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[elcapitano]

We love a flop game.

When they finally update the sales figures for Part 2 people on here will be doing a lot a mental gymnastics when it's easily above 20 million without ever being a bundled game as well

 

[DenchDeckard]

The Game

[MARLENE]




[Jerry]


TV Show

[MARLENE]




These are all the related notes, and there's nothing that suggests a cure was risky or that a cure wasn't possible. They're telling us through the story that they were going to make a cure, but Joel didn't want Marlene to sacrifice Ellie for it.



People always claim there's a note where Jerry talks about experimenting on other immune people, but it doesn't exist.

This is the actual transcript from the recording.



People have accused them of patching the recording in later versions of the game, but it's exactly the same if you play the original PlayStation 3.

Jerry says what happens to the patients after they're infected. That's it.

I wonder where AI and I got it from then. No idea. I'm sure I remember playing the game and something made me feel like it wasnt 100% guaranteed

 

[Nocty]

 

[DenchDeckard]

 

[viveks86]

I'm sure I remember playing the game and something made me feel like it wasnt 100% guaranteed

Just the fact that the fireflies were on their last gasp and working with limited resources and literally one specimen for a cure. The chances are ridiculously low, but so are the odds of a fungus based apocalypse and a father who lost his daughter ending up escorting the only cure for all of humanity who was also the same age range. So are the odds that there was only one doctor alive in the entire world who could potentially figure it out. I'm sure a lot have written about it in reviews and such and AI is gonna pick up on all that.

The thing is, it's all make believe, so we should either accept ALL of the premise and engage with the moral dilemma or reject all of it. "Well, they wouldn't have found a cure anyway" is a cop out answer that tries to avoid the trolley problem altogether in defense of Joel's actions. It acquits him with no trial, which is the easy route for people who don't want to actually contend with the core of TLOU and just want to be a fan of Joel cuz he is the best daddy in the whole wide world (which he is, lol). And that's fine, everyone's free to do whatever, but it's silly when they pretend to have done any objective analysis of the subject.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Just the fact that the fireflies were on their last gasp and working with limited resources and literally one specimen for a cure. The chances are ridiculously low, but so are the odds of a fungus based apocalypse and a father who lost her daughter ending up escorting the only cure for all of humanity who was also the same age range. So are the odds that there was only one doctor alive in the entire world who could potentially figure it out. I'm sure a lot have written about it in reviews and such and AI is gonna pick up on all that.

The thing is, it's all make believe, so we should either accept ALL of the premise and engage with the moral dilemma or reject all of it. "Well, they wouldn't have found a cure anyway" is a cop out answer that tries to avoid the trolley problem altogether in defense of Joel's actions. It acquits him with no trial, which is the easy route for people who don't want to actually contend with the core of TLOU and just want to be a fan of Joel cuz he is the best daddy in the whole wide world (which he is, lol). And that's fine, everyone's free to do whatever, but it's silly when they pretend to have done any objective analysis of the subject.

Completely agree. I am just saying that from my perspective, when playing the PS3 version be it through audio logs or written documentation that I felt there was an implication that the cure might not be successfully developed and so I specifically remember, as a father of two little humans that I was like "these muther fuckers are dead!"

And I murdered everyone without batting an eye lid to save Ellie.

I didn't think Joel was ever innocent, I just understood his process through being a father.

 

[viveks86]

Completely agree. I am just saying that from my perspective, when playing the PS3 version be it through audio logs or written documentation that I felt there was an implication that the cure might not be successfully developed and so I specifically remember, as a father of two little humans that I was like "these muther fuckers are dead!"

And I murdered everyone without batting an eye lid to save Ellie.

I didn't think Joel was innocent ever, I just understood his process through being a father.

Haha. Yeah. In terms of actual in-game notes/logs, there is no skepticism expressed. But it is natural to feel that as an observer. Even more so as a parent. If it were my kid and a cure was guaranteed, I'd still make the same choice. Fuck humanity. Life will find a way eventually.

I believe they did a survey of parents and non parents and it was ~ 50/50 for non parents and 100/0 for parents on if they would save the child or not in those circumstances. Makes sense to me!

The Firefly Recorder references tests conducted five years ago. I am not a vaccine expert but it seems the passive tests reference passive immunization tests in real life. Those could require a person with antibodies which means a person immune to the virus.

Edit: I really want to replay the game again. It has been a long while.

Passive immunization tests can be performed by extracting cells from animals that are immune. If there is no mention of another actual immune human, we should assume that's the route they took

 

[twilo99]

If she was also maybe black and overweight the show wouldn't be in this position

 

[March Climber]

Some behind the scenes stuntwork:



Nothing too crazy, but it's cool to see some of the rigging they did with some the sets like the underground train and boat sequences.

