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HBO’s The Last of Us stands as one of the most faithful video game adaptations to date. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to follow its source material to the letter. Series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann revealed to Decider that the HBO adaptation will feature several Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) scenes that didn’t appear in the original game.
“Like with everything we do, they will feel like they belong… They feel like natural extensions about what we understand about Joel and Ellie,” Mazin explained. “It’s important for us to carve out quiet and give moments of peace and solitude. If you could chart the number of words that come out of Joel’s mouth from episode to episode, it just goes up and up and up. It starts very, ‘No.’ ‘Yes.’ And then by the time you get to the end, it’s these full flowing conversations. It’s part of the joy, for me, as a fan, to see that blossom like that.”
First released in 2013 for the PlayStation 3, The Last of Us is set in a dystopian future overcome by the Cordyceps infection, a fungal disease that leaves zombie-like victims in its wake. Both the series and the game follow Joel, a survivor who is haunted by his past. He becomes the reluctant guardian of the 14-year-old Ellie. It isn’t long before he realizes that this mouthy teenager very well may be humanity’s last hope.
According to Neil Druckmann, some of the new scenes between Joel and Ellie were invented for TV, but others should be familiar to diehard fans of the video game series.
“There’s concept art of Joel and Ellie sitting by a campfire and talking and laughing. There was no point we were able to fit into the game,” Druckmann said. “There’s another concept art that was very famous where we see Joel showing Ellie how to use a rifle. Then it became, ‘How do we dramatize these moments?’ Now we get to realize them as we retell this story.”
The first episode of The Last of Us premieres on HBO Sunday, January 15 at 9/8c p.m.
