It seems the wheels are beginning to spin up on HBO's official adaptation of The Last of Us, and not too long after the announcement that Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey have been cast as the main characters. Of course, with any adaptation of a popular game, there remains the question of how closely the adaptation will follow the original, and exactly what kind of changes the creators want to make.
Those worried about authenticity will likely take some comfort in the fact that Neil Druckmann, the director for the original game, is also signed on to executive produce HBO's The Last of Us. During a recent interview with IGN, Druckmann went into a little more detail about the project and let slip some interesting details about how they were approaching the adaptation.
As he explained, The Last of Us series is mostly concerned with keeping intact "the philosophical underpinnings of the story," meaning that they're trying to capture the heart of the original, even if that means tweaking things along the way. Druckmann went on to say that 'superficial' details may or may not make it into the project, and those kinds of issues would be figured out case by case.
There is some evidence that they will be following some story beats from The Last of Us video game very closely, though. The scripts in particular seem to lift some dialogue straight from the games, according to Druckmann: "Things sometimes stay pretty close. It’s funny to see my dialogue there from the games in HBO scripts." It's hard to imagine that the story is going to deviate too heavily from the original if it is still possible to lift dialogue entirely, but of course, HBO has been keeping a tight lid on actual details so far.
Don't get too attached to the story as it exists in the game though, as some things will definitely be changing. Even leaving aside the fact that some tweaks will always be made when retelling an old story, TV is a very different medium when compared to games, and that necessitates some changes when adapting from one to the other. As Druckmann says about the current HBO scripts: "sometimes they deviate greatly to much better effect because we are dealing with a different medium."
Whatever changes may be coming to the narrative, at least the show seems to be in the capable hands of a team that cares very greatly about keeping the original story intact. Considering the talent on hand and the budget HBO can provide, it's not unreasonable for fans to be excited about HBO's The Last of Us, and hopefully, it lives up to those expectations when it finally airs.
The Last of Us is in development at HBO.
Source: IGN