 

[VulcanRaven]

The US TV viewership was pretty stable:

The Last of Us (TV series) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

E1: 0.938
E2: 0.643
E3: 0.768
E4: 0.774
E5: 0.652
E6: 0.701
E7: 0.680

 

[Mibu no ookami]

The US TV viewership was pretty stable:

The Last of Us (TV series) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

E1: 0.938
E2: 0.643
E3: 0.768
E4: 0.774
E5: 0.652
E6: 0.701
E7: 0.680

Biggest drop offs: Easter, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day...

I'm sure HBO will avoid this period for Season 3.

 

[12Goblins]

Dam this season was awful. I should have turned it off when they were hanging her and call it canon

 

[GymWolf]

She is a great actress, she just doesn't look the role

I saw hard boiled eggs pretending to be soft boiled eggs with better range than this.

 

[crackajack]

Just the fact that the fireflies were on their last gasp and working with limited resources and literally one specimen for a cure. The chances are ridiculously low, but so are the odds of a fungus based apocalypse and a father who lost his daughter ending up escorting the only cure for all of humanity who was also the same age range. So are the odds that there was only one doctor alive in the entire world who could potentially figure it out. I'm sure a lot have written about it in reviews and such and AI is gonna pick up on all that.

The thing is, it's all make believe, so we should either accept ALL of the premise and engage with the moral dilemma or reject all of it. "Well, they wouldn't have found a cure anyway" is a cop out answer that tries to avoid the trolley problem altogether in defense of Joel's actions. It acquits him with no trial, which is the easy route for people who don't want to actually contend with the core of TLOU and just want to be a fan of Joel cuz he is the best daddy in the whole wide world (which he is, lol). And that's fine, everyone's free to do whatever, but it's silly when they pretend to have done any objective analysis of the subject.

Might have been a bit different or clearer in the game, or I just missed an important sentence but was it in the show (or hte game) ever made clear that they could have made the cure? Not just forced optimism but real confidence justifying the murder of a child? Requiring her death for some body sample seems a bit bonkers to me. There certainly are real life examples where doctors killed humans for experiments but when even lobotomy does not kill, than getting some brain tissue should not necessarily kill Ellie? Joel was a bitter sceptic of all miracle cures that never happened before Ellie and even after seeing that she was really immune, which is either very rare or did not happen before at all, nothing happened that made it clear that they could have made some cure. They might have had the facilities and some reasonably able doctor, but was success certain? Imho he took away her choice just like the Fireflies did. The Fireflies did not know if it will work, just would bet on it at any cost, and he didn't know either, and ultimately it did not matter anyway because her death was the unacceptable point for him- which Ellie on the other hand might have accepted-, not if she could have maybe or maybe not saved humanity. I don't know why in season 2 now Joel seems to have been converted to a believer in miracle cures. That possibility was never resolved and imho he and us just cannot know. It changes the weight of his guilt somehow, and robbed Ellie of her perceived purpose, if certain, but it was imho not the trigger for his decision. So it is kinda badly written if that unresolved point is actually important.

 

[chorizosausage#3774]

What the hell was that! Should have quit at episode 2

 

[Ulysses 31]

So to be clear here, you are both liking season 2's depiction of her more?

I need to figure out what you guys are seeing in live action season 2 Ellie that comes across better.

There seem to be some obvious signs to me that they were worried game Ellie is too violent and TV Ellie needed to be softened up. IMO they made her unlikeable in a different way(acting stupid and unlike someone who grew up in the post apocalypse).

 

[Mibu no ookami]

There seem to be some obvious signs to me that they were worried game Ellie is too violent and TV Ellie needed to be softened up. IMO they made her unlikeable in a different way(acting stupid and unlike someone who grew up in the post apocalypse).

Don't cite grifters. HBO probably didn't want the primary image of this being a kid holding a gun, given, you know, the last 25+ years of school shootings.

The level of violence in the show is significantly lower than the game. They cut away from basically everything and it's even more toned down than say Game of Thrones. That's done to get the largest viewership possible, but it's also done to ground the franchise for television.

IMO they didn't make Ellie unlikeable or stupid, they simply made her more realistic. You say she grew up post-apocalypse, but she's been sheltered in the Boston QZ for the first 14 years of her life. She spends 1 year crossing the country with Joel and she's been on patrols in Jackson for 9 months and training for them for at most 3 years.

This version of Ellie unlike the game version was never going to be John Wick and I don't think she needed to be.

