The first episode of The Last of Us saw an outpouring of positivity, as fans saw one of the greatest video games ever made has a masterful debut on HBO Max.
Attention to detail was the name of the game in the premiere, with almost everything painstakingly reproduced into live-action with nothing but hits landing. Pedro Pascal, as you’d expect, is at the absolute center of some of the first episode’s best moments and most lovingly recreated moments.
Fans have gone through to show some of the best recreations from its first episode, and it really is stunning just how faithful the show has been to its source material. Nearly everything just looks like the game with slight enhancements or changes here or there. Such moments like the death of Joel’s daughter Sarah were highlighted by many, with it arguably the peak of the adaptation.
Bella Ramsey as Ellie also saw plenty of plaudits, with her giving an incredibly faithful performance. The detail surrounding the series is intoxicating at times, those who have played the game countless times probably feel like it’s a dream.
HBO has cemented a hit and earned a massive amount of respect from gamers. The years of mediocre (Mortal Kombat), terrible (Super Mario Bros), and completely unfaithful (DOOM) adaptations appear to be gone. The realization has swept in that video games can actually tell good stories, and do not need to be fiddled with in order to make good movies or shows.
The Last of Us is a very different kettle of fish to something like DOOM, but the key difference is this: One adaptation completely understood what it needed to be and was about, while the other just didn’t respect the franchise’s core. Maybe one day we’ll get the tongue-in-cheek DOOM action film we deserve.
The Last of Us is available to stream exclusively from HBO Max, where it’ll air new episodes every week.