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Can "The Last of Us" break the curse of bad video game adaptations? [New Yorker]

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
As long as it avoids being needlessly woke, then I think it will be outstanding. Wasn't crazy about much of the casting choices.
 

//DEVIL//

Member
I always thought The first tomb raider movie was good and in line with Lara croft's personality ( Angelina played that role fine for me at least )

Sonic movies were good too. Cyber Punk 2077 Anime.

Edit: I remember also the Silent Hill movie back in 2006. or 2007 not sure. was also a great movie.

eh
 
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brian0057

Banned
You’re not wrong. Sadly, plenty of people still want to live in their ignorance that “animation = less noteworthy than live action”.
Arcane is not only one of the best animated series, let alone of a videogame. It's one of the best shows ever made.
The fact that animation is still seen through a veneer of disrespect is maddening, even when some of the best productions in history are animated.
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
Were those a good adaptation? I’ve been meaning to pick up the Blu-Ray of the OVAs purely to see the Symphonia gang fully animated would be cool, but I figured it would be an iffy adaptation since 8 episodes isn‘t really enough time to adapt any Tales game.

Abyss had a full 26 episodes which seemed better suited to fully adapt the game. Zesteria too, which while I found the game just somewhat good, I am interested in hearing the anime rewrites the story to give Alisha a larger role which would be great as she was one of the few characters I gave a shit about. Yeah, just ditching her when her arc was getting good and then replacing her with boring as hell Rose was a significant L for me in the game.



The 2006 movie? Agreed. The sequel Revelations is my personal most hated film ever though. Fuck that film for butchering Silent Hill 3 that much. The first movie changed things but I was fine with it (for the most part, seeing a ton of cult members at once and the climax of butchering them all didn’t feel SH to me).
Only have seen YouTube videos and they seem pretty good if you ask me, still trying to find a place to watch legally
 
Elaborate.
Well. My recent experience.

Preface:
I'm mexican and in Mexico, but I am aware of the culture warz in united states and how they have influenced media and entertainment.

Sometimes I regret knowing about this because has tinted my view when watching shit. Personally, I dont care.

But then, there was a very condescend period of time between Rings of Power and She-Hulk.

And I was like why the fuck this feels so pretty fucking bad?

And then watched a show called Arcane on Netflix...And that show is a fucking masterpiece.

Why?

I was quite intrigued with that sensation.

Why Rings of Power/she-Hulk feel fake, their "diversity and inclusion" dosen't feel meaningful or even earned; in fact; it feels gross. Especially with their marketing/PR focused on that aspect.

If you are a cynic you could say: Oh, Arcane is so woke.. It has character form different ethnicities, lesbians, mental illness, the struggle between the 1% and the plebs. But all these themes feel earned and smartly/quite sophisticated portrayed.


So:
If the showrunners, director use the "diversity and inclusion" as a way of "elevating " their material. Meaning:

If "inclusion and Diversity" then = a better more important, world-changing product that should be protected from any criticism.

Well. fuck that shit.

The case of "race swapping" that character....why?

Is it just for the "diversity and inclusion" quota?

Or there is something more going on?.

The last of us is already pretty "diverse and inclusive" without feeling forced.

Ultimately. The quality of the storytelling should be the most important aspect of these products. But it seems some of those people believe that "diversity and inclusivity" are a substitute for the craftsmanship of good storytelling.
 
"His next project, he revealed, was a game that was “structured more like a TV show” than anything else Naughty Dog had made—for which he’d taken a highly unusual step."

5aa5d6321cf7e5c16bef7f4ae6644980--super-funny-so-funny.jpg
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
because people have much lower expectations for storytelling via cartoons

live action storytelling is judged more harshly because the bar is higher
Honestly these days I’m seeing animated shows with better storylines and even better action scenes than live action movies/TV shows.
 

ToTTenTranz

Banned
Druckmann is coming off as quite a bit conceited in this.

Claiming there are no good adaptations of videogames and you're hoping for you own to be the first ever is sounding like that time Jennifer Lawrence claimed to be the first female lead in an action movie.
The jab at Uncharted was also uncalled for. They're his colleagues for fuck's sake.

