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Review

Last of Us Season 2

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Image courtesy of Wikipedia

I recently finished Last of Us Season 2, the second season of the series based off the games. This season follows roughly the first half of the second game.

I liked this season, but I have to acknowledge that it was not as tight as the first season. This season made more changes to the story and characters than the first season did. As a result, the story is significantly different from the game. I’ll try to explain without giving away too many spoilers. Then I’ll go through five things that stood out to me about this show.

A quick synopsis

Okay, I’m going to try to do this spoiler free.

Four years after the first season, Joel and Ellie are now accepted citizens of Jackson Hole, but are estranged from each other. The town celebrates New Years and then suffers an attack from an outside party that leaves great devastation. Seeking justice (or possibly revenge), Ellie heads to Seattle to find those responsible, without regard of the consequences.

Simple enough? Good. Now, five things.

Fewer Game Experiences / Faster Storytelling

The game takes roughly 25 hours to complete, so halfway is 12 hours. The show tells the same amount of story in less than seven hours, missing five hours of game play. In addition, the show is adding its own plot lines, further constraining how much of the game’s story line the show can use.

As with the first season, a large portion of the game is automatically missing: the world exploration. This takes up a good amount of game time and involves a lot of little fights and Easter eggs. All this is missing from the show (with good reason; it’s not good screen time). It also means the show can feel a bit rushed, as a single day in Seattle takes one episode instead of four hours of game play.

Also, there is one aspect of this that I noticed, and we won’t know the true impact until Season 3 comes out. In the game, while you’re experiencing those broad sequences of world exploration, you hear all these little sound bits and side notes about what’s happening elsewhere in Seattle. These bits and notes help ground the experience of second half of the game .

Spoiler below if you want a better explanation of what I mean.

Spoiler
Spoiler explanation: The first half of the game follows Ellie in Seattle; the second half follows a new character, Abby. While playing as Ellie, you hear a lot of things that make sense once you’re playing as Abby. Now, there were a lot of little bits I saw that might fill the same purpose when Season 3 comes out and we see Abby’s story, but we won’t know that for a good while.

Different Routes for the Same Story

The show changes the story significantly while managing to retain the same overall arcs and high points. In other words, the same characters reach the same important plot points but get there taking different routes.

For example, the outside party’s attack on Jackson Hole that sets the story in motion.

In the game, it’s a small, selected strike that does what it needs to do and then they head home. the city as a whole isn’t impacted beyond that one attack. But in the show, the party sets a chain of events up that results in Jackson Hole suffering a cataclysm, defending against a major attack of the infected (this is in the trailers, so it shouldn’t be much of a spoiler).

With the town having suffered a major attack and recovery, Ellie’s request to go to Seattle and get justice brings different responses. The characters have to look at the situation differently, but the story requires them to arrive at the same decisions they did in the game. The different sequences of decisions and minor changes to characters lets this happen without any of it seeming to be too far of a reach.

That’s just one example of what I’m talking about, but hopefully you get the gist.

Different Character Roster

Changing the characters from the game is one thing, but the show takes it a step further by changing the roster.

The show has deleted several characters, mostly superfluous, third-tier characters who don’t do much but participate in certain scenes and events. In every case so far, I haven’t missed their deletion. I get why they’ve been cut, or why their influence was handed off to another characters.

On the left, Ellie sits on a brown horse, her feet in the stirrups and hands holding the reins. She wears a blue coat, a knit hat, a pistol in a holster strapped to her right thigh, and a backpack with the handle of a long gun sticking out of the top. On the right, Dina sits on a light tan horse, her feet in the stirrups and hands holding the reins. She wears a brown coat, a knit hat, a knife and a pistol in holsters strapped to her right thigh, and a backpack. They both look at something out of frame.
Image courtesy of hbomax.com

The show makes up for it by adding new or expanding upon minor characters. As I said above, they’re telling a different story than they were in the game, with the main characters going through different processes to reach the same events, and the added/expanded characters facilitate those processes. In no case have I regretted or been frustrated at a characters’ addition or expansion.

Ellie – A very different character

Every character is different from their game version, but I thought Ellie was the most changed.

I found her to be more self-centered than the game version. Both show and game Ellies are capable and confident, but the show version takes it to a level of arrogance that I found annoying. She was stupid, even reckless, at times. And for a community as security conscious as Jackson Hole is, there’s no way she would be allowed to do the crap she does. But they keep letting her do it. I found it a bit unbelievable.

That being said, show Ellie needs to be arrogant. The obstacles in front of her are greater than what game Ellie had to deal with, and she needs that arrogance to roll over them. Game Ellie said she would do the same things, but Show Ellie had to do them.

She still works as a character, but she crossed into my annoyance with arrogance characters.

Game Psych Outs

Finally, I want to bring up the game psych outs. These are instances where the show did something that messed with the viewers who have played the game. These psych outs took two forms.

The first was when the show did something that, in the game, heralded a certain event or cutscene. The gamers would be ready to experience the show’s version of what happened next. Sometimes the show did what was expected, but sometimes it did not. Anyone who was new was none the wiser, while those who played the games were left surprised and maybe a little disappointed.

The second was when the show did something completely new, so far out of the expected story that the gamers had to wonder if the show was going to completely divorce from the original story. In these cases, the show manages to bring it back around, but for a moment, there’s that ‘holy crap they’re changing so much’ thought.

