George Lucas & 'The Last of Us' on HBO
They're united in the worst way possible
Hey friends and fam,
Thank you once again for being here.
Today is an exciting day.
Well every day I release a newsletter is an exciting day, but this newsletter is especially exciting.
Why?
Because you’re about to see what really comes from having a writer’s brain through my commentary on the new HBO adaptation of The Last of Us.
When I say I have a “writer’s brain” I mean that I am constantly thinking of long-winded, yet fact-laden opinions on things.
These opinions, while rambling all include a certain structure to where they actually provide a perspective and aren’t just mindless doting or hating.
I will say, there is very often any in-between. If I’m going to craft such an opinion on something, I either love it or I hate it, and I looooooooove The Last of Us.
Not the show. The game.
I love the game so much I have a tattoo on my left wrist dedicated to it (shoutout my dear friend Jess Steidler for such an amazing job on the ink).
I love the game so much that I wrote a 10,000-word review of the second one that no one paid me for.
(That review is actually the most accurate demonstration of a writer’s brain. The upcoming essay is about half that. It even has subheadings to break up the text lolz.)
So when it was confirmed that they were making an adaptation for HBO, I didn’t know how to feel. The history of video game adaptations is bleak to say the least, but HBO also makes premier television.
In the end, all I could say was:
“They better not fuck it up.”
And, well, unfortunately, they did fuck it up.
Not to the point that I can’t watch it, but rather to the point that I simply can’t give it my stamp of approval as a tattooed fan of the games.
Clearly, given how insanely popular the show is (to the point that season two is already in motion) so many people disagree, many of whom I’m sure love the games as much as I do.
But as I said before, with a brain like mine, when I love something as much as I love The Last of Us, every opinion has a case behind it, and below I present to you that case (which involves none other than the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas).
I hope you enjoy taking a real look inside what goes on in my brain.
P.S. I know I promised a special surprise with this newsletter, but I was actually traveling all of last week covering Noise Pop music festival in San Francisco so I didn’t have time to curate it.
I’ll share that recap when it’s live along with some other pieces, but you, dear reader, will get your special surprise very soon. I promise.
Want to know the quickest way to start a fight at a Star Wars convention?
Shout the following words:
“Greedo shot first.”
Without delay a series of undesirable reactions will be directed toward you. Likely everything from dirty looks to actual physical displays of aggression, and many who exhibit the strongest reactions will be wearing a shirt that says:
“Han shot first.”
This now famous phrase refers to when George Lucas, in 1997, had this fucking splendid idea to go back into the original cut of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, 20 years after its release, and change a key scene:
Greedo, a bounty hunter is holding Han Solo at gunpoint in a cantina (while some delightful alien jazz plays in the background). He’s going to take Han to the pudgy yet evil crime boss, Jabba the Hutt, so as to collect a reward that Jabba offered for delivering Han.
But instead of accepting his fate, Han chooses to shoot Greedo under the table, killing him, and walks away. (He also pays the bartender for his trouble).
That’s how it goes down in the original version. The audience learns that Han is comfortable with killing another living being out of self-interest.
In the new version that came after the infamous 1997 splice, while they’re sitting at the table, Greedo is the one who shoots first.
And right then, Han discovers, in that exact moment, that he too is an incredibly powerful Jedi. A Jedi so powerful he can dodge the laser blasts from point-blank range.
Han dodges Greedo’s blast and shoots Greedo in self-defense.
(Han’s not actually a Jedi, but everything else about the scene is true, including the point-blank dodging ability. Maybe he’s just the spiritual twin of Ozymandias?)
So instead of Han being a ruthless criminal who will do anything to save himself, he’s just a guy who didn’t want to get shot.
Then later on when Han chooses to come back on the Falcon and save Luke from getting blown up by Darth Vader while they’re attacking the Death Star, Han’s change of heart, his willingness to abandon self-interest and risk his safety for the rebel cause, is far, far less meaningful.
For years Star Wars fandom has had a gripe with Lucas over this change. This is why the phrase “Han shot first” exists in the first place.
A New Hope launched what is now the most successful film franchise ever. Why is there a need to go back and change it?
The truth is, it comes down to George Lucas’s emotional connection to Han Solo:
“I never designed Han to be a ruthless killer,” Lucas said in a quote pulled from The Independent. “All the good guys shoot in self-defense.”
