Latest news with #TheLastOfUs
South China Morning Post
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
If you enjoyed The Last of Us, you'll love these 8 survival books
If the gruesome setting of HBO video-game adaptation The Last of Us left you reeling for more stories of survival, found family and the haunting beauty of decay, you are in the right place. Whether you are drawn to tales of fungal terror, dystopian futures or post-apocalyptic perseverance, this list includes books that capture the emotional depth, eerie atmosphere and heartbreaking stakes that made the series unforgettable. 1. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher A gripping and atmospheric reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. Arriving at the remote Usher estate, retired soldier Alex Easton discovers their childhood friend Madeline wasting away and the land itself much degraded. Alex has to uncover the sinister truth behind the House of Usher before it consumes them all as fungal horrors spread and anarchy descends. The cover of Daryl Kulak's book. Photo: Lulu Press 2. The Bulgarian Bartender by Daryl Kulak A darkly thrilling tale of friendship and betrayal in the heart of Eastern Europe.
Gizmodo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Last of Us Part 1 and 2 Are Nearly Free on PS5, Play the Story That Goes Beyond the HBO Series
The latest PS5 remake and remaster of the game series that kicked off HBO's biggest ongoing series is on sale for over 50% off. HBO's prestige drama The Last of Us pits Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) and Bella Ramsey (Ellie Williams) against the American wasteland of infected fungal monsters and the even more dangerous people out there trying to survive them. If you haven't already heard, The Last of Us is based on a video game series of the same name. And those games are on sale over at Amazon for just $30 (-57%) a piece. The PlayStation 5 version of The Last of Us Part 1 is the breathtakingly gorgeous remake we got in 2022 of the original 2013 game. Additionally, the recently remastered edition of The Last of Us Part 2 which adds new modes and improved graphical fidelity is also down to $30 (-40%). See The Last of Us Part 1 at Amazon See The Last of Us Part 2 at Amazon Now as a fan of the games with Part 2 being one of my all-time favorites, I am enjoying my time with the show—to an extent. Ultimately HBO's version has left me feeling underwhelmed due to a lot of the changes made to adapt this Americana tale of grief in an unforgiving world for general television audiences. Without spoiling, some things that get lost are hard to replicate with actors on camera as being in control changes your relationship to the characters. Stuff like that is inevitable when adapting from one medium to another. Other tweaks to the story feel like they come from a lack of confidence in the source material. Showrunner Craig Mazin has spoken extensively on some of the changes you see between the games and his version. This problem becomes even worse in season 2 as the series plot jumps into the sequel. Endure and Survive (the Online Discourse) Now it's a tale as old as time for someone to say 'the source material is better,' but that's a cliche for a good reason. Regardless of if you're really enjoying the series or if you find yourself frustrated with the show, but have not played the games, let this be your opportunity to hop in. Even if you are new to gaming and haven't experienced a shooter before, both The Last of Us games on PS5 make for a great starting point. The developer Naughty Dog included a slew of welcomed accessibility options and difficulty controls to help cater to your level of skill. These can help with navigation, adjust the number of resources you'll find, and mess around with the damage you can both take and dish out to extremely precise degrees. Now is a great time to get into the games. The show is barely even halfway through Part 2 following Season 2's finale so you can be all caught up before it returns to HBO in 2027. The Last of Us Part 1 and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered are each available for just $30. See The Last of Us Part 1 at Amazon See The Last of Us Part 2 at Amazon
Forbes
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘The Last Of Us' Shot A Game-Accurate Ellie Fight They Didn't Use
