The as-yet-unreleased series The Last of Us is already starting to annoy some fans over its perceived differences from the original games.
When a successful license is adapted into a film or series, it is systematically expected at the turn. series The last of us by HBO is no exception to the rule and fans are already excited, although Neil Druckmann, the creator of the license, is working on it alongside one of the most talented directors of his last few years, Craig Mazin (Chernobyl). However, the two men never hid that the series would go much further than the first game, even allowing itself to add or change certain things. Except that the latest revelation so far doesn’t go through.
The Last of Us series makes changes you don’t like
During a recent interview for Collider, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann discussed the changes made to the series, such as the few differences in certain characters. Tess, for example, will be older and more affected by events, while Frank, Bill’s friend who died in the game, will be of greater importance. Fairly frequent adjustments given the ambition of the project, but the change that doesn’t pass concerns one of the most important points of the franchise: the infection itself.
Unlike video games, the series The last of us decided to take a more realistic approach to infection. Mazin also says they took into account that people have known what a pandemic looks like since Covid19. They then decided to anchor further The last of us in the real world by gradually provoking the infection. This time, too, we should know all the secrets.
Neil Druckmann says one of the big goals was to make sure the show didn’t just become a “zombie show”. Druckmann and Mazin have therefore decided to incorporate several monsters from the license, such as clicker, and even a new creature to stand out. As a bonus, they have decided to fully review the way the virus spreads, so the spores that are very present in the games are simply abandoned here. Instead the series The last of us will treat the infected in a completely different way, giving them a hive mind, which is the ability to relay information to each other as if they were one.
There are some additions we made to the series that I really liked. We wanted to avoid making a simple series about zombies. So we have several creatures like the clickers that already help us separate from it. But with the infected youths we discussed a lot what they could look like because we removed some things from the game: In the game there were spores in the air and the survivors had to wear gas masks to protect themselves. But we decided early on that we didn’t want to do that for the show. Then, when we thought about how the infection spreads like fungi from one infected person to another, we thought it might become some kind of interconnected network. It got very scary to think that the infected could all work together against us, a concept that I really liked and that was developed in the series.
Neil Druckman via colliders
Don’t touch my driver’s license!
A big change that is difficult to get through to fans and you only have to see what is being said on social media to see that it is disturbing. The spores are indeed a major threat in The Last of Us Part 1 that required survivors to protect themselves from the environment by any means necessary. It also made for particularly stressful sequences in games, seeping into the atmosphere in a sort of thick, grainy haze across the screen. Not to mention that some infected in the game used it as a weapon, for example by firing “bags” of spores, such as the Colossi. Either way, fans are concerned about the turn this adaptation is taking and the reactions are numerous. Everyone is waiting to see how the series will deal with Cordyceps and the infected. See you in a few days.
series The last of us will land on HBO Max from January 15th, but unfortunately doesn’t have a release date or platform in France yet.
