The “Last of Us” is not the first good video game adaptation, it's just the first to believe in them.

I'm not interested in discussing the best video game adaptations over the years. It bores me and these things often turn into hyperbolic slugfests. As with many things video game adaptations have been more successful than some people give them and as bad as some others say. What I am interested in discussing is why with just one episode in I feel comfortable saying that HBO’s stab at video game adaptations “The Last of Us” is so obviously in love with the craft placed in the source material that it places the exact same amount into it's version. Relying on the power of the story not the property to propel istelf into greatness. There have most certainly been good video game adaptations. Mortal Kombat, (1995) Resident Evil and it's immediate sequel, Jolie's Tomb Raider films, and Silent Hill, are all examples of solid cinema, Street Fighter II: The Animated movie is a great adaptation, a bonafide classic that deserves it's laurels, but outside of that, all video game adaptations up until this point have approached these stories with either a philosophy or form of execution that is focused on celebrating the adaptation itself rather than the story.

The first cinematic adaptation of a video game was 1993's “Super Mario Bros”. It made sense for the first video game to have mega blockbuster success to be the first video game to be made into a blockbuster. The movie is truly it's own thing; a bizarro, surreal LSD-like trip into a grimey sewer textured world befitting a game where a plumber used pipes inter-dimensionally to save a princess from a prehistoric turtle. The problem was that Super Mario Bros the video game was not story driven it was an action-driven game. There just wasn't much there to make an entire movie out of, which in and of itself tells on the core motivation for making the movie. Street Fighter (the 1994 live action film) is a dumpster fire, from it's direction to its story, to its absymal casting, save for Raul Julia and JCVD. 95’s Mortal Kombat is a hoot, but it's one of the worst acted adaptations ever and especially so when it tried for heart. Everything about Mortal Kombat’s aesthetics and story suggested no one really cared about story they just wanted to give the fans what they want (Not the worst idea by the way, just not the best). By the time we got to the Jolie and Alicia Vikander led Tomb Raider's, video game storytelling had advanced by leaps and bounds, many of them borrowing from movies. The Tomb Raider films thusly got right Laura Croft's Indiana Jones-like ancestry, but the sentiment and pacing always betrayed it's intentions to add depth. Silent Hill definitely tried with an opening that sought to set up the tightness of it's characters, but the main three's relationship (Father, Mother, Daughter) feels sterile and clinical. It wasn't until it got to the relationship between the spectre and her original mother that a genuine flicker of emotion appeared to compliment and contrast it's savagely brilliant visuals.

“The Last of Us” doesnt seem concerned with selling us on the celebration of it's being a live action adaptation. It seems confident in the power of that story being expressed through a medium that allows it to do different things, and allow that to reinforce just how good this story was. You can start with its opening, which unlike Mortal Kombat doesn't begin with techno music screaming its name, while various popular phrases from the game are spoken out over the credits. Mortal Kombat wanted you to know that you are now sitting down and watching the “live-action” adaptation of your favorite video game…It shouldn't have needed to. The Last of Us instead opens with an unnervingly eerie setup about the apocalyptic possibilities of fungi, (which of course turns out to be true) which sets tone, mood, and the embers which will become the spreading flames of the story. Immediately after that it centers the bond between it's lead Joel (Pedro Pascal) and his daughter Sarah, (Nico Parker) and it's not that it centers the emotional bonds first that's necessarily new, it's how well it executes them that sets it's apart as a video game adaptation. There's a loving attention and care put into this world that exists before we even get to the “present” from within the story. My favorite example of this came about a quarter of the way into the episode when Sarah takes her father Joel's watch to go get fixed (this watch has some importance and bearing on the story going forward but we're not getting into that) in town. When the (extremely well casted) watch repairman announces the price to repair the watch she is taken aback. The watch repairman, says “Twenty” she says “Thats it?” He responds “Okay Thirty”. She says “Twenty’s good”. The repairman lets her know that he'll get on it right away but only a few minutes later his wife comes rushing in exclaiming that they must close the shop and he has to stop his work right now. She moves over to Sarah let her know that unfortunately he will not be able to finish, he exclaims immediately “I'm already finished”. On the surface this may not seem like much, but there are layers of storytelling happening in this very small scene. It serves as set up for an aspect of connection as it pertains to Joel's trauma, and for further foreshadowing the event. It makes a three dimensional character of the repairman by showing us his attitude in dedication to his job, his efficiency, his integrity ( he doesn't upsell her) and his relationship with his wife. It reinforces the dimensions of the town through that ever present sense of intimacy amongst inhabitants in stories with mythological small towns or suburbs like this. Through this one very small scene you're getting a sense of this town before the event, of the relationship between Joel and Sarah, and you're getting a build to the horror. That's the amount of detail and care they're putting into the story, that's the amount of trust they have in this story.

It didn't take long into the lifespan of video games before they started imitating movies, not only in the desire to want to use it as a form of storytelling, but in borrowing the traits of certain characters, themes, and genres. Video games got popular enough to have movies made of them, and they started making video games that act like movies, and now movies are adapting those games, and so the cycle evolves. There's really no need for either medium to condescend to the other, but there has subtly been a sense of that very thing in most adaptations until The Last of Us. These adaptations have largely not trusted, nor believed in the material enough to not do things like rushing to your premise, or to introducing your characters. To resist the impulse to place neon lights over every single easter egg and call back, and most importantly to find a way into the story that genuinely expands upon the lore and the tale in the ways that only film or TV as a long form medium offers beyond the limitations of what is inherent to gaming. By the time the Last of Us gets to its white-knuckle action sequence I was already beyond invested in a story I knew like the back of my hand. That's the power of this story. That's what sets it apart, not that it's the first good or great adaptation of a video game, but that it is the first one to in all ways possible show a deep respect for the power of video game storytelling. I'm reminded of a scene in Steven Soderberg's “Traffic”. Michael Douglas's new drug czar let's his cabinet know that when the cartel sends a message by hiring the best defense attorney in the land, he responds by hiring the best prosecutor. To quote Pedro Pascal in the Mandolorian; “This is the way”. The best should be given the best. Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, Assassin's Creed, Silent Hill, Uncharted, etc, are some of the best of the best in the medium and when transferring them to another medium they don't deserve any less than that in direction, in casting, in writing, in detail, theme, love, and craft, and that's what I hope “The Last of Us” trends for, and gets trending in Hollywood.