The Last of Us (HBO)

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Aragorn, Feb 11, 2021.

  1. Mr. Adventure

    Mr. Adventure Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Its hard to translate that tension when moving around clickers from the game to passive viewing. I didn't find Tess's fate as affecting as I'd like but I'm not sure if that's because I was WTF'ing so much with that kiss. :)

    I sure am no expert on this stuff but trying to learn but I am pretty sure that you want to avoid that.
    https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/transgender-guide-terms-you-can-learn
     
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  2. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    I have to say, this episode massively failed on one key aspect of the video game experience; at no point did any of the characters save scum after missing a headshot. Totally unbelievable. 7/10.

    But on the other hand they snuck a giraffe plushie in there, so I'll let it slide.
    The funny thing about this is that it's so easily disprovable by just 20 seconds of leafing through the original game's 'Art of' book. There's *dozens* of character sketches exploring and developing the look of Ellie, with a clearly organic evolution towards the final design (and what's in the book is just the tip of the iceberg knowing how iterate design usually works.)
    That the end result kinda-sorta vaguely resembled Elliot at the time is a combination of pure coincidence and a convergence of environmental factors. Ellie was a skinny 14 year old white tomboy in drab, practical clothing. Elliot at the time was presenting as a tomboy with an onscreen tendency to be in drab practical clothing (I have no clue about off-screen, I don't care follow what celebrities get up to away from work.) Also as I recall it's not as if he took to the internet in a rage; someone just asked in an interview what he thought and he pretty off-handedly said something along the lines of "yeah, it looks like they ripped off my look. Oh well!"

    Plus if you look at a side-by-side; Ellie's face mesh looks much more like Ashley Johnson; the nose and mouth shapes, as well as the chin & jawline are almost identical. Ellie is just has slightly less of a long face as Ashley, has proportionally bigger eyes (because she's younger) and is overall skinnier (because: apocalypse.)
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2023
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  3. Jinn

    Jinn Mistress of the Chaotic Energies Rear Admiral

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    Yep, this. It really sucks if your deadname is continually brought up again to talk about past events (even if Elliot Page probably doesn't frequent this forum). It's like we're chained to our closets, even after coming out. On top of that it also requires one to remember when all trans people you know changed their names and pronouns to misgender and deadname them "correctly" and that's way to much effort to make a person feel bad.

    If you (general) want to emphasize that the event is from before Page came out, you could say something like "Ellie in The Last Of Us was so clearly based on Elliot Paige before he came out that he himself went public complaining they stole his likeness"
     
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  4. wayoung

    wayoung Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Ok, I'll edit. My presentation was due to Elliot still publically being Ellen at the time, and that any search for sources requires Ellen, not to cause anyone any distress.
     
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  5. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    If I ever have kids I’m naming Pedro Pascal the godfather. Just based on his extensive experience protecting other people’s children in dystopian futures.
     
  6. Mr. Adventure

    Mr. Adventure Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Naming the character "Ellie" didn't help matters.
     
  7. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    Possibly. It's also possible it didn't even occur to them that the comparison would be draw since Page wasn't on their minds at all. So it's purely coincidental. And even if it did occur to them at some point; so what? Why should they change the name of there character just because some random celebrity looks kinda similar and has a kinda similar name?

    If you think about it, the name is probably the best proof that they weren't deliberately using that person's likeness. Were that the case one would think they would want to avoid any obvious allusion and name her something entirely different, no?
     
  8. Skipper

    Skipper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I tried to google it but I couldn't find a clear answer: in the game, the fungus was a natural mutation o man-made?
     
  9. Xerxes82

    Xerxes82 Captain Captain

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    The origin of the outbreak is never really explicitly addressed, but it's HEAVILY implied to have been natural.

    I'm going to spoiler code this because something along these lines could come up in the show (and sort of has already, in the background):
    The outbreak is quite heavily teased to have been food borne. In the game's prologue (the Sarah portion of the story) there is a newspaper with a headline about food recalls from South/Central America. Though it's never focused on, the implication seems to be that the fungus/spores got into the food supply. Which is how the thing spread so quickly, it was a mass infection event from the very beginning.

