When it comes to film and television series adaptations, many of them tend to stray from the source material. However, “The Last of Us” (2023) is one adaptation in particular that not only sticks closely to the story but also expands more on the lore of the source.
For those who do not know the game or have not seen the series, “The Last of Us” (2013, 2023) takes place in a post-apocalyptic U.S. ravaged by a mutated fungal virus. The main story follows Joel and Ellie, the only immune person, as they travel across the U.S. to a research facility for a cure.
As someone who has played both the first game and watched the series, I think “The Last of Us” is a healthy balance of sticking to the source material as much as possible and changing it based on the type of adaptation it is.
What I mean is if you compare it to other video game adaptations like “Mortal Kombat” (2021), there are moments where it completely diverges from the plot of the source or adds something in that was only used to make it more flashy or appeal to a younger audience. There will be some people who say that they have to make changes because you are taking a video game and turning it into a TV series that is hours longer than the original video game.
While I understand that there will be some changes made to the plot purely for TV reasons, it does not mean they have to completely go off track from what the source material already gave us as a starting point. For example, throughout the series, whether it be in small portions of an episode or an entire episode, it gave us more background knowledge on how the virus started in the first place, to seeing how it affects other survivors.
In three episodes, there are various points in the series where we get to see different flashbacks connecting to when the outbreak was discovered, how the agencies in charge treated people that they were supposed to protect, and lastly, a story that is only briefly touched on in the video game. The story that we get to see an entire episode on follows Bill and Frank, two side characters and the video game, who are only seen for a small segment before they are forgotten about again.
While the story might seem like it does not at all connect to the main story with Joel, but it does simply because Joel knows of Bill and Frank; it also serves as a moment where we get to see two characters make a life, despite the literal apocalypse they live in. However, despite it seeming like a happy ending, they do end up following how their story ends in the original video game, except instead of having one die, both die together. Like I have said before, it expands on a story we briefly learn about in the game and connects it back to the main storyline through Bill and Frank’s connection with Joel.
In contrast with “Mortal Kombat”, the movie follows the basic plot of the video game, which it tends to stick to very well, but does not add anything else besides the threat between Earth and the outerworld and them sending champions to fight and win in combat. And yes, one of them is adapted for a movie while the other is adapted for a TV series.
However, when it comes to how the stories were written, “The Last Of Us” was written with what the video game had already established and the fact that they worked not only with the video game company that created the game but also had three of the original actors from the video game play in the series.
Regardless of where you stand when it comes to “The Last of Us” in particular or any video game that gets adapted to film or TV, a lot of these adaptations are generally made in good faith. However it seems like there is no originality into how they plan on elevating the story in a way that fits the type of format they are choosing to adopt it into. We’ve seen Disney do this with most of their remakes, besides a few outliers here and there.
I think out of all the video game adaptations, “The Last of Us” provides a perfect mix of retelling a story that fans love but also taking from the original source material and expanding on what fans already know to elevate the story for the new format and further flush out character’s motivations or reasonings..