The thing most video game adaptations lack is a sense of immersion. But the strong script and coherent, suspense-and-character-driven action sequences in #TheLastofUsHBO were an excellent start here.
Also I'm pretty sure Craig Mazin's world-building implies that his antagonistic old roommate helped usher in the military dictatorship. Ted would've been Solicitor General of TX during the opening act.
Thinking further about that opening act, I loved that it took its time. I kept expecting it to cut and jump to the future, setting up the series to have periodic flashbacks to fill in what happened.
That it instead follows through deepens the immersion. And doesn't cheapen the characters to two-dimensional plot devices.
When we see Joel in the future, we have a good sense of who he was, what he lost, and how it changed him.
It's not 'backstory,' it's just 'story.'
@zeddary from the prologue. They could have picked any three actors in the audience to read those lines (well, two, you need John Hannah for his) and it would have worked. Anyone else would have done that. But they got Heyerdahl sitting like a stiff and Brener hamming it up, just for spice to Hannah’s main dish. They didn’t need them, b they got them. And we aren’t going to see them again.
They had my curiosity and my attention from that point onwards.
zeddy
Crumbs the Cat
FacetiousPenguin