The Last of Us (HBO) TV Show • Page 155

I hate being like THE GAME IS SO MUCH BETTER GUYS I SWEAR but yea.

 

It seems like their attempts at making her more sympathetic mostly just led to confusing people who haven’t played the game. The inconsistency between her revenge mixed with stuff like wanting to save the seraphite kid.

 

I saw someone sum it up nicely - in the game, Dina goes with Ellie because she *could* die. In the show, Dina goes with Ellie because she *would* die.

 

yeah that quote above is pretty damning. It’s such a significant change to the character and honestly it makes her less sympathetic to me. The show seems designed to open the viewer to the idea that Abby could be good/right and Ellie bad/wrong right from the jump of this season and I think that was a huge misstep.

 

Without spoiling anything for non-game players, this was 100% the most logical point for the finale. I think the finale could have a lot more impact if they had kept the audience guessing as to who Abby was and the origins of her group to this episode. I have seen a lot takes online about how they should have changed the story’s structure to fit, swapping between Ellie and Abby, and I just cannot envision a version where that would have been effective. Maybe I will elaborate more on this in the game thread.

In two years, whenever S3 comes out and all episodes are available to stream, people who are catching up on the show will have a completely different experience. It just sucks that this is a reality of big budget TV now.

As for Ellie’s character change, there is a very big reason (again, trying to avoid spoilers), but if they remove this scene from the show I think it makes their characterization of her very believable IMO, that she would be in over her head.

 

I think the show allows the audience to see that both Abby and Ellie are wrong in their lust for revenge. I don’t think they’ve shown either to be good at this point. They did try to paint Ellie more sympathetically, but I’m not sure it worked.

 

Making Ellie seem less capable detracts from just how far gone she is. Not to mention, in the game, Tommy's the one who left first. Their bloodlust consumes them and they leave behind a trail of bodies throughout Seattle. Even if you as the player decided not to kill anyone in encounters, you'd have still killed more of Abby's crew by this point

 

But like, which is more believable to a TV audience:
- 19 year old Rambo Ellie, who has lived in a gated community for 5 years and only killed infected
- 19 year old out-of-her-depth Ellie, who is brash and naive, and maybe doesn’t think things all the way through.

They establish in the show that Dina has been in her own since she was 8 years old. Ellie, in this version, has never been on her own for a meaningful stretch of time. I think the changes they made make a lot of sense in this regard.

 

That's the only thing I dislike about the flashback episode, the fact that in this version Ellie doesn't go all the way to Salt Lake and back on her own looking for answers. That would've shown how capable she was in the game.

The plot changes in the show make sense in the context of the show, that doesn't mean they're always gonna line up thematically

 

I want to watch again before actually writing what I thought but I liked it for the most part.

Over the last few days though it's been becoming apparent that there was a call to make the show/Ellie less violent. They've photoshopped the season's poster for the physical release to not have Ellie holding the rifle. There was a whole scene apparently where Ellie is shooting a rifle at WLF soldiers that was not used but it was in the trailer. And now I just saw the Mel/Owen scene had Ellie attacking them with a knife rather than shooting Owen in defense and accidentally shooting Mel.

I wonder whose decision it was between Craig or if it was from the higher ups at HBO.

After the episode aired, ViewerAnon had said the aquarium scene that aired was a reshoot but they weren't sure why. This clip from a behind the scenes video proves that.

 

I think I also had seen that Bella had done some pretty intense ballistics training that went nowhere

 

yeah and some pretty cool looking fight choreo that was never used. they always just ran away from wolves/seraphites

 

Yeah on the one hand I feel like I see what they're going for. Ellie is impulsive and brash but because she's so hot headed she doesn't always think things through and people get hurt. But I think it sometimes comes across as not really committing one way or the other on how they want Ellie to be or where they're going with her

Like there was that whole scene with Seth I think giving her the rifle. Was it ever even used? Or maybe it comes in play later? I'm kinda blanking but I feel like it was dropped. Even the serious training they showed Ellie doing at the beginning of the season hasn't come into play yet. Of course maybe it still will, but not having played the games and just watching this season, that kind of combat never came to pass either. I'm def willing to be patient and see how it all comes together in the future but I get how when there's years between seasons, some people might be less willing to wait for the payoff

I also get Ellie is impulsive and doesn't always think things through, but it seemed like if not for dina, she wouldn't have even packed food or could find her way or anything. I have always perceived Ellie as a fighter who's had to survive and I get she's a bit sheltered but I kinda do wish they leaned more into her being shrewd and capable

But I'm guessing they wanna lean into making her more sympathetic to viewers to make it more gray in the Ellie vs Abby thing? But then I start putting on my feminism hat and am like okay but she can be shrewd and capable and violent and also empathetic and gray.

Idk these are my tired morning thoughts

 

Seems that the rifle was planned to be used and they changed the script, hence why newer posters of the show photoshopped it off her lol

 

Honestly feels like they're making this show as an obligation the way they just blow through everything. This entire show is rushed as hell compared to the source material, feels like they're just trying to get through it

 

Ehh not sure I agree with that, otherwise they wouldn't be planning 3 seasons for just one game

 

three seasons with short episode counts. The show makes it seem like the main characters just casually walk across multiple states with ease. They skip whole set pieces from the games. It was my biggest complaint with season one, and it's the same with this. There's like 4 scenes with infected this whole season.

 

The thing with some of the set pieces not being in the show is that some of them just won’t translate to TV. I enjoy playing through the whole game, but I don’t want to see Ellie sneaking through abandoned/infected areas in the show. It would get boring.

 

If they think this season was woke, I can’t wait to see what they say next season.

 

There will 100% be thousands that don’t realise that (game spoiler incoming) Lev is trans and will be MAD about it

 

What exactly "Went woke" about this season anyway? The fact that Bella, who was also a star of Season 1, came out as non-binary? The fact that weirdo game players don't think she's as hot as the 15 year old girl in the game is? What's "woke" here?

 

The only possible woke things about the show are that one character is bisexual and the other a lesbian. That's all I can tell.

 

Anyone who says the term "woke" without irony deserves to be crushed from above by that tree from the Junji Ito story about the addictive nectar.

 

Yeah, but even that came out in season 1, the apparently better, non-woke season lol