Current Events > I could have used a bit more infected action in The Last of Us (HBO)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Otherwise still one of the best seasons of television there is.

Im curious to see how theyll handle the dogs for part 2.

those were so damn stressful in the game.

They probably had to choose between monsters or character drama. They chose right. Also games need more action anyway.

lww99 posted...

Im curious to see how theyll handle the dogs for part 2.

those were so damn stressful in the game.

Or the ****ing wall zombies. Literally the worst part of part 2.

Dude, I was going to say the exact same thing. If it was missing anything, it was missing the main enemies. So much so I think it should lose at least a half point, imho.

Though I think the show did a really good job of illustrating that there aren't really important sections of the first game with the actual zombies.

All the important plot points are about Joel and Ellie's conflicts with other people, the zombies are in the game to add some extra gameplay and be the setting and that's it. And that's something the show doesn't need. That's not to say they couldn't have been used more, but like, they don't actually matter that much.

The important things the zombies did in the game were also in the show, it just turns out that the only plot-relevant things the zombies did were A) Infecting Tess, and B) Infecting Sam.

Proto_Spark posted...

Though I think the show did a really good job of illustrating that there aren't really important sections of the first game with the actual zombies.

All the important plot points are about Joel and Ellie's conflicts with other people, the zombies are in the game to add some extra gameplay and be the setting and that's it. And that's something the show doesn't need. That's not to say they couldn't have been used more, but like, they don't actually matter that much.

The important things the zombies did in the game were also in the show, it just turns out that the only plot-relevant things the zombies did were A) Infecting Tess, and B) Infecting Sam.

They really should have made them a bigger presence and gave them a couple of encounters.

The show did a good job of making them really, really dangerous. The only time they show up and don't end up killing someone is when one walks into Bill's trap.

But I could have stood for them to be slightly less dangerous and show up more. The action in general was just kinda lacking.

the writers said season 2 will have much more infected they heard the gripes

One thing I wish had happened is

Have Joel battle a Bloater or at least have it chase him and Ellie. The only Bloater we got to see, never interacted with Joel or Ellie

they needed to show up more because the entire point was to trade humanity's chance for curing a world ending disease for his adopted daughter.

it doesn't work as well if it the show made it look like you could just move north a bit and be fine.

imo you could just start some of the episodes with them running away from a clicker or bloater and it'd feel a bit more dangerous.

Zikten posted...

One thing I wish had happened is

Have Joel battle a Bloater or at least have it chase him and Ellie. The only Bloater we got to see, never interacted with Joel or Ellie

At the very least right.

Well you see, humans are the real monsters.

and risk turning it into another Walking Dead? yeah, i dont think so... lol

ZevLoveDOOM posted...

and risk turning it into another Walking Dead? yeah, i dont think so... lol

That's like the only legit argument against it. But what, shall we just take clicker fights out altogether when in the game they come out the whazoo?

I think the issue with more action is that it would make the characters seem much more invincible. In season 1, every single conflict and battle was so high tension because it felt like there were real stakes.

Plus, the character drama is what really pulled me in.

Having not played either of the games, I kept waiting for infected animals to appear. I kind of expected the giraffes to be a mid-episode boss monster, but alas.

Cocytus posted...

But what, shall we just take clicker fights out altogether when in the game they come out the whazoo?

i never said that. lol

All of this is why they should have made it 10 episodes instead of just 9.

But Im still glad it was a good enough show & especially since its an adaption of a video game. Look at the bastardization they made with Halo.

ZevLoveDOOM posted...

and risk turning it into another Walking Dead? yeah, i dont think so... lol

A few more zombies wouldnt suddenly lower the quality of the writing, acting, introduce worse characters and storylines and also drag on and fuckin on. Lets be real lol

I'm kinda indifferent.

like, I wouldn't necessarily mind more zombies, but the ones on the show are super OP, and idk if adding more would necessarily benefit the story.

if it was maybe just passing by buildings and hearing the sounds they make, to show that the zombies are an ever present threat, and seeing the fungus cover areas, then I could also see that adding to the atmosphere without having to force action scenes.

FF_Redux posted...

They probably had to choose between monsters or character drama. They chose right. Also games need more action anyway.

Personally I feel they didn't need to force the whole game into 9 episodes. I don't think they did too much character drama or anything, but a few more episodes to have a few more action scenes would not have hurt.

COVxy posted...

I think the issue with more action is that it would make the characters seem much more invincible. In season 1, every single conflict and battle was so high tension because it felt like there were real stakes.

Plus, the character drama is what really pulled me in.

Agreed.