It was fun, as someone who’d played the games, to see the writers dangle the ‘will we/won’t we’ bits in front of us. Because as much as I expect them to follow the same path, they’ve already made changes, and there’s always that question of ‘how far from the path will they go’?

Conclusion

There are many other things I could say about this show, but that would require spoilers. So, I’ll leave it at those five things that stood out to me and save my spoiler thoughts for direct conversations.

This season is a fun watch. It’s not as good as the first season, but it’s got its highlights. If you have played the game, you’ll get to see a variation of the story you know that will keep you guessing and wondering up until the end. And if you haven’t played the game, I think you’ll still understand what’s going on.

It’s a shame we have to wait several years for the next season.

If you’ve seen the show, what are your thoughts?

Cheers!

Michael

Review

Movie Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

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DVD Cover, link to IMDB Page

I watched The Other Boleyn Girl, a film adaptation of Philipa Gregory’s novel that I finished and reviewed not too long ago. I was interested to see how this would go. Growing up my parents would often make me read the book before taking me to see a movie, so I have come to appreciate the difficulties in taking a story from print to film. It can be difficult, but not impossible.

First, I’ll state the obvious: the movie is incredibly simple compared to the book. This is one of the problems of transitioning mediums. Books allow a writer to give exposition far greater than a movie allows. The movie acknowledges this by making big changes to the relationships between the characters, particularly the three principals: King Henry and the Boleyn sisters. Simply put, the movie over-simplifies the events and provides only the main points, and provides no details or background.

Note: I am going to discuss the differences between the book and the movie. Historical notes and changes can be checked on the IMDB page (click the movie poster above).

The Family Plotters

The first big change of the story is that of the family itself. The Boleyn family of the movie is not a family of schemers and plotters. Mary and Anne have a rivalry, but it is sisterly to start with. It is only when their Uncle arrives to include them in his plotting that their interactions with Henry begin.

Everyone is different. The mother is more affectionate, showing concern for both her daughters. The father is less assertive, more deferential to his brother-in-law. Mary becomes more innocent, though not completely blameless. Anne is the only character of the family I thought was diminished. Anne of the book is calculating and cunning. In the movie, she’s shrewd, but it’s never explained how, so she just comes across as extremely manipulative.

I did notice an obvious goof of the movie. The movie starts with Mary Boleyn’s marriage to William Carey. William is present for the Uncle’s decision to put Mary in Henry’s view, and a few subsequent scenes. He is obviously unhappy with the plot but goes along with it. And then he disappears. The movie never mentions that he dies of sickness. William Carey just ceases to be.

The Boleyn Siblings

The movie makes great changes to the relationships of the three Boleyn siblings. In short, their relationships become extremely shallow. The brother, George, is all but removed from the story, which makes sense as there’s not a lot of time to spend on his plot.

While Mary is still a co-conspirator, her increased innocence means she appears much more the victim of circumstance. Removed are her manipulations of Henry on behalf of Anne, and the scenes where she supports Anne when Anne is exhausted or needs advice are largely absent. Her character growth and rebellion against Anne – and therefor her survival of the fall of her family – is completely gone.

Anne’s maliciousness is missing scenes where she delights in torturing Mary, such as taking Mary and Henry’s son away from her, or refusing to reward Mary as she does the rest of the family. Indeed, for much of the second half of the movie, she ignores Mary to focus on Henry. Another sacrifice of switching mediums.

I found this most disappointing. Most of the book is about their relationship, their mutual support and rivalry. Without all the extra scenes of their bickering and scheming, their depth is gone. And without the depth, all the events of the movie seem sudden.

King Henry VIII

Henry VIII is a fairly one-dimensional character in both movie and book. He is a King of England who needs a male heir to secure his throne. If his queen cannot give him one, he will find a way. That’s all he needs to be, for either story.

Henry’s relationship with both sisters is also shallower than the book’s. He never develops much of a relationship with Mary, and they have one child together, not two. His turn to Anne is sudden, a result of her manipulations and not the family’s.

Henry’s movement away from the church and Katherine of Aragon is overly simplified, which isn’t a surprise. One of the things that I’ve learned from reading the series is how long of a process the separation was. To explain it in the film would take more time than they had, So, again, we see the entire process reduced to a few scenes. Henry wants a son. Anne wants to be queen. Katherine is in the way. Schism.

While the oversimplification of Henry and his quest isn’t a surprise, neither is it a strike. Henry’s part in this story is always simple. He’s the prize for both sisters, with the power to make – and break – their lives.

Conclusion

The book is better than the movie. Not exactly a risky stance to take, I know. But it’s important to understand how switching mediums change the basics of the characters.

Mary is no longer a naive character who grows into an independent woman, she is a victim of her circumstances. Anne is no longer a cunning strategist in a game of court politics, she is a manipulative opportunist. The events of their lives, devoid of any depth, become a sequence of rapid actions, observed without understanding anything but the immediate, personal consequences.

Was it a terrible transition of book to screen? No. There are definitely worse ones. And it did follow the basic themes of the book, while ignoring the nuances that a novel allows. That’s about all you can hope for when taking a book to screen. All in all, not a bad movie, but not one I feel the need to see again.