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I'm excited about this. (Gaming)

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Monday, March 09, 2020, 15:20 (1480 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I hope it follows the narrative very closely (including saving events in the DLC until later). This does seem like the optimal outcome for an adaptation--or at least the most likely alignment of talent and backing such that it's not ruined. Looking forward to my non-gamer friends experiencing this (I've tried to convert a few into gamers so that they could, and they usually floundered a few hours in).


Following the narrative closely I feel would be an adaptational mistake. To succeed in my opinion, it has to tell a different story, or be a prequel or a sequel.

The game is already using film language plus so much more to tell its story, and is very effective at doing so. To just adapt that is dangerous given you would lose a lot simply by switching media.

Remember what Tim Rogers said:

I’ve written before that part of what I like about videogame design as a dramatic instrument is their ability to put us a hundred percent into the moments editors would leave out of a film.


And film editors would cut a lot out of Last of Us.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the best video game movies are the ones that don't just try to retell the game's story.

But when has there been a good video game movie? They generally suck because the stories in themselves are usually B quality at best. Their existence in a game matters and is usually what makes it work. In this case, the script itself is nearly perfect in my view and could have been made into a drama as easily as a game. It's episodic, it has the beats and the dramatic arc good drama should have, and what's added by the game play--embodying in some sense the struggle to survive--can at least be approximated given the tools we have in film. I'm not expecting nor do I want an exact copy, but the great thing about it being a series is that they'll have room for many small moments that represent big things like those in the game. Frankly, I think your insistence that it HAS to tell a different story is bananas.


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