The Last of Us

The spotty track record of videogame adaptations and glut of apocalyptic/zombie dramas receive a welcome boost from "The Last of Us," which proves there's ...

“The Last of Us” premieres January 15 at 9 p.m. Yet despite the limits of past game-to-TV/movie translations, the first season exhibits the kind of delicacy and depth that suggests we won’t be seeing the last of it for some time. ET on HBO, which, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. The spotty track record of videogame adaptations and glut of apocalyptic/zombie dramas receive a welcome boost from “The Last of Us,” which proves there’s room for more of each as long as it’s this good. Still, there’s a genuine humanity in the bond that forms between Joel and Ellie, which develops organically from one harrowing encounter to the next, while also creating strong showcases for the guest stars that pass through their orbits. From that perspective the storytelling here is absolutely fearless and unflinching, creating horrifying scenarios and moments that can be alternately touching and utterly tragic.

One of the most cinematic games of all time is Sony and Naughty Dog's "The Last of Us," which launched in 2013 and became an instant critical and commercial hit ...

In many ways, it's a perfect story for where we are in 2023, picking up the pieces of the last few years and finding what's important to us again. I wanted a little more building, and the show rushes the final two episodes in a way that made me wonder if that's where most of the compression happened when it lost a chapter from the initial ten episodes that Mazin said would happen back in July 2021. In terms of storytelling and design, the show will be very familiar to gamers, almost too much at times. After a chilling prologue in which an expert on a talk show offers his belief that the world-ending pandemic will be fungal and not viral, "The Last of Us" opens properly in 2003, hours before society's collapse. [Pedro Pascal](/cast-and-crew/pedro-pascal)), an Austin-based contractor, and his brother Tommy ( [Gabriel Luna](/cast-and-crew/gabriel-luna)). It's a fascinating deconstruction of the game that leans on character and storytelling instead of action, and it does so in a way that's confidently grounded.

@duo a deux, j'allais le dire, je la toucherai meme pas avec un bâton cette petite vilaine. Solo seul 10/01/2023 à 16:49. Comme d'habitude pour les avis ...

Malgré des airs inévitables de déjà vu (le jeu était influencé par de nombreux récits et films de science-fiction), The Last of Us parviendrait à se démarquer dans le paysage télévisuel. Ces premiers retours, dans l’ensemble très positif, soulignent principalement le travail des showrunners Neil Druckmann (créateur de l’univers vidéoludique de The Last of Us) et de Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), qui ont su, a priori, parfaitement transcender le matériau d’origine. Je n’aurai pas voulu plus de remplissage, juste un temps supplémentaire pour respirer, ce qui aurait permis à The Last of Us d’approfondir son propos sur notre façon de vivre actuellement, au-delà d’une prise de conscience sincère, mais superficielle sur les côtés sombres et lumineux de la nature humaine. « The Last of Us de HBO est une adaptation à couper le souffle d’une des histoires les plus marquantes racontées dans l’Histoire du jeu vidéo ; elle fait découvrir avec brio le voyage de Joel et Ellie à un tout nouveau public. La saison comporte des bas et des hauts, mais les bas ne sont jamais si bas et les hauts sont incroyablement hauts, ce qui donne lieu à une saison phénoménale... The Last of Us est une réussite monumentale et dans cet univers d’une incroyable noirceur, Mazin et Drukman nous montre la lumière qui confère toute la puissance à cette histoire.

The HBO adaptation is well versed in the bleak clichés of the zombie genre, but it also offers something unexpected: empathy.