If there were more encounters, it would've ended up becoming something it wasn't intended to be, an action movie spread across 9 hours of TV. The show was about the "The Last of Us" as in the survivors, not the thing the were fighting.

And the last thing we needed was the show to become as repetitive as the game was. Too much "go here, kill a bunch of infected/fedra/raiders, gather supplies, move to the next area, repeat" with the every so often "move a ladder" minigame.

COVxy posted...

I think the issue with more action is that it would make the characters seem much more invincible. In season 1, every single conflict and battle was so high tension because it felt like there were real stakes.

This, TWD got so tiring when they just kill loads of zombies every episode without a scratch

bigblu89 posted...

Agreed.

If there were more encounters, it would've ended up becoming something it wasn't intended to be, an action movie spread across 9 hours of TV. The show was about the "The Last of Us" as in the survivors, not the thing the were fighting.

And the last thing we needed was the show to become as repetitive as the game was. Too much "go here, kill a bunch of infected/fedra/raiders, gather supplies, move to the next area, repeat" with the every so often "move a ladder" minigame.

You're imagining all the encounters aren't you? Because more isn't the same thing as "all". I get it, you liked the show, you want to defend it's choices. I agree that they were right to not have fights constantly like a video game, a TV show doesn't flow that way. But I personally would have gone for a middle ground with a few more of the memorable battles in it.

95% of all "zombie" shows are never about the actual zombies, they all fall back on "humans are the real monsters"
>_>

It is accurate though

Its tough because I think seeing a bit more of Joel and Ellies misadventures traveling across the country would have helped sell their closeness in the latter parts of the series, and given the audience a better grasp of the stakes of them traveling the way they did. Instead we get a small piece of expository dialogue from Marlene about how incredible it is that they made it and how difficult it was for her and the Fireflies.

But on the other hand I dont see where theres really enough story there to add an extra episode just to pad that character development out. And the episodes as they are now are all pretty tightly wrapped up, it would kind of hurt their self-contained narrative arcs to add extra traveling scenes.

Some of the episodes were like an hour long; I could see say, the episodes in the town taken over by revolutionaries as two episodes with some more of the discovery of the dwellings and zombies in the sewer or a bit more hiding and running in the town. Take that one hour and a half episode and make it two episodes that each have about ten minutes with more zombies and stealth drama. Ultimately I'm not a screenwriter; the episodes as they are now don't have as much room for extra action scenes, but that's as they are now.

Like they decided not to make them have to go through a half collapsed skyscraper to leave the city; if they did some of the character scenes that happened elsewhere could have happened in there, plus more avoiding zombies. It didn't have to be a ton; just a few minutes here and there as they wandered through and developed character, could have spent no more than 15 minutes in the building.

bigblu89 posted...

Agreed.

If there were more encounters, it would've ended up becoming something it wasn't intended to be, an action movie spread across 9 hours of TV. The show was about the "The Last of Us" as in the survivors, not the thing the were fighting.

And the last thing we needed was the show to become as repetitive as the game was. Too much "go here, kill a bunch of infected/fedra/raiders, gather supplies, move to the next area, repeat" with the every so often "move a ladder" minigame.

Hard disagree. Joel was more video gamey in the show than he was in the game. He had autoaim against the infected horde and at the firefly base

It could have had more infected and still not felt walking dead-y. I think there should have been a 10th episode and more infected heavy. Sometimes it felt like the world was devoid of them

I loved the show, 9/10. That said I dont know if 2 flashback romance episodes were necessary in a 9 episode show and joel/ellie never run into an infected again after the halfway mark

MyMainAccount posted...

You're imagining all the encounters aren't you? Because more isn't the same thing as "all". I get it, you liked the show, you want to defend it's choices. I agree that they were right to not have fights constantly like a video game, a TV show doesn't flow that way. But I personally would have gone for a middle ground with a few more of the memorable battles in it.

Other than the fight in the gymnasium, there really wasnt any epic battle from the game that the missed.

Every episode had some sort of encounter in it. Whether it was with Fedra, Fireflies, Raiders, Davids crew, or infected.

Could the scenes have been longer, maybe, but the show was more about the people and not the battles.

MyMainAccount posted...

But I personally would have gone for a middle ground with a few more of the memorable battles in it.

What were the memorable battles to you? The sniper fight (which they had) and the bloater in the gym (not done) are the only two memorable encounters to me. When I think back, the rest just blend together as filler in my brain.

loafy013 posted...

What were the memorable battles to you? The sniper fight (which they had) and the bloater in the gym (not done) are the only two memorable encounters to me. When I think back, the rest just blend together as filler in my brain.

I liked that one sewer section with joel solo

Also ellie and david vs infected was sort of the catalyst for david wanting ellie