We review all the data from one of the most anticipated series in the coming months, with Neil Druckmann himself in charge of the script.
Of all the television series based on video games – which are not a few precisely – that will be released in the coming months, one of the most anticipated is without a doubt The Last of Us, which is finally taking shape. Raised from its beginnings as a film, finally the license of Naughty Dog will arrive in several chapters on a date yet to be determined, since obviously, its filming has not even begun, having known during this week who will be the interpreters who will be put in the skin of its protagonists, Joel and Ellie. However, and despite the months that we still have ahead of us, we already have a good amount of data to gather on this very interesting and promising production. Let’s see them.
Who is behind the series?
Let’s start with what surely worries the fans the most, and it is the script, whose fidelity to the story we know is guaranteed, since it is Neil Druckmann himself, creative director of The Last of Us – along with Bruce Straley – and The Last of Us Part II, who will be in charge. Druckmann has to his credit the Best Director award at The Game Awards 2020 for the second part, but we know that the story that the series will tell us will be set in the first game, or rather, it will be practically the same. But Druckmann will not be alone, and will collaborate directly with Craig Mazin, creator of the successful Chernobyl, and who therefore already has some experience in environments, so to speak, post-apocalyptic. Mazin has other less-known productions to his credit, but curiously he has also played the most absurd comedy in Scary Movie 4 and Superhero Movie, in addition to the most successful Hangover 2: Now in Thailand.
Behind the cameras will be an acquaintance of Mazin such as Johan Renck, also director of Chernobyl and formerly of some documentaries by music stars such as David Bowie or Madonna, but he will only make an appearance in the first chapter, due to incompatibility with other works , according to the official version. After that first episode, he will be taken over by the very young Russian – he is only 29 years old – Kantemir Balagov, better known for A Great Woman, set in the Russian city of Leningrad after World War II, but who has been able to be awarded in the Cannes Film Festival twice, both with their only two films: the aforementioned and Too Close (2017).
Joel and Ellie already have faces
For a long time it has been the cause of speculation by the entire community, but at last we can put a face to those who will play the two great protagonists of the story that this saga narrates -with permission from Abby-. Viggo Mortensen, Gerald Butler … There have been many actors who have been talked about for months to put themselves in Joel’s shoes, but finally it will be one of the men of the moment the one designated to play this man already hardened in a thousand battles: Pedro Pascal. The Chilean-born actor has a practically perfect age – in April he will be 46 – for this, but he also comes to this role with a career already consolidated behind him. After starting it in television series such as Law and Order, CSI, The Mentalist or Homeland, his first large-scale role was in Game of Thrones, as Oberyn Martell, also known as the Red Viper, which was followed by his role as Javier Peña in the Netflix production, Narcos. But his curriculum in the cinema is also considerable, having made an appearance in films such as Kingsman: The Golden Circle, The Equalizer 2 or the more recent Wonder Woman 1984.
Even so, talking about Pascal today is making it one of the great television phenomena of recent years, and the beginning of a series of Disney productions exclusively for television. In this way, he is already one of the actors most loved by Star Wars fans, having provided great adventures in the two available seasons of The Mandalorian, a series that has reconciled all fans of the galactic saga with it, after the troubles of the latest film trilogy.
Meanwhile, we will see young Bella Ramsey as Ellie. Ramsey is a very suitable age to actually star in several hypothetical seasons, since at 17 we could see her both as Ellie from The Last of Us – where she is 14 years old – and in her more mature version of The Last of Us Part II , in which the protagonist is 19. Ramsey has been present lately in films like the comedy Holmes and Watson, along with Will Ferrell and Ralph Fiennes, as well as in television series of certain popularity in the United Kingdom like The Worst Witch, but here We know her especially for her role, again, in Game of Thrones. In the very popular series she plays Lyanna Mormont, named after the late Lyanna Stark, but in the plot we discover her as a small leader capable of denying loyalty to the self-proclaimed King of Westeros, Stannis Baratheon.
But with both, much less can the cast of the series be concluded, and we still have a few important characters to meet. From Tess, Joel’s first company, to Tommy, his brother, through other important secondary characters of the first installment such as the brothers Henry and Sam, to the ruthless David and his group of cannibals, or the essential Marlene, there are still many names to be revealed.
The story that is going to tell us
It is confirmed that, at least in its first season, The Last of Us will be based entirely on the original game. In this way, we will witness the moment when Joel and Ellie meet for the first time, living their odyssey across the country until they reach Salt Lake City, in the state of Utah, where the Fireflies Hospital is located. However, Mazin has already anticipated that while they will not change the story, they will expand on some events. “I’m doing it with the guy who created the series and what we are changing is designed to fill gaps and expand, not to undo, rather to expand,” he said back in July 2020. Still with everything, and Knowing the radicalism of some fans –of which Laura Bailey, Abby’s interpreter, was a victim-, she is aware that yes or yes, there will be criticisms. “I think I’ll hide in a bunker when it opens since you can’t please everyone,” he confessed then.
The thing does not end there, and it is that the fans should remain very attentive since according to Mazin himself, we will see several deleted scenes from both games that will leave us “speechless”, according to him. As the scriptwriter says, it was Druckmann himself who told him some of them, Mazin feeling obliged to include them when assessing the impact it would have on the audience. “We had to do it. No one was going to stop me from doing it. They would have to shoot me to stop me from rolling it, “Mazin said.” And there are several more like that. “
Having said all of the above, we can only wait, unfortunately too long, to see in action this highly desired series that will premiere on HBO on a date yet to be determined. Before the release of The Last of Us Part II, it was ensured that production would not begin until after the game was launched, but the coronavirus crisis has surely disrupted many of those plans. We will wait, even longer, for a first trailer.