This is no ordinary grab bag of jump scares and grisly kills: The Last of Us respects its genre but works to defy its creakiest tropes. The Last of Us works hard to present a more sanguine view, including through Joel and Ellie’s deep bond—although franchise fans know that that connection will eventually grow complicated. This is especially true in the third episode, a mostly self-contained work that focuses on one of Joel’s survivalist allies, Bill (Nick Offerman), and his relationship with another survivalist named Frank (Murray Bartlett). Plenty of plot details in The Last of Us might feel conventional, but the show still offers a rich genre stew, with the kind of high-budget flavor that sets tentpole HBO productions apart from their straight-to-streaming counterparts. But what made The Last of Us even more immersive was how [it implicates players](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/the-last-of-us-limits-video-game-violence/613696/) in the lead character’s own morally dubious actions. [comes up](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/02/uncharted-video-game-movie-review/622815/) again and again as the medium grows in ambition: How do you translate a game that was itself clearly inspired by film and television?

It is only January, but already there appears to be a trend defining the 2023 television season: watching Pedro Pascal shepherd a young charge across a ...

But as hard as The Last of Us tries to convince its audience – and perhaps itself – that it can borrow from and elevate the zombie thriller, it is unable to deliver something genuinely new. That might be an extremely fun reality to play in, but when you then adapt that experience for TV, you are left with the passive experience of watching a copy of a copy of a copy. But most of all, The Last of Us represents a pronouncement from HBO that it can continue to capture the zeitgeist, no matter the costs, no matter the competition, and no matter the genre. Specifically one that can control the brain and survive the high temperatures of a human body thanks to evolving alongside the temperatures caused by global warming. One or two episodes of Tales from the Crypt aside, The Last of Us is HBO’s first entry into the popular but tricky zombie genre, with the cable giant hoping to hit the ratings jackpot just as AMC did with the early days of The Walking Dead – while avoiding the same undead exhaustion that eventually killed that franchise, and leaving its own network on life support. That is the focus of The Mandalorian, which kicks off its highly anticipated third season on Disney+ March 1, but also the core of The Last of Us, HBO’s new mega-budget zombie series that premieres Jan.

The premiere of HBO's Alberta-shot The Last of Us is just days away, and early reviews for the series are glowing.

Like the game, it’s a masterpiece, too.” What starts as a small job becomes a difficult trek as the pair travels across the US and must depend on each other for survival. Those are some seriously stellar reviews of the series and if you want to check out more, visit the Rotten Tomatoes reviews of The Last of Us: Season One ["The Last of Us" stars can't get enough of this Alberta town they filmed in](https://dailyhive.com/edmonton/the-last-of-us-stars-alberta-town-canmore) [A breakout star from "The White Lotus" has joined a TV show filming in Alberta right now](https://dailyhive.com/edmonton/the-white-lotus-actor-tv-alberta-fargo-lukas-gage) [You won't be able to drive to an iconic lake in Alberta's Rockies this summer](https://dailyhive.com/edmonton/moraine-lake-road-drive-closed-summer-2023) [The Last of Us](https://dailyhive.com/calgary/the-last-of-us-hbo-alberta-premiere) is just days away, and early reviews for the series are glowing. The reviews for HBO's Alberta-shot "The Last of Us" are out and they are GLOWING

The much-anticipated HBO adaptation of triple-A videogame title has spent the last year filming across Alberta, including in Okotoks and High River.

6 and set dressing took place on Suntree Lane and Suntree Place as well as in Suntree Park. “It’s very positive and exciting to see. [2022 seeing a record-breaking number of major screen productions](https://www.okotokstoday.ca/local-arts-and-culture/okotoks-and-foothills-becoming-an-a-list-film-destination-6267594?utm_source=airdrietoday.com&utm_campaign=airdrietoday.com%3A%20outbound&utm_medium=referral) in the province and thousands of industry jobs created. [stunt industry legend](https://www.okotokstoday.ca/local-arts-and-culture/foothills-filmmaking-figures-wrangle-major-recognition-6031002?utm_source=airdrietoday.com&utm_campaign=airdrietoday.com%3A%20outbound&utm_medium=referral) John Scott said the Alberta Film and Television Tax Credit helped roll out the red carpet for productions. In Crews were on site from Jan.