The show is a massive success and the game is selling even more copies. Naughty Dog, HBO, and Sony, are thrilled at what they've accomplished here and the new audience to the franchise is also happy. You mostly have two camps that aren't happy and they're both small. Those that hated the second game and those that hate that the show isn't 1:1 with the game, which was never the intention (maybe you've got some people who thought this was a zombie show and are also mad). What they have in common is that its a vocal minority.

As an adaptation, I'd give this a C/C- but as a show, I'd give them a B/B-

 

[DragoonKain]

There seem to be some obvious signs to me that they were worried game Ellie is too violent and TV Ellie needed to be softened up. IMO they made her unlikeable in a different way(acting stupid and unlike someone who grew up in the post apocalypse).

They were. I think it's mainly "Non gamers fell in love with season 1 Ellie and TLOU2 Ellie is way too different and we didn't want casuals to come into season 2 like 'Wtf happened to my Ellie? This isn't the Ellie I've come to love'"

I think it's the reason they had her cracking jokes in situations she shouldn't be. That's what season 1 Ellie would have done. They're trying to keep her the same so casuals weren't turned off.

 

[March Climber]

Don't cite grifters. HBO probably didn't want the primary image of this being a kid holding a gun, given, you know, the last 25+ years of school shootings.

The level of violence in the show is significantly lower than the game. They cut away from basically everything and it's even more toned down than say Game of Thrones. That's done to get the largest viewership possible, but it's also done to ground the franchise for television.

IMO they didn't make Ellie unlikeable or stupid, they simply made her more realistic. You say she grew up post-apocalypse, but she's been sheltered in the Boston QZ for the first 14 years of her life. She spends 1 year crossing the country with Joel and she's been on patrols in Jackson for 9 months and training for them for at most 3 years.

This version of Ellie unlike the game version was never going to be John Wick and I don't think she needed to be.

The show is a massive success and the game is selling even more copies. Naughty Dog, HBO, and Sony, are thrilled at what they've accomplished here and the new audience to the franchise is also happy. You mostly have two camps that aren't happy and they're both small. Those that hated the second game and those that hate that the show isn't 1:1 with the game, which was never the intention (maybe you've got some people who thought this was a zombie show and are also mad). What they have in common is that its a vocal minority.

As an adaptation, I'd give this a C/C- but as a show, I'd give them a B/B-

For me it was never about her being John Wick, I just wanted, at minimum, a Walking Dead-level of a post-apocalyptic survivalist on display. By making her only kill people who have attacked her, by making her stop in the middle of an open street to yell at Jesse or Dina, by making her flip flop back and forth between 'road trip fun' and 'vengeful killer', these things all add up to a character who is inconsistent with the world she is in, where people, animals, and creatures tend to kill on sight.

It makes it feel more like a drama show with a few bits of conflict, instead of what it actually should be.

 

[adamsapple]

‘The Last Of Us’ Made One Huge Mistake In Season 2, And It Creates A Major Problem For Season 3

The Last Of Us made one huge mistake in Season 2. Its ripple effects will be felt in Season 3.

www.forbes.com

Season 2's Ellie fails due to the writing. Some baffling decisions were made that fundamentally alter not only her characterization and arc, but the very nature of the story itself. It appears that the writers were convinced that the game was too dark, that its tone was too bleak for audiences, and so Ellie's character was offered up as the sacrificial lamb in some very puzzling attempt to make her and the story more palatable. In doing so, the show failed at one important mission: To make us start to dislike Ellie but still root for her to succeed.

What the show did instead was neuter Ellie's revenge arc, making her unlikable for all the wrong reasons. Instead of seeing her become the monster she needs to become, while still hoping that she tracks down Abby and takes her revenge, we see her as an incompetent, brash, childish character who isn't even particularly invested in revenge to begin with. It's hard to root for someone who doesn't seem to care that much about their own mission to begin with. Even before Joel's death, Ellie was presented as an obnoxious teenager rather than the more hardened version of the character she'd become over the intervening years.

Even her moments of revenge and violence are dampened. Instead of shooting Owen and then stabbing Mel through the throat with her knife, she shoots the pair of them, killing Mel by mistake. She doesn't even use her knife on the one WLF guard she takes down, choosing to choke hold him instead of the more obvious stabbing kill. And she doesn't kill a dog, I suppose because that might make us dislike her even more. Ellie's violence is always uncertain and, other than Nora, her kills leave her shaken and upset rather than kindling her determination. Sure, we need to see how they impact her, but this version of Ellie seems only regretful and rarely driven except when the writers flip her revenge switch. It's whiplash-inducing from a character standpoint.

 

[viveks86]

Might have been a bit different or clearer in the game, or I just missed an important sentence but was it in the show (or hte game) ever made clear that they could have made the cure?

