Things That Bug Me about HBO's The Last of Us: The Music

[Winter]

Let me start things off by saying this, I'm not a big fan of The Last of Us. I think the game is great, one of the best ever made and I own the game. However, I've never liked it as much as others. I don't quote it like I do Dragon Age: Inquisition, I don't think of it as often as I do Tomb Raider: A Survivor is Born or over analyze it like I do Horizon Zero Down. The Last of Us is a great game but I'm just not as passionate of it as other games I've played.

But with that said, I have some... opinions, on the HBO adaptation of the game that just... bug me. There are just several things about it that just feels off and hasn't really fixed the issues I have with Video Game Adaptations. Contrary to what some might say there HAVE been good adaptations of Video games into other medias. Pokeman, Mortal Combat, League of Legends, Digimon, Castlevania, Carmen Sandiego, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Sonic the Hedgehog have all been warmly received with some even being critical darlings like Arcane and Castlevania.

However, (sigh) all of these adaptations bug me because all of them greatly alter something about the stories their adapting. Arcane, for example, is MUCH darker then it's video game counter part which, while it could get serious, Arcane is a Grand Tragedy that feels like something that was ripped straight out of a Greek Legend.

And with The Last of Us I can't help but notice that the show changes a LOT of things that greatly alter the story and many of the core themes. Joel in the game was largely cut off from other people, he wasn't trying to find his brother, his relationship with Tess is ambiguous and he distrusts just about everyone he meets, even if he already knows them.

Joel in the show is much more opened, he has a romantic relationship with Tess which is made clear in the show, he's actively looking for his brother Tommy and he's a bit more open to those he's meeting for the first time. In many ways this is NOT the character from the game this is someone else and I have to admit, I prefer the game version. Joel is someone who closes himself off from the world after he lost his daughter and opens up again which ends up dooming the world. He's also a lot more stoic then Game Joel who was more expressive.

But let's sideline that for now and focus on one thing that has consistantly bugged me since day one and that's the music. Barring a few bits that are directly from the game the music in the show sounds Nothing like the music in the games.

Case in point, here is music used during fights with the Infacted in the game.


youtu.be/r4NVsTXoYO0

Now here's a scene where we first see Clickers in the show.


youtu.be/AqLaZ-ZiBxs

Notice the difference, the game mostly uses drums and is overall slower then the music in the show which uses a wider range of instruments. Also, and I don't know how to better describe this, but the music in the show sounds more action packed while the music in the game sounds more terrifying. Encounters with clickers was often something I always dreaded but because I knew they could kill me in one hit if they got to close and even when fully upgraded I knew that it would take just one mistake to get killed. But in the show, I wasn't as scared of the Clickers as much as the character do WAAAY to good of a job of fighting them off.

And a big factor in this feeling was because of the music. Because of the nature of the drum we tend to become more aware of our own heartbeat and thus the rhythm set by the music during fights makes us aware of our beating hearts which is set up perfectly by the guitars or violins which makes us more aware of our breathing instead.

The music is the how forgoes all that in favor of, IMO, more generic music.

Honestly, take the scene I just showed you, and replace it with any other show and you'd get the same result. It doesn't sound like TLOU it sounds like something I've already heard before. It's not bad and it does it's job but I can't help but feel that something is lost in adaptation. And what's weird is the composer for this show is the same composer for the games, Gustavo Santaolalla so why does it sound so different?

[Madner Kami]

Um, so help me out here. Clickers can't see, right? They solely work off of sound. Putting aside how impossible it is to do some of the things they do in this scene without producing any audible sound, why are they hiding behind counters? Crouching and stuff?

[Winter]

Um, so help me out here. Clickers can't see, right? They solely work off of sound. Putting aside how impossible it is to do some of the things they do in this scene without producing any audible sound, why are they hiding behind counters? Crouching and stuff?

In regards to them seemingly hiding, I don't think that's what they're doing I think they're just pausing to listen for any sound when they can't spot anything in-front of them and they only really do it once at 3:10, other then that they're moving around like they normally would.

I don't see any moment when they're crouching behind anything to ambush their prey.

[Madner Kami]

The characters are crouching and hiding from a creature that has no eyes.

[Winter]

The characters are crouching and hiding from a creature that has no eyes.

Their trying to stay out of the range of the sound the Clicker. This isn't like Daredevil who can effectively see through walls, Echo Location bounces off anything in front of it to let the creature know what is there and looks for something that doesn't match the environment to better hunt it's prey.

That's at least my guess for how the writers are approaching this.