a valuable asset for several groups under discussion.
Together they must learn to trust each other on a journey across the devastated territory of the United States.in a plot that has become a little more recognizable to the public after what has been experienced during the coronavirus pandemic in recent years.
“The purpose of a drama is to help us safely experience things that would otherwise be more painful. A program like this allows people to live beyond the pandemicthe pain of loss and also the happiness of reconnection and rebirth even in extreme circumstances,” Mazin proposed, on the relevance and usefulness of a post-apocalyptic series like this.
With new episodes every Sunday at 11pm on HBO and HBO Max, the first episode of the series on Sunday became the most-watched premiere on the streaming platform in Latin America in its first 24 hours, as detailed in a note. Even more than expected House of the Dragonprequel to game of Thrones.
The success is due in part to the anticipation of the legion of fans the game has had since it originally launched in 2013, with numerous awards and over 37 million copies sold. But also to the specialized critics, who announced practically unanimously after having accessed the chapters in advance what it was all about “One of the best adaptations of a video game.”
The list of movies and series based on games that have not satisfied the anxious curiosity of their fans, or anyone else, is extensive: Street Fighter, Warcraft, Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Resident Evil, Prince of Persia, the shameful Super Mario Bros., Doom, Assassin’s Creed or Haloare some of those who, more or less, have not been up to the task.
Only the animated series Arcanewhat part of the universe of League of Legendshad concentrated praise universally.
To find why The Last of Us has taken hold in its transposition from the console to the screen, we have to talk about the collaborative work between the aforementioned Mazin and Neil Druckmann, creative director and game writer for the Naughty Dog company.
In the last decade, two other adaptation projects have not been implemented -one of them with Sam Raimi as producer-. For Druckmann, Mazin’s fanaticism for the source material and his vocation to develop the whole process as a duo was what marked a good start for the series.
“Craig is obviously a phenomenal writer. I was a huge fan Chernobyl and so I agreed to meet him, and there I found out that he was a huge fan of the game. He would come to Naughty Dog and we would have long lunches where we would talk about the story and its meaning and its different themes,” he recalled.
“We started out by outlining each episode of the season -he continued- and what it would look like as a whole; then the writing process and from there all the details, the casting, the set design and even the aesthetics. We were in constant communication about what should be the program and how to run it”.
In that bond with Craig Mazin lies what Druckmann was the recipe for avoiding “the curse of video games”, as the bad luck of adaptations is called in the industry.
On the causes of the failure of so many titles he explained: “One reason is that sometimes the material is not strong enough or it is not easy to adapt, which basically means that you have to start over. You have more of a concept than a story and you have to write it and develop it.”
The second, perhaps more important reason is that “the people making the decisions aren’t the players: “I think it’s important that the people in charge really understand the source material to guide others. They must know him inside out”?
“And then there’s this other problem -adds Druckmann- which is that sometimes they don’t involve the creator of the game or involve him too much. In one case it will deviate a lot from the original, and in the other case it will want to duplicate it, the which would involve wanting to duplicate things that work in the game but not on a passive medium.”
In that sense, Mazin hopes the success of The Last of Us and this collaborative balance may help video game storytelling finally take the place of consideration for other forms of storytelling.
“I love playing video games. I’ve been playing all my life, ever since my father bought the first Atari and brought it home. I hope this inspires other artists and filmmakers to look at video games and their stories and tell them in an exalted way. We try to do this in a beautiful and meaningful way and I hope we succeed and that others do the same.”
Source: Telam/Nicolas Biederman
Source: Clarin
