'The Last of Us' Episode 3 is different from typical adjustments for video games

[Editor’s note: This article contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Season 2, Episode 3]

Games are the only art form in which the player happens to the story, whether this means to save the princess in front of the monster in the castle or to murder an entire hospital full of people to save a person who is immune to the cordyceps infestation, whose death could lead to healing. You have to meet Joel's (Troy Baker in the games, Pedro Pascal in the series) to end the game, whether you agree or not. That really hurts.

A large part of adapting games to another medium is to find out what has to shift about history if it is no longer equipped with someone who plays, and perhaps no adaptation understands this challenge better than “the last of us”. There is no lot of load screen homages, drops of tradition and Easter eggs or lovingly reproduced environments for a good stories. When “The Last of Us” invents completely original sequences, they provide such a strong sense of character and perspective that the fact arises that there is no controller in our hands.

A good example of how the show in episode 3 of season 2, “The Path”, sits in the middle in the middle of the 3. The writer Craig Mazin and the director Peter Hoar stretch the time between Joels Mord (Kaitlyn Dever) and Ellies (Bella Ramsey) to chase his murderers by first staying a hospital in front of Ellie and then a much more reluctant Tommy (Gabriel -Luna) who was a posse.

That means receiving the permission of the Jackson Council. We do not see much enthusiasm for the mission of the Jackson citizens during the council meeting to discuss the proposal until the local asshole Seth (Robert John Burke) opens up and defends the need to take revenge on the people who have killed their own. Ellie's speech is a bit more nuanced – being a community requires justice to seek justice for each other, which outsiders will not do – but do not win the vote. And as a psychologist Gail (Catherine O'Hara), diagnosed correctly, was Ellie. She will not accept the decision of the Council. You and Dina (Isabella Merced) go to Seattle with the help of Seth's help.

The council scene is very original for the series, which means that there are so many possibilities that Mazin and Hoar can handle it. A show with different priorities could have completely elected the council, and that of Jesse (Junge Mazino) and Ellie's heated discussion the night before. Another version of “The Last of Us” with a smaller budget might have only made a presentation from her reading from her prepared speech before the council, reporting on the serious but encouraging faces of Tommy and Maria and a regrettable twang on the Gustavo Santolalla score than the movement.

Instead, the sequence takes over seven minutes with camera positions and about 44 different perspectives on all the characters present. While Hoar and the cameraman Ksenia Sereda use a few shots to establish a feeling for the space in wides, a large part of the reporting of people in the room – Ellie, Dina, Tommy, Jesse, Maria, Gail and Seth, but also everyone who speaks (Shoutout to Haig Suthanland's Scotts Scotts Scott and his opinion on corn). The most repeated angle from the left sitting out of the house, which Ellie relies on a diagonal with Seth and then Carlisle (Hiro Kanagawa), which is generally committed to mercy. We see the entire community in the depth of this framework.

This detailed work is only possible if you invest in the scenes of the town hall seat as well as with Zombie attacks. “People ask:” What is the difference between prestige speakers and not the prestige speaker? “And the answer is not [that] One is better than the other. The answer is that we have more time in the quotation unquote prestige-speaking and more resources to do things that serve the story, ”Mazin said in an upcoming episode of the filmmaker toolkit podcast indiewire.

Sereda also brings a special sensitivity to pull the series on the camera and the lenses that it uses for “The Last Us” – in season 2 this was the Alexa 35 and the Cooke S4X. “I was looking for lenses where you can see this connection of close -up and what you can see,” said Sereda. “We really wanted [get] The close -up to work at different levels because [there are] So many textures and layers of things you can see. If you work from the perspective of the characters, you have to be inside, but at the same time you have to be very connected to the surroundings around you. ”

The environment does not have to be spectacularly repeated ruins from 2003. Sereda's camera is mainly in the council sequence, with just a small shake of your hand and a painful, knife -starked step from left to right over Ellie's face, while the 'No' voices flow in. She and Hoar's composition decisions give the closest visual feeling of being present in the scene so that it describes the camera as a “breath”.

“There is this very nice film experience and I really love to work with the close-ups with actors. It is-my heart is there. Because it is all about people, it is about following the characters, and I really want to support the experience of the viewer with our cinematic tools, in order to remain very connected, in order to remain very connected, in order to be very connected, in order to be very connected, in order to be very connected, very connected, in order to remain very connected. [the emotions] Characters go through. The broad focus offers you the opportunity to stay very close without distorting the facial structure. “

Mazin's heart is also among people. Showing the complexity of society in Jackson is only more important as a counterpoint if we learn more about the WLF and the iconic scars that have made completely different decisions, but are full of people with the same tendencies and worries as in Jackson.

“The arguments that are articulated there are all valid in their own way,” said Mazin. “You can't survive without someone like Joel or someone like Seth, who is willing to just throw strokes to protect the people they love, but if that is all they have, life itself becomes quite brutal and unforgiving, which is why Bill Frank and Frank Bill need.”

Of course it is easy if it is only Bill (Nick Offersman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) and they are in love with each other. Ellie's path is more difficult, full of people who love and stop her, love her and want to help her, want to loathe and help her or who have no opinion about the whole thing with Seattle. The council sequence brings us in all of these perspectives, immediately and invisible how only great filmmaking can.

“If the people who help you are people who you don't like either, [can] Do you forgive this person? Can any of us forgive one of us? “Mazin said. Ding number one, this person did bad things and said; Ding number two, this person has a nice part of them who would sacrifice and suffer for me. There are people who are both things and how we deal with it is part of what history is about.”

“The Last of Us” now stream to max.