The Last of Us In the wake of The Last of Us finale, more information continues to emerge, and it's not welcome news to fans. This time, it manages to upset a number of different camps. It's been revealed that The Last of Us shot a game-accurate version of (spoilers) the Mel, Owen and Ellie encounter, as some had theorized with previous set shots of the cast looking battered. Co-showrunner Craig Mazin confirmed a sequence had been shot but ultimately was not used because, well, here's his explanation via THR: It's a frustrating decision for several different groups who often don't align on much regarding the show: The Last of Us It's also inconsistent with the Ellie the show built, namely how there's a specific sequence where Ellie takes down a large man, seemingly establishing that she could have done this. But also, there's nothing that says Ellie needs to fist-fight here; she has a gun and she usually has a knife on her. But turning this into an accidental killing with no fight at all also takes away from who her character is supposed to be. This comes in the wake of podcast comments from Mazin that Abby is more 'capable' than Ellie, something that is again not demonstrated by the games. All of this adds up to the fact that an entirely new Ellie has been written for season 2, and seemingly for the rest of the show going forward, which is frustrating to almost anyone with a dog in this fight. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Geek Feed
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Feed
Save the Dog: Why They Cut Alice from the Last of Us Finale
The Last of Us finale had come as a shock to several viewers, but anyone who's played the game knew exactly what was coming… sort of. Fans online have been discussing all sorts of changes the series has been doing compared to the game, and a lot of fans were wondering just where Alice a.k.a. Mel's WLF-trained dog was. Since the dog was ultimately going to be killed by Ellie, showrunner Craig Mazin thought that having Ellie kill a dog would have been 'one too much' for the scene. Talking to Polygon, Mazin explains , 'There are two cardinal rules in Hollywood, one, don't spend your own money, two, don't kill a dog… Plus, because it's live action, the nature of violence becomes much more, well, graphic. It's more graphic because…it's not like there's an animation between you and it, [and] it's very disturbing.' Seeing that Ellie already kills Owen, Mel, and (indirectly) Mel's baby (plus Jessie gets shot); it was game creator Neil Druckmann who said, '…in our conversation, we're like this [is] probably one too many.' Interestingly enough, some fans were complaining that Mazin was so 'fine' with dog murder in Chernobyl , to which he actually addresses that in the interview, 'I think you get like one dog murdering episode a lifetime.' If anything, most of the audience's investment on Alice actually comes from Abby's side of the story since players get to interact and even play with her in the game. No doubt Alice will probably be introduced in the next season, but who knows, maybe it's Tommy that offs her this time. We'll just have to wait and see. Check out the complete second season of The Last of Us now streaming on HBO Max.
Forbes
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘The Last Of Us' Made One Huge Mistake In Season 2, And It Creates A Major Problem For Season 3
The Last Of Us Much has been made of the casting of Ellie in HBO's adaptation of The Last Of Us. On the one hand, I agree that it's difficult to accept someone who looks as young and small as Bella Ramsey take on the role required of her in Season 2. The video game version of Ellie is, at this point, much older and tougher than she was in the first game. Ramsey looks just as young and tiny as she did in Season 1. Spoilers ahead. On the other hand, I disagree with complaints that Ramsey isn't up to the task from an acting standpoint. When she was at her best this season, she pulled off exactly the emotional range required of her, whether that was during Joel's brutal murder or in gentler moments, like the Museum flashback or her performance of A-ha's Take On Me. I'd go even further and point to Season 1, in which (for the most part) not only was Ramsey excellent throughout, the character of Ellie was presented in a way that lined up pretty perfectly with the video game character she's based on. (To those who mock Bella's appearance on social media, I have nothing but scorn and pity – bullying is for children, yet plenty of adults in this day and age have lost all semblance of decency). Season 2's Ellie fails due to the writing. Some baffling decisions were made that fundamentally alter not only her characterization and arc, but the very nature of the story itself. It appears that the writers were convinced that the game was too dark, that its tone was too bleak for audiences, and so Ellie's character was offered up as the sacrificial lamb in some very puzzling attempt to make her and the story more palatable. In doing so, the show failed at one important mission: To make us start to dislike Ellie but still root for her to succeed. What the show did instead was neuter Ellie's revenge arc, making her unlikable for all the wrong reasons. Instead of seeing her become the monster she needs to become, while still hoping that she tracks down Abby and takes her revenge, we see her as an incompetent, brash, childish character who isn't even particularly invested in revenge to begin with. It's hard to root for someone who doesn't seem to care that much about their own mission to begin with. Even before Joel's death, Ellie was presented