I had the liberty to watch the gameplay walktrough again, to remember all the quality this franchise has, and gotta say that the show is way watered down to almost close blatancy compared to the original. Especially with this latest episode, seeing all the resemblance these two media product have, the series feel like rushing through all the checkpoints just to resonate with the fans, and to show a cheapened version of the original to the newcomers and alike. Emotional scenes and connections between Joel and Ellie seem to have almost zero weight, 'coz the cold, distant Joel has to bring down his walls covering his vulnerable self in order to bridge any emotional connection to Ellie and continue the whole story with some dramatic value, but many of the moments here in this episode felt really unearned and cheap, like throwing bones to the dog saying "Here, see? There you have it, the connection, the drama... satisfied? Now move along"... There is not much episode to be left to say this gripping, heartbreaking story, but that doesn't mean you gotta sprint through it.
And this brings us to the obvious issue people were complaining about for a week now: Was it really necessary to sacrifice a whole, and much longer episode to Bill and Frank, that, at the end, brought us only one conclusion that could have been told even in few minutes: Defend your loved ones? Was it dear Naughty Dog? Was it, dear HBO? Seriously?
It is a shame, because the pilot was really top-notch entry, that not only nod to the original, but also brought fresh take to the whole narrative, that was pleasing even for fans, with its cinema quality lighting and visuals, acting, and overall storytelling. But it was also evident that a story centric game like The Last of Us had already solid written narrative that wasn't a huge challenge to bring it on screen as you had most of it already done in cinematics and in a realistic, flesh and blood gameplay in third person view... you just really had to get it on motion picture with minimum challenges of adapting if we are talking about storytelling and the way it is delivered.
And yet, they still managed to get almost totally derailed from the main focus throughout these latest two episodes. How hard can it be? A Warcraft movie could do it better with its 2 hours of runtime and had been executed vastly better. And yet they call this close-dumpster "The best adaptation to a game"... give me a break you streaming platform addicted uncultivated barbarians, you don't even know what you are talking about.
It is apparent for me now, that this show may have much less to offer than the game itself could do back in the days and still does today and less than a quality HBO show that takes its time to be developed and well made. But I guess that is the difference between a game that runs its story via much longer runtime and a TV show, where you are way more limited to different moviemaking problematics with so much effort put in that ends with way lesser quality payoff it originally should had led to. I mean, the acting even was not on par with previous episodes... who the hell plays Kathleen? Holly molly, what a weak acting that is, embarrassing to watch...
Whatever, I'm still interested where it goes, but hell, the game is way more engaging and fleshed out.
It seems to me like you done fu***d it up dear HBO and Druckmann. But only "seems", yet.
And this brings us to the obvious issue people were complaining about for a week now: Was it really necessary to sacrifice a whole, and much longer episode to Bill and Frank, that, at the end, brought us only one conclusion that could have been told even in few minutes: Defend your loved ones? Was it dear Naughty Dog? Was it, dear HBO? Seriously?
It is a shame, because the pilot was really top-notch entry, that not only nod to the original, but also brought fresh take to the whole narrative, that was pleasing even for fans, with its cinema quality lighting and visuals, acting, and overall storytelling. But it was also evident that a story centric game like The Last of Us had already solid written narrative that wasn't a huge challenge to bring it on screen as you had most of it already done in cinematics and in a realistic, flesh and blood gameplay in third person view... you just really had to get it on motion picture with minimum challenges of adapting if we are talking about storytelling and the way it is delivered.
And yet, they still managed to get almost totally derailed from the main focus throughout these latest two episodes. How hard can it be? A Warcraft movie could do it better with its 2 hours of runtime and had been executed vastly better. And yet they call this close-dumpster "The best adaptation to a game"... give me a break you streaming platform addicted uncultivated barbarians, you don't even know what you are talking about.
It is apparent for me now, that this show may have much less to offer than the game itself could do back in the days and still does today and less than a quality HBO show that takes its time to be developed and well made. But I guess that is the difference between a game that runs its story via much longer runtime and a TV show, where you are way more limited to different moviemaking problematics with so much effort put in that ends with way lesser quality payoff it originally should had led to. I mean, the acting even was not on par with previous episodes... who the hell plays Kathleen? Holly molly, what a weak acting that is, embarrassing to watch...
Whatever, I'm still interested where it goes, but hell, the game is way more engaging and fleshed out.
It seems to me like you done fu***d it up dear HBO and Druckmann. But only "seems", yet.