    Now, the show has replaced the FDA recall stuff with a note about chaos and disorder in Jakarta. Which is interesting, because Jakarta is home to a huge flour production facility. So, I've seen several good theories that the show's infection is flour-borne. Which makes Joel's Atkins diet joke from the first episode both funny and fortuitous. Also note that we don't see Joel/Sarah/Tommy eat anything with flour in it during the day. They have bacon and eggs for breakfast (Tommy even expresses discontent that there are no pancakes), Joel has his Atkins joke to pass on the food the neighbor offers, and Sarah goes next door to make cookies, but is visibly disappointed when they are raisin and thus presumably doesn't have any. Meanwhile, the neighbor old lady turns that first night.
     
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  10. Skipper

    Skipper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    soooooo....
    Only celiac people were safe from the initial infection? :rofl:
     
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  11. marillion

    marillion Vice Admiral Admiral

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    And those of us who are gluten intolerant (which sucks, btw).
     
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  12. DigificWriter

    DigificWriter Vice Admiral Admiral

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    In the real world we live in, ingesting cordyceps fungus is something that is actually quite common because it has uses as a health supplement and as a form of traditional Chinese medicine, but it's only harmful to insects and invertebrate arthropods like spiders, so there's no way that humans could've been infected in the world of the games and TV series without the fungi having mutated, and even in our heath-obsessed culture, I doubt anyone would feel a need to try and genetically alter cordyceps artificially, so I think it's safe to assume that the cordyceps fungi that infected humans in the world of TLoU in both the games and TV series mutated naturally.
     
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  13. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well hey one of those doctors was a Roman Lanista in the time of Spartacus, so who knows? ;)
     
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  14. Aragorn

    Aragorn Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Easter egg, Tess' lighter is also Sam's lighter in Uncharted 4.
     
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  15. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    A little of both. The mutation itself was part of a natural process of evolution; adaptation to environmental pressures. In this case though the environmental pressure in question is heavily implied to be an increase in the global average temperature, which decidedly IS man-made.

    So it's not a "something got out of a lab" scenario, more of a "if you spend almost two centuries dumping CO2 into the atmosphere and massively fuck with the stability of the planetary ecology, it will likely fuck with you right back sooner or later" scenario.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2023
  16. Skipper

    Skipper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    You will inherit the Earth!
     
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  17. Mark_Nguyen

    Mark_Nguyen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Being a Calgarian, this episode FINALLY breaks into the city I live in and shows so much of it (and Edmonton, where I've also lived). The skyline at the end of the scene with our trio walking over the flyover was about what I expected from driving over that very road into downtown for years. From Reddit:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Thelastofu.../skyline_comparison_what_we_saw_on_episode_2/

    The sets were ridiculously on point and so well done for what little screen time we saw them in. The flooded hotel lobby for example was on screen for what, less than three minutes? And they basically walked from one side to the other. That's an enormous set built for a brief but memorable scene, never to be seen again in the show.

    It was just *Runner's smooch* perfect!

    Mark
     
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  18. marillion

    marillion Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Burque, baby!
    Honestly, I'd settle for slice of pizza with an honest to god with a crisp, pillowy crust that's chewy on the inside. Add to that, an ice cold Stella. Gluten free beer is meh.
     
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  19. Skipper

    Skipper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, if you pass by Rome, here a pizza maker has won the world cup for the best gluten-free Neapolitan-style pizza!

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    The world champion gluten-free pizza is found in Rome

    ...for the beer I don't know how to help you...
     
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  20. Nombrecomun

    Nombrecomun Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I also enjoyed her. Very charismatic, "scene stealing" in the sense that she is captivating. I kinda wished she was the main star, not that I have anything against Ramsey. Then again, they are different characters and Ramsey is no slouch.
     
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