as an obnoxious teenager rather than the more hardened version of the character she'd become over the intervening years. Perhaps hoping that more comic relief would endear us to Ellie, the show makes her a wisecracking kid most of the time. In the process, all her skills and intellect are cast aside. She's less clever and less capable than she was at 14 in Season 1. Now it is Dina who must show her the way, urge her on her path of revenge, remind her when to be quiet and what supplies to pack. Jessie chastises her for her selfishness, saves her from tight spots, and prevents her from getting them both killed when she wants to save a Scar child from a pack of Wolves. Time and again, she only narrowly escapes a situation she's put herself in or is rescued. Almost never do we see a competent, self-assured Ellie making hard choices that she has to live with. Even her moments of revenge and violence are dampened. Instead of shooting Owen and then stabbing Mel through the throat with her knife, she shoots the pair of them, killing Mel by mistake. She doesn't even use her knife on the one WLF guard she takes down, choosing to choke hold him instead of the more obvious stabbing kill. And she doesn't kill a dog, I suppose because that might make us dislike her even more. Ellie's violence is always uncertain and, other than Nora, her kills leave her shaken and upset rather than kindling her determination. Sure, we need to see how they impact her, but this version of Ellie seems only regretful and rarely driven except when the writers flip her revenge switch. It's whiplash-inducing from a character standpoint. When Dina reveals she's pregnant, Ellie makes a dad joke instead of getting angry and treating Dina and her pregnancy as a terrible inconvenience. And you might think that would make her more likeable, but instead it makes her seem wishy-washy and uncommitted. It's no wonder that Dina, when she learns of Joel's past, is upset and and shuts down, distancing herself from Ellie and telling her it's time to go home. In the game, Dina is supportive of Ellie when she learns this hard truth. Because it doesn't matter what Joel did. The only thing that matters is getting justice. But with an Ellie so devoid of her own drive and motivation, why should we expect Dina to act any other way? The Last Of Us Season 2 needed to show us the transformation of Ellie from a happy-go-lucky apocalypse survivor to a competent killer hellbent on revenge, who treats those around her as obstacles when they get in the way, and who mercilessly stalks her quarry. It needed to do that while still making us root for her to succeed, using flashbacks like the museum scene to remind us who she once was and what's been lost. Instead, she bumbles along in a half-assed revenge quest where she's neither ruthless nor competent, just another road-trip with the adults who have to protect and shield her along the way. Fundamentally, this season should have been about Ellie breaking bad. And like that show, it should have given us an Ellie more akin to Walter White than this aimless child. Walter White is exactly what I'm describing: A ruthless, competent monster who, even when he shows his true colors, the audience roots for even against our better judgment. Sure, at a certain point most Breaking Bad fans had turned on Walter, as the horrors of his vanity and ambition left too much ruin in his wake to ignore. That's exactly the path Ellie needed to go down this season (and a few more episodes could have fleshed out this spiral, though only if the writing and direction had allowed the extra space to matter). Alas, we have come to the end of Season 2 and are now poised to watch Abby's arc unfold in Season 3. It is too late to give us the story we needed for Ellie at this point, which is a terrible shame. The show has already done irrevocable damage to Abby's story as well, spelling out her motivations long before we should have known what they were. The biggest problem, however, is that Abby's arc needs to be the mirror opposite of Ellie's. While we were supposed to follow Ellie down a monstrous path, we need to then follow Abby down one of redemption. We need to see the human being behind the monster, and this needs to reflect Ellie's own arc in reverse. With Ellie's story so badly jumbled, I see no clear way the show can achieve this in Season 3. And without these two stories mirroring one another, without these two characters hurtling toward one another, effectively becoming one another, I'm not at all certain how Season 4 can achieve the emotional heights it requires. And that's to say nothing of them moving the final scene of the game up into Season 2, Episode 6. Oh well. Mistakes were made. At least we have the games. Read my Season 2 review here: What say you, dearest readers? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. Also be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Sign up for my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and culture.
