‘The Last Of Us’ Showrunners View Game Canon As A Guideline For HBO Series, Not A Rule: “We Don’t Get Too Caught Up In The Idea Of The Story As Religion”
As seems to be unfortunately typical in the realm of ‘live-action video game adaptations’, HBO’s The Last of Us showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have admitted that when it comes to bringing Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic survival series to the small screen, strict fidelity to the canon of the original games is more of a ‘suggestion’ than a ‘concrete rule.’
Mazin and Druckmann, who also serve as the series’ lead writers, spoke to the The Last Of Us‘ approach to source material accuracy while speaking with IGN‘s Amelia Emberwing in reflection of the series’ Season 2 premiere.
Asked by their host as to how they “take assurity in canon [i.e. the outright confirmation of certain events in the games’ original canon] and make fans question whether or not it’s going to come in the show”, Mazin opened their shared response by asserting, “I think what we try and do is preserve the aspects of canon that I would call loadbearing walls. They must be there.”
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“You must have Ellie in that room say to Joel ‘I would only be more scared’ [as originally seen in the The Last of Us game immediately prior to the start of ‘The University’ chapter,]” said he explained. “You need that. And there are things like – I mean you can tell from the trailer, this isn’t a spoiler – ‘Does Joel have to bring Ellie to that space capsule [located within the Wyoming Museum of Science and History, where the pair share a particularly heart-warming bonding moment in The Last of Us Part II]?’ Yes. Must happen.”
“Now, there are other things where we go ‘This should happen but differently’,” the Chernobyl series creator continued. “So it’s almost like an interesting reflection of canon, but we don’t get too caught up in the idea of the story as religion. We just try and make the best show but we do it with, I think, an enormous respect for the aspects of the game that work so well. Otherwise, honestly, what the f–k are we doing it for?”
Jumping off of his creative partner’s read of the situation, Druckmann then added, “Yeah, if we’re just trying to copy it one-to-one, you should you should question, ‘Why are we even doing this?’ What’s the point?’ Because if we do that, it’s going to be a lesser version than the game because [the game] does have interactivity.”
“So you just kind of preserve the cutscenes and then create some filler versus we say how do we make the best show possible and that sometimes surprises are there not because we’re talking, like, ‘How do we surprise our fans?'” said the co-creator of the original games. “Certain changes are essential to adapting this, and then certain ones are just opportunistic where it’s like, we might have an idea like ‘Hey, we’re not approaching this scene again, what are some new ideas we might have that we didn’t even think about, or didn’t have to think about when we made the game, and then we look at everything in front of us and say ‘Is this better?’ or ‘Is this better for this type of story?’ And sometimes the answer is yes, and those creates those wonderful surprises that I sometimes enjoy the most.”
Closing out this part of the conversation, Mazin ultimately noted, “We like pulling from these little bits of cannon that link you to people that you don’t actually meet.”
“You don’t meet Frank [as portrayed in Season 1 by Murray Bartlett] other than his hanging corpse in in the game,” he explained. “You don’t meet Eugene [Linden, as set to be portrayed in Season 2 by Joe Pantoliano] who’s referred to constantly in the second game, but we might. And I love connecting back to those stories, and I still I think about ish all the time.”
The second season of HBO’s The Last of Us series is now airing exclusively on HBO and MAX.
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