HBO’s first episode Our Last premiered, inviting fans of the video game franchise as well as non-players into the world of Ellie, Joel, clickers, and the end of society as we know it. Anyone who has spent time playing the Naughty Dog game series knows that The Last of Us is not your zombie apocalypse story. It’s one of those heart-wrenching pains and how you move on from it.
Warning: From here on, we’ll be discussing spoilers for the first episode of The Last of Us. If you haven’t seen the show yet, head over to HBO Max now and see for yourself what happens.
That heartbreak is a key ingredient in a video game’s opening, so for those familiar, it should come as no surprise that the first episode of The Last of Us materializes those moments. that horror in live-action. The series introduces Joel (Pedro Pascal), daughter Sarah (Nico Parker), and brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna), as they realize a fungal outbreak is turning humans into zombie-like creatures. In the fight to escape the horror, they eventually fall under the sights of members of the military, who shoot Sarah down. It was a disturbing scene to watch as it unfolded, as literally no one seemed to know exactly what was going on or why these newly created monsters were attacking others.
While filming the moment, Parker admitted she and Pascal “heard sad songs” to get the space right. The two also spoke with host Craig Mazin about the scene.
“I remember Craig coming up to us as a last resort, and he turned to me and said, ‘This is the biggest pain you’ve ever experienced in your entire life. This is excruciatingly painful. ever happened to you,” she explained. “And then he said the same thing to Pedro. And for me it was more of the physical side, but for Pedro it was more of the mental pain.”
The pain and anguish displayed on the palpable screen. It’s hard to imagine such an iconic moment from the games being captured better than in live-action, largely because everyone involved knows how important this scene in particular is to creating. matching colors.
Pascal told GameSpot, TV Guide and Metacritic in an interview: “It was scary, but also very exciting. He added, “It was a great opportunity for me to start that way. There’s Nico Parker, who’s amazing–it’s instant, fun, and a perfect way to start. With Gabriel Luna playing, Tommy, my brother, and this little family are essentially torn apart by the day of the outbreak—an iconic moment that exists in the game that all fans are all very well aware of the fundamentals that shape this man for the rest of his journey.”
And while there are certainly fine-tuning done To make the moment more interesting as a scene on TV, there’s a lot of stuff pulled straight from the game–down to the frames of certain shows.
“I remember being struck by the similarities in the way they staged it,” said Luna. “There was a lot of expectation on that scene. But what I could see on the screen and how we handled it, we were really, really true to the game. Tommy, of course, witnessed a lot of death in my movie experience, and I think what I’m trying to overcome is that I know what’s happened; I can see this wound and I know what’s going to happen. And a lot of it was just trying to be there for my brother as he tried to accept what was happening.”
As for whether we’ll see Sarah again in flashbacks, it’s impossible to say. Whatever the case, there’s still a lot of The Last of Us story to unfold in the upcoming episodes.
New episodes of The Last of Us air Sundays on HBO.
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