I get Arcane takes characters from LoL but it isn’t really a true game adaption since the story’s original & has nothing to do with the games. Can that still be considered a game adaptation?
I'm not a LoL connoisseur but AFAIK the game's story and lore were scarce, as it existed in little more than a couple of paragraphs in the bios of playable characters. Arcane is pretty much setting up a story that practically wasn't there.
 
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whatup

Member
Well. My recent experience.

Preface:
I'm mexican and in Mexico, but I am aware of the culture warz in united states and how they have influenced media and entertainment.

Sometimes I regret knowing about this because has tinted my view when watching shit. Personally, I dont care.

But then, there was a very condescend period of time between Rings of Power and She-Hulk.

And I was like why the fuck this feels so pretty fucking bad?

And then watched a show called Arcane on Netflix...And that show is a fucking masterpiece.

Why?

I was quite intrigued with that sensation.

Why Rings of Power/she-Hulk feel fake, their "diversity and inclusion" dosen't feel meaningful or even earned; in fact; it feels gross. Especially with their marketing/PR focused on that aspect.

If you are a cynic you could say: Oh, Arcane is so woke.. It has character form different ethnicities, lesbians, mental illness, the struggle between the 1% and the plebs. But all these themes feel earned and smartly/quite sophisticated portrayed.


So:
If the showrunners, director use the "diversity and inclusion" as a way of "elevating " their material. Meaning:

If "inclusion and Diversity" then = a better more important, world-changing product that should be protected from any criticism.

Well. fuck that shit.

The case of "race swapping" that character....why?

Is it just for the "diversity and inclusion" quota?

Or there is something more going on?.

The last of us is already pretty "diverse and inclusive" without feeling forced.

Ultimately. The quality of the storytelling should be the most important aspect of these products. But it seems some of those people believe that "diversity and inclusivity" are a substitute for the craftsmanship of good storytelling.

Agree that storytelling should come first and issues of diversity should not be shoehorned into a narrative at the expense of story. But if a white character from the game, for whom the color of their skin is irrelevant, is recast as black, and the color of the character's skin remains irrelevant, who cares? It has no affect on the story.

It's no different from people getting upset at the casting of Pedro Pascal because he doesn't look exactly like Joel or that the girl cast as Ellie isn't an Ellen Page clone. These (frankly very slight) aesthetic differences have nothing to do with the story.
 
Agree that storytelling should come first and issues of diversity should not be shoehorned into a narrative at the expense of story. But if a white character from the game, for whom the color of their skin is irrelevant, is recast as black, and the color of the character's skin remains irrelevant, who cares? It has no affect on the story.

It's no different from people getting upset at the casting of Pedro Pascal because he doesn't look exactly like Joel or that the girl cast as Ellie isn't an Ellen Page clone. These (frankly very slight) aesthetic differences have nothing to do with the story.
Unless the marketing/PR choose to focus on those aspects.
 

Umbral

Member
Agree that storytelling should come first and issues of diversity should not be shoehorned into a narrative at the expense of story. But if a white character from the game, for whom the color of their skin is irrelevant, is recast as black, and the color of the character's skin remains irrelevant, who cares? It has no affect on the story.

It's no different from people getting upset at the casting of Pedro Pascal because he doesn't look exactly like Joel or that the girl cast as Ellie isn't an Ellen Page clone. These (frankly very slight) aesthetic differences have nothing to do with the story.
If it doesn’t matter, then why change it at all?

Sometimes a character is established and to race-swap or sex-swap that character is disruptive for no reason. Try making Blade a white guy, I dare you.
 

whatup

Member
Further posts like this and you will be removed.
If it doesn’t matter, then why change it at all?

Sometimes a character is established and to race-swap or sex-swap that character is disruptive for no reason. Try making Blade a white guy, I dare you.

Listen to yourself. Being black is part of the identity and history of Blade, who is the main character in his own stories. Being white makes zero difference to the character of Sarah Miller, a character who has no story except that she is Joel's kid and she dies in the first 10 minutes of the first game.

You are either a little bit on the spectrum or a little bit racist. Which do you think it is?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Listen to yourself. Being black is part of the identity and history of Blade, who is the main character in his own stories. Being white makes zero difference to the character of Sarah Miller, a character who has no story except that she is Joel's kid and she dies in the first 10 minutes of the first game.

You are either a little bit on the spectrum or a little bit racist. Which do you think it is?
Where in Blade's history does it show his history of being a Black guy is so important?

