'What if there is sadness to this?’: 'The Last of Us' makers reveal why show altered game's tragic sniper sequence
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Even though 'The Last of Us' is a very cinematic video game, it is only a game. While some scenes from the HBO adaptation wouldn't work in a video game, several playable sections from the Naughty Dog Playstation game would never transition to TV. Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, the series' co-creators, tried to strike the right balance once again by giving gamers everything they expected from the series while also adding characters, plots, and moments that make scenes that would have otherwise been boring without a controller making it more interesting.
The show sees Joel Miller, played by Pedro Pascal, as a veteran survivor and black market smuggler who is tasked with transporting Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, 14, safely across the United States to a revolutionary group that plans to exploit the young woman's resistance to the zombie infection to save the world.
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How is the sequence different from the gameplay?
Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam are trapped by a proficient sniper at the end of a residential cul-de-sac in the original game. As Joel, the player must sneak around different homes, taking out Hunters, and killing the sniper. Like in the video game, the sniper caused the gang to hide behind a car in the HBO series, but Joel quickly figures out that the shooter isn't very good, so he swiftly flanks and engages the veteran sniper. Instead of giving up, the sniper turns his gun on Joel, who then shoots and kills the helpless guy.
'What if there is a sadness to this?'
'The Last of Us' adaptation's co-creator, Craig Mazin, has explained why Episode 5 changed on HBO's The Last of Us Podcast. Mazin said "And this wasn't us going, 'Hey, we're going to subvert expectations.' It was really more like, 'Well, what if there is a sadness to this?' Because we understood...we weren't going to get the same value from presenting the action the way that the gameplay did. That watching it on television that there was a lot of ducking and shooting back, and ducking and shooting back. It just sort of isn't — it's not the show. But I'm obsessed with the cul-de-sac and I'm obsessed with the sniper."
"Then the thought was, 'Well, what if he stinks? What if the sniper is really bad and all Joel has to do is just get around and get in there?' And then the next question is, 'Well, why is he bad?' The answer is, he's really old. He can't see. And this is sad because when you are dealing with the citizen brigade, this is often what you're dealing with. It's not trained military soldiers, these are people. And this guy...has seen a lot because — let's say he's, what, 80. That means for 60 years of his life he was living in a perfectly normal world and the last 20 went to shit. And the sadness there. God only knows the amount of grief he has gone through."
He adds, "When Joel walks in there, I think, Joel can already see it in the guy's eyes, he's going to commit suicide-by-cop here. He doesn't want to be here anymore. And [Joel's] begging him not to. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to kill this guy. He doesn't want to hurt this guy. But this guy's had it. He's done."