The Finale (Fan Creations)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, March 13, 2023, 09:40 (621 days ago) @ Cody Miller

It flew by. Everything just went so quickly when he went terminator on everyone

These are the words of someone I know who had not played the game. I for one agree. The finale dropped the ball. It did not work and unraveled it all.

Now, I haven't played the game in a while so my recollection might not be exact, but I think the criticism still holds here. Joel does indeed go 'Terminator', and the lack of emotion here is just ridiculous. I recall getting to Ellie being difficult; in the show it should have been possible only through sheer will and desire to save her. Also, the coldness of it all really came off very differently than the game. Before it felt like an act of despair. Now? Kind of… psychopathic. As a viewer I don't know if I'm 100% behind Joel the way you were when it was you playing. I mean shit, he just executes Abby's dad immediately.

What was a gut punch in the game goes by just like another action scene, as does their conversation in the end.

Let down pretty hard IMO. But needlessly so. They wasted 2 episodes. The DLC episode just never should have happened. And while Bill and Frank's story was amazing on its own, it took too much time away from the main relationship. I really think it could have worked if things didn't have to happen at warp speed.

I disagree with your experience of the game. :) I mean, I had a different experience. I didn't want to kill fireflies. I was torn about "rescuing" Ellie. I wasn't sure if I was doing what she would have wanted, but I had no choice in the matter, exemplified by the decision to kill or not kill the doctor, which wasn't a decision I was given (it sucks that I have to know who he is because apparently that's entered into the domain of "common knowledge." I'm sad for all the non-gamers who can't really live in the world without having season 2 spoiled. FU to YouTubers in particular, with their spoiler thumbnails.). Unlike the show, I didn't know what Ellie had been told and what she hadn't been told (what amounted to a plothole in the game). Although I think they could have had more Joel & Ellie time, and I tend to agree that the DLC content in particular didn't work as well as it did as add-on content, I'm not sure that would have made gamers such as yourself happy (and it definitely would have made a ton of people very unhappy). The bottom line is that the show can't replicate the experience of the game no matter what. What's interesting is that your experience of the show does align with my experience of the game in terms of what I felt. The difference of course is the in-game experience of controlling Joel killing "innocent" people--ostensibly the good guys.

As regards the show, what ultimately matters is how effective it was as a show, and I think the consensus is that it was very effective. And they took great advantage of it NOT being a game. They reduced Joel & Ellie's body count, which would have been numbing had it been the same in the show. They added amazing content--the flashbacks (especially in this episode), the plugging of potholes (there were too many instances to count where the show explanations worked better than those in the game), the way they upped the ante, either by making Sam deaf, or adding Joel's suicide attempt (the reveal of which was one my favorite scenes in the show). Not perfect, and I bet they've thought of ways it could've been better since making it, but pretty damn good and I'm happy with it. I've stopped making comparisons to the game for my non-gamer friends because they finally got it through my thick stull to stop. They don't care. They like the show, and the show is what they know. And they'll never experience the game. There's a gap between gamers and non-gamers, and I felt it intensely after playing The Last of Us. Here was this great story, and I had so many story-loving friends who could never experience it. Now they have experienced a form of it, and they seem grateful. I am, too.