From Marlene's and Jerry's perspective, there was never any doubt expressed in the game. The conversations were always about the ethics of killing, not the feasibility of the cure. However, the confidence in making the cure is clearer in the game due to the recordings that we can listen to. See DForce 's compilation of the evidence from the game and the show.

Not just forced optimism but real confidence justifying the murder of a child?

Yes. Real confidence as per the linked compilation. Now, does that mean they would have actually succeeded? Who knows? We have insufficient information on what actual facilities/skills/capacity they had, but if they aren't expressing any skepticism in the source material, then that's all we have to go on. As a viewer, skepticism is warranted given the circumstances as it's all pretty sketchy at best, but the characters themselves aren't expressing that at any point. At the minimum, they believe they have the best shot they would ever have.

Requiring her death for some body sample seems a bit bonkers to me. There certainly are real life examples where doctors killed humans for experiments but when even lobotomy does not kill, than getting some brain tissue should not necessarily kill Ellie?

I guess that would depend on how much brain matter (and which part or parts of the brain) is needed to guarantee a successful test, replicate and distribute, right? Are they going to need the spinal cord too? Also depends on what tools and skills are available at their disposal. Jerry doesn't seem to be a brain surgeon. Just a jack of all trades "doctor" with maybe some specialization in immunology. He was probably going to saw right through and take all of it as they only have one shot with one specimen.

Joel was a bitter sceptic of all miracle cures that never happened before Ellie and even after seeing that she was really immune, which is either very rare or did not happen before at all, nothing happened that made it clear that they could have made some cure.

He is certainly a skeptic, but he has never seen an immune person before. At that point, whether a cure is possible is or not, given a real immune person in front of him, is completely out of his domain. He is no medical expert. These are the opening lines from Joel in Part 2, the game:

Maybe I was starting to buy into that whole... cure business. Maybe I just wanted to do right by her. And then we made it. We found the Fireflies. And because of her... They were actually going to make a cure. The only catch... it would kill her.

All Joel is doing in the show with Ellie is admitting the bolded, which he says to Tommy in the game anyway. But people are freaking out as if it's a new change. If anything, he nods to "Could they have made a cure?". Not "they were actually going to make a cure". One sounds more confident than the other, no?

They might have had the facilities and some reasonably able doctor, but was success certain?

Insufficient info. They were confident enough to think it was worth killing a child. Bear in mind that we are 20 years into an apocalypse and ethics are not the same as now. I'm currently watching Shogun, and man, their views on death are so different that it feels like I have been transported to an alien world. We just can't be applying current day moral scales to TLOU.

Imho he took away her choice just like the Fireflies did.

He did. And he openly admits it in the show too.

The Fireflies did not know if it will work, just would bet on it at any cost, and he didn't know either, and ultimately it did not matter anyway because her death was the unacceptable point for him- which Ellie on the other hand might have accepted-, not if she could have maybe or maybe not saved humanity.

Right. We can agree on that.

I don't know why in season 2 now Joel seems to have been converted to a believer in miracle cures.

See my quote from the game above. He literally says he was skeptical initially but started buying into it and was convinced by the time he reached the hospital. He just didn't want Ellie to die no matter what.

That possibility was never resolved and imho he and us just cannot know. It changes the weight of his guilt somehow, and robbed Ellie of her perceived purpose, if certain, but it was imho not the trigger for his decision.

It's irrelevant to the trolley problem. Would you doom humanity to save your child, is all the matters. Is humanity doomed regardless, or not? Is it 50%, 90% or 100% certain? Those questions don't matter as they only serve to dilute the core dilemma. Being convinced that he shot up the hospital and robbed the world of a potential cure to save his child makes for a stronger, more impactful dilemma than some wishy-washy "may be, may be not". It only amplifies the weight of his guilt. Were we expecting Joel to shrug cynically instead of completely surrender when Ellie puts him in that spot? How is that more impactful TV? How would Ellie respond to such skepticism when she is already tearing him to shreds? He is better off steelman-ing the firefly's position (and consequently, Ellie's purpose) than casting doubt during such a heightened emotional and vulnerable moment with Ellie. So he simply nods in agreement. He may still have doubt (it's not clear if he does), but that's not the moment to express it. He is owning up to the worst possible version of the facts in the hope of healing his relationship with Ellie. It's the grown up thing to do. It's applause worthy as most of us never do that in real life. When someone questions our actions, even if we feel we may have been in the wrong, we are always looking for a way to diminish blame and give excuses. Joel embraces all of it and takes it in the chin.

So it is kinda badly written if that unresolved point is actually important.

Good or bad writing in this case is subjective and I don't want to argue that. But if you want to be consistent, then the game is badly written too as that's how the game starts with Joel's conversation with Tommy.