A review of the HBO series The Last of Us, based on the video game and starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

But the series reminds us why postapocalyptic stories continue to invade our psyches: They remind us of the value of being alive and how terrifying it would be to stand among the few who still are. Like the dystopian prestige dramas The Leftovers and Station Eleven, The Last of Us is driven less by raw plot than by its study of relationships. Even if The Last of Us treads familiar ground, it is still a gripping and ambitious work that seems fated to become the premium cable network’s next Twitter-trending hit. The other lies in translating the inherently interactive experience of a game into something that feels unique to television. [reportedly exceeding](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/02/can-the-last-of-us-break-the-curse-of-bad-video-game-adaptations) each of the first five seasons of Game of Thrones, The Last of Us is punctuated by intense action sequences and elaborately rendered practical and visual effects. The nine-episode first season, which debuts on Sunday night, focuses on Joel (Pedro Pascal), a man who lost his daughter when the pandemic began in 2003, and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a teenager whose immunity to the fungus could be instrumental in finding a cure in 2023.

Pedro Pascal in The Last of Us. The Last of Us, HBO's TV adaptation of the bestselling 2013 video game of the same name ...

How much of that is a testament to the expert handling of the adaptation, or to the loving construction of the original game? The third episode of The Last of Us fleshes out the story of Bill (Nick Offerman, in a fantastic subversion of his own typecasting), a gruff, no-bullshit doomsday prepper (or survivalist, depending on who you ask). As for adapting The Last of Us, Druckmann was similarly reluctant to lose the core narrative of his game. But my favorite part of the show did turn out to be a new addition to the canonical story of the game. Their relationship is the narrative heart of the game, as well as the series. The Last of Us is very, very good. When he was building the original game, he insisted on a single narrative for The Last of Us, in stark contrast to the gaming world’s affection for “open world” formats, where players can roam where they choose. He received pressure from his bosses to turn the epic, bloody finale of The Last of Us into a choice between two endings, but he maintained that Joel’s character development made a dark, climactic turn inevitable. [widespread](https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/05/the-last-of-us-review) [critical](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2013/jun/05/the-last-of-us-ps3-video-game-review) [acclaim](https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/06/13/the-last-of-us-review-this-is-the-end-beautiful-friend-ps3/?sh=2f433c462639) bordering on reverence for his attention to the craft of storytelling. The Last of Us is set in a postapocalyptic world in which a fungal pandemic turns infected people into zombies. Warcraft, the highest-grossing film adaptation of a video game since 2016, boasts nearly $440 million in box office revenue but didn’t even break even because of marketing and distribution costs. The pressure is on: The series is contending with the scrutiny of devoted fans; the shadow of a film adaptation shelved in 2016, and Hollywood’s decadeslong history of turning beloved video games into shows and movies that range from dull to embarrassing.

Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann co-created HBO's new drama "The Last of Us," starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

But for all that the fall was not the fault of humanity in this telling of our demise, I hope, in seasons to come, to see still more of the world beyond our heroes’ relationship. (The Bartlett episode in particular makes a strong case for itself as a successor of sorts to “Black Mirror” at its best. That we come to understand them as well as we do without this layer of detail — indeed, with the show seeming eventually to be rushing away from its protagonists — is an achievement. Adapted from the popular video game of the same title by “Chernobyl’s” [Craig Mazin](https://variety.com/t/craig-mazin/) and the game’s designer, Neil Druckmann, “The Last of Us” can lean too hard on action sequences, which emphasizes the uncanny surreality of the infected. [Pedro Pascal](https://variety.com/t/pedro-pascal/)) that buoys “The Last of Us” through its run. Here, as in “Chernobyl,” we watch as characters slowly, then all at once, come into awareness that the world around them is falling apart.

Inspired casting, excellent acting, hugely inventive storytelling … no console-to-screen journey has ever been this good. And it's one of the year's best ...