If Deacon Frost bit a white woman instead of a Black woman, Blade would be a white baby turning into a vampire hunter. All the writers have to do is change the story making the mom white, asian, latino or indian. And the baby would change with it. And whatever his father's background is, change it to match.

 
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Ozzie666

Member
Where in Blade's history does it show his history of being a Black guy is so important?

If Deacon Frost bit a white woman instead of a Black woman, Blade would be a white baby turning into a vampire hunter. All the writers have to do is change the story making the mom white, asian, latino or indian. And the baby would change with it. And whatever his father's background is, change it to match.

[/URL]

This reminds me how unimportant Indiana Jones was to his own movie, with the Germans dying to the ark either way, with or without him. Also, imagine the uproar if they whitewashed Blade, not cool at all. Certain characters need to remain true to the source material. I'm not sure the character of Sara in Last of us matters too much to be honest, doesn't bother me either way what she is.
 

mdkirby

Member
I agree, arcane was incredible. But it’s also not live action, and I think games translate over to anime much more easily. There’s many examples of games being successfully transitioned into anime, Dota dragons blood is also superb.

The fact he envisions the last of us being more like no country for old me definitely gives me hope.
 

EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
That show is going to go on and have a fanbase all of its own like we saw from Walking Dead. Such a great IP, great characters and a amazing story.

That ratings for shows like this can get so massive, they end up eclipsing anything the game would actually sell, so prepare for hearing folks say The Last Of Us and really mean the show lol
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
You must be joking, most of the time animated adaptation turns out much better than the live action ones.
it does quality wise. Kylie is talking about people's perceptions and the simple fact is that people these days view cartoons as lower overall, regardless of their actual quality. blame the 1950s-70s for that.
 
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SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
They already fucked up

18013CE1-13E5-4BEB-BE3A-A3A8B56075E4.png
I think the bigger problem with her casting is how she is gonna play the badass adult woman that she grows into. I can see this working for Season 1, where the character is naive and vulnerable but that's only the start of Ellie's arc.
 

Lunarorbit

Gold Member
World War z is, in my opinion, the worst book adaption ever. The fact that executives don't understand that and think it's something to aspire too makes sense when you see the constant shit that comes out.

Tomb raider movies weren't bad especially for when they came out. Gonna disagree with druckman on several points actually.

And he's completely wrong about doom. Did they watch the same movie as I did? Karl urban, the rock, and rosamund pike in a kinda chessy movie where the cast plays against archetypes.

Fuck off. I'm starting to get a little annoyed with the autuers that make games.
 

K' Dash

Member
World War z is, in my opinion, the worst book adaption ever. The fact that executives don't understand that and think it's something to aspire too makes sense when you see the constant shit that comes out.

Tomb raider movies weren't bad especially for when they came out. Gonna disagree with druckman on several points actually.

And he's completely wrong about doom. Did they watch the same movie as I did? Karl urban, the rock, and rosamund pike in a kinda chessy movie where the cast plays against archetypes.

Fuck off. I'm starting to get a little annoyed with the autuers that make games.

Dude thinks he's curing cancer, the games are good for what they are: GAMES. Let's not pretend the story hasn't been told a thousand times, a thousand times better.
 
Will Ferrell Crazy Pills GIF


The only issue I have is that TLOU is treated like its story is special. It's a post-apocalyptic melodrama with flawed characters, something that was already beaten to death by the time the game arrived on the PS3.

I'm honestly amazed that grief-porn is still the soup de jour and seems to be stronger than ever. I thought creatives would move away from it but considering the animosity that people have towards each other these days, makes sense that these types of narrative stick around, people love this stuff. What hurts the most is that Sony seems happy to stay all in on the melodrama angle, I just can't be bothered with it.

Sorry for hating.
 
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Sonic movie did great. Kids and adults enjoyed it and its in the mainstream again
The first Sonic movie is legit solid. I was disappointed in the sequel, seemed to go more slapstick but it didn't work for me. I can't complain too much considering it's a kids movie but I just hate when scripts go south for no good reason. The sister-in-law and wedding stuff, wtf was that all about? Just a complete waste of the script and really did a disservice to James Marsden's character.

I'll still see the 3rd though just because the first movie was such a pleasant surprise.
 
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