Montages of Grief - The Last of Us Season 2 (2023) Ep3-5

A steep wind blows across the golden field of swaying grass. Sunsets, painful in auburn beauty that only reminds you of what has gone from the wold. You think again of violence. That freedom born from the collapse: violence, and vengeance.

This week David, Alex and ‪@DarthdYT‬ are backed up by Danielle from ‪@levelstoryplays‬ to unpack the strangest adaptation choices so far.

Follow Danielle on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/levelstory.b... Glossary: https://zeroindent.com/apocalypse/

Glossary: https://zeroindent.com/apocalypse/

D.C. McNeill: This, by contrast... it feels like when we cut from a scene to another scene, it's either very literal, right? We get that at the start of the next episode where it's like, well, this is the same guy. Are you paying attention?

Or there's no relationship between scenes, whether that be logical, or emotional right? And occasionally there is sure, you know the Kuleshov effect is here but I think episode 3 in particular feels like they shot a ton of stuff, and they went "it's just way too long" and then they found it in the edit. That's kind of the vibe I get from episode 3.

Alex: I think is that because they like locked themselves into seven episodes.

Darth: I was going to say I think I think part of what we're seeing is is just the format that they're forcing themselves to stick to. Meaning there's dialogue that happens in the game and then there's this action sequence, and much like Danielle was saying there were scenes that didn't feel like they should be there and they were in the game. There were scenes that felt to me like they shouldn't have been in the show and I was like "this was in the game."

Like when they find the guys hanging from the ceiling and then they have to sneak out of the sneak out of the warehouse without getting seen and then they have to go and and sneak down into the subway to try to hide and then they have to run away from the zombies. And like all of that is like ultimately pointless except I'm I'm just imagining like crouching in the game and you're doing the sneak thing and then you got to go up behind and do an assassination move. And I'm like "I can literally see this is only here because this is what happened in the game and I don't think this should be here because the show doesn't necessarily need this.

And there were so many scenes that could have flowed, I think, better and transition from one spot to another. When they're in the forest and Dina gets shot by the arrow and then they split up. So then you could have the action scene, which I'm assuming is in the game where Ellie has to run away from, you know, from all of the people in the in the forest. They didn't need that either. They could have gone a different direction and stayed focused on the characters, which may have transitioned from one scene to another better, but because you keep having these action breaks that were in the game, the whole thing has that montage-y feel that y'all were describing.

Danielle: I think that's so interesting that you're saying that 'cause I feel like that's sort of where I'm getting hung up is that I love seeing stuff from the game, but I agree like it just feels like why is it there? And and it's weird because it is from the game, but it's not adapted like it is in the game. And it's just odd like the they they shrink everything down to like, okay, well, like I do recognize this scene from the game, but it's still like isn't really the same. And then they always feel the need to add hordes of enemies all the time.

When they're in the subway and there's this huge amount of infected and I guess they do it for the budget, but again, the spectacle of it. It's exciting, they're running from the zombies. There's action, adventure but yeah it just feels--

Darth: Just quickly to interject think that was because of the problem that they introduced before that was they had all of the the WLF members. You had the dozens of people chasing them into the sewers, so now you have to have dozens of opponents to defeat those dozens of people. So that horde didn't need to exist like you said if you get rid of all of the Wolves.