I initially thought he might be too impishly gorgeous to play a mid-50s southerner who doesn’t want to be doing any of this shit, but he creaks around in a denim shirt with just the right amount of world-weary heaviness and “your ankle’s twisted, but it isn’t broken” practicality. For the type of person who shuts their curtains to keep the daylight out so they can better enter the atmosphere of the game they are playing, there is hesitancy with this. The Last of Us came out in 2013 on the PlayStation 3 and is considered one of the best video games ever made. But there needn’t be: what the writers (Craig Mazin, from your favourite, Chernobyl, and Neil Druckmann, writer and creative director of the original games) have done is cleverly extended out the world of The Last of Us to tell the stories that can’t be told by pressing R2 and X every couple of seconds. Every human you encounter is trying to stab you or scavenge bullets off you or recruit you to one side of a conflict between the citizen army and the underground uprising. So HBO has decided to remake it as a TV series (Monday, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), cutting all traces of the video game out of the story, and finally letting those who have an Xbox experience it for themselves.

How to watch The Last of Us: The live action adaptation of the hit PlayStation premieres on Sunday | Trusted Reviews.

The series synopsis says: “The Last of Us takes place 20 years after modern civilisation has been destroyed. In the games, Ellie carries some immunity to the virus, which is considered crucial to finding the antidote. The survival of one human in particular is particularly important. The series is also being co-written and produced by Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann who directed the best-selling, critically-acclaimed series of games. Sky Atlantic’s carrying the series in the UK with a simulcast. Here’s how to watch on TV and online.

The Last of Us, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, starts airing on Sky Atlantic and NOW in January. But when are each of the new episodes released?

[subscribe now](http://radiotimes.com/magazine-subscription?utm_term=evergreen-article). - The Last of Us episode 9 - TBC - Monday 13th March 2023 at 2am GMT - The Last of Us episode 8 - TBC - Monday 6th March 2023 at 2am GMT - The Last of Us episode 7 - TBC - Monday 27th February 2023 at 2am GMT - The Last of Us episode 6 - TBC - Monday 20th February 2023 at 2am GMT - The Last of Us episode 5 - TBC - Monday 13th February 2023 at 2am GMT - The Last of Us episode 4 - TBC - Monday 6th February 2023 at 2am GMT - The Last of Us episode 3 - TBC - Monday 30th January 2023 at 2am GMT - The Last of Us episode 2 - Infected - Monday 23rd January 2023 at 2am GMT - The Last of Us episode 1 - When You're Lost in the Darkness - Monday 16th January 2023 at 2am GMT The Last of Us episode 1, titled When You're Lost in the Darkness, will be released on Monday 16th January 2023 at 2am GMT. When is The Last of Us episode 1 released?

Beloved video game characters Joel and Ellie get their live-action debut in this post-apocalyptic series from HBO.

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It's a small grievance, not worthy of a memoir. And so far, having zero interest in videogames, and less-than-zero in their patchy adaptations, has not impacted ...

So The Last of Us puts to bed the question of whether it’s possible to create a good video game adaptation. The series’ first scene – in which two scientists discuss the biggest threat to humanity on the set of a 1960s talk show – is a memorable, unexpected opening. The prestige finishings simply reassure non-fans that it’s okay to like a show based on a PlayStation franchise. Its greatest asset, however, is Pascal and Ramsey’s chemistry, which provides the show with both levity and warmth, and more importantly, a point. Much of the dialogue reads like a game cut-scene. A mutation of the Cordyceps fungus has found a way to live inside humans, turning much of the population into zombie-like beings.

Hollywood has mostly failed to adapt successful video games into satisfying series and films. In an interview, the creators of this new zombie thriller ...

That’s kind of how it works with Joel and Ellie, and that’s kind of how I think it’s going to work with the part of the audience that, like you and like me, has such an attachment to the Ellie that Neil and Ashley created in the game. In “The Last of Us” — or really any game where you’re playing somebody that has guns, and you’re fighting against other people that have guns — you’re going to get shot. Unlike a live actress, who you realize is a person and might see in other things, you don’t see Ellie anywhere else, so she almost seems to belong to the story. [Chernobyl](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/arts/television/emmy-awards-live-updates.html),” the Emmy-award winning mini-series, while Druckmann and his studio, [Naughty Dog](https://www.naughtydog.com/), are considered the benchmarks for narrative storytelling in games — fans are hoping “The Last of Us” will be different. In the game we have long action sequences to get you into a flow state, which gets you to better connect with the character — you see yourself as that character. Here’s the bad reason: Somebody in a room who doesn’t know anything about playing video games looks at a PDF of how many copies are sold, and they go, “Well, let’s just do that. DRUCKMANN The most important thing was to keep the soul of it, what it’s about: these relationships. Their journey across the United States, past zombies and cannibals, raises questions about the limits of love and the atrocities a parent will commit in the name of protecting a child. “The Last of Us,” for instance, is less about the actual outbreak than the father-daughter relationship between a smuggler named Joel (played by A decade later, an HBO series based on the game is set to be released, [on Sunday](https://www.hbomax.com/series/the-last-of-us), to a public that has grown all too familiar with the possibility of a germ apocalypse. So we get that out of the way pretty quickly.” After one of them describes something like Covid-19, the other silences both the fictional crowd and us when he expounds upon the ways in which a warmed-up planet could lead to something much, much worse.

As a gamer (and an editor at The Washington Post's video game vertical), I'm familiar with the premise and even some pivotal plot points of the games, though I ...

There’s the original PlayStation 3 game, a remastered version for PlayStation 4 titled “The Last of Us Remastered” and If you want to play “The Last of Us,” you’ve got a few options — and one more coming in March, if you’re willing to wait. The game’s 2020 sequel, “The Last of Us Part II,” explores the fallout from decisions made in the original game; the TV show’s first season follows the plot of the first game. Still, having watched a few episodes of the show, there’s no indication that playing the series is an important prerequisite to enjoy the HBO adaptation. In “The Last of Us” (both the game and the show) a fungal infection ravages the world, taking over human hosts and turning them into unusually floral zombies. For those interested in the new prestige drama, but maybe less interested in video games, there’s good news: You don’t need to play the games to understand the show.

HBO's new post-apocalyptic series is based on a video game with tens of millions of fans. For them and for newcomers, here's what to expect.

The game has been lauded for its diversity of characters in a medium often dominated by macho male protagonists, and that hasn’t been lost in translation. Without the action-first requirements of a video game, Druckmann and Mazin seem freed to deepen the dominant themes. Early signs suggest the answer is “very,” with the show including most of the major characters and plot points. The big question for fans of the video game is, how faithful will the series be to its source material? [announced](https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/06/screen-gems-to-distribute-sam-raimi-produced-the-last-of-us-movie) that it would be distributing a Sam Raimi-produced film version of the game, with Kaitlyn Dever and the “Game of Thrones” star Maisie Williams as early contenders to play the female lead. Fans of the game series will also recognize the brothers Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard); Ellie’s former ally Riley (Storm Reid); and the malevolent David (Scott Shepherd), a cult leader with dark secrets of his own.

At some point during the year-long shoot of HBO's The Last of Us, showrunner Craig Mazin accompanied actor Troy Baker to one of the many elaborate sets in ...

So I just want to thank everybody in the city for being so welcoming, so kind and so patient with us as we did all sorts of crazy things in every corner of Calgary and every corner of Alberta.” “I particularly found the crew in Alberta was outstanding,” he says. Mazin says he hopes to make more seasons of the series. “But everybody agreed with me. “I was like ‘Oh Lady Mormont!’ because I did not know her name … It takes place 20 years after a pandemic has turned most of the human race into infected, zombie-like creatures. But Mazin said The Last of Us stands apart from anything else he has played. “Part of my job is to be critical,” says Mazin. So even when sincerely wowed, he tended to keep it close to his chest. . . As fans of the video game, on which the series is based, know, Baker is the actor who played the main character of Joel in the original game. Article content