So there it is. George Lucas didn’t like the idea of the character he created in his mind being seen as a ruthless killer, or rather, one of the bad guys, and he was compelled to change it.
It doesn’t matter that, from a perspective of narrative, a bad guy becoming a good guy is a far more entertaining and emotional story arc than a good guy becoming a good-er guy.
George Lucas had a vision for Han Solo, but once the public fell absolutely head-over-heels in love with, Han Solo, George realized the vision he intended was not the vision he created.
But luckily for George, people did fall head over heels in love with Han Solo (and Star Wars as a whole) to the point that the movie was re-released in theaters in 1997 which allowed him the opportunity to recreate Han Solo as the gruff good guy he wanted him to be.
I Have Dubbed This Response The George Lucas Compulsion.
In truth, I didn’t think there would ever be a need to give this response a name because I didn’t think that any other creator would be as daft as he was to actually go back and change a piece of art after the fact.
Polishing up is one thing, but come on, actually changing the facts of the story? Fans have a right to be disgruntled.
Imagine if a few years after Romeo & Juliet was written, Shakespeare decided to make it a happy ending because he suddenly became queasy about two kids committing suicide over one another.
In this new ending, they get married, the feud between the Montagues and Capulets ends, Verona is the new Garden of Eden, and Romeo and Juliet’s children invent the cure for cancer hundreds of years before the disease is discovered.
Such a divergence would be embarrassing and Shakespeare’s legacy would be forever tarnished.
But the reason I’ve come up with the title of the George Lucas Compulsion is that another creator is falling victim to the same pattern; the creator of another story that, in my opinion, is just as meaningful as Star Wars and Romeo & Juliet.
That creator’s name is Neil Druckmann.
Neil created the groundbreaking video game, The Last of Us, and after seven episodes of the game’s HBO adaptation, it’s clear that Druckman has a serious case of the George Lucas Compulsion attached to the game’s protagonist, Joel.
Overall, the entire world is lauding this game-to-TV adaptation. It has a 9.2/10 rating on IMDb after over 228,000 votes at the time of writing (even the milquetoast homophobes who rage-quit after the gay love story in the third episode couldn’t alter the stellar rating), and on paper, I’d say the show deserves such praise.
But given that this is the first adaptation in which I’ve actually been truly invested (I’ve played the first game at least 20 times and am currently playing it a 21st) I can read between the lines on the aforementioned paper, and what I see is a cop-out.
That cop-out does not apply to changes in the actions of the characters. For the most part, what the characters do in HBO’s The Last of Us is the same as the game.
The cop-out goes deeper. Far deeper.
After 20 playthroughs of The Last of Us Part I (and at least ten playthroughs of The Last of Us Part II as well as one tattoo inspired by the game on the inside of my left wrist), I don’t see Joel as just a character in a story. I see him as a man, and in transferring between media, Joel is not the same man.
He looks similar. Acts similar, but his intentions, his motivations, his purpose, it’s shifted just enough to where I don’t recognize him, and worse off, it’s shifted to where I don’t feel the same emotional-wrenching the game forces upon me to this day.
And the cause of this shift is, I believe, the George Lucas Compulsion.
It would make sense that Neil’s emotional connection to Joel is analogous to George’s connection to Han, and as such, it would make sense that Neil would recognize that the Joel he created may not be the Joel he intended.
Disclaimer
Now, before we go any further, I understand that a character's intentions within a story are entirely up for debate. That’s why discussion forums and book clubs exist. So passionate fans can bring their impression of the story to fellow passionate fans.
I also know that I’m presenting my opinion as a passionate fan against the guy (Neil) who literally pulled this character (Joel) out of the endless void of the subconscious and made him into something real. As such, generally, people will defer to Neil’s perspective on the matter.
So to counter the interpretive nature of such analyses, I’m going to present quotes and factual changes between the game and TV show in the same context as George Lucas’s changes to Han Solo.
The greatest effect of Han Solo’s contrived benevolence (and ability to dodge lasers that would put Neo to shame) is found in his turning point in the narrative. Where he is presented with a choice (coming back to save Luke), and what he’s learned throughout the story influences that choice.
Joel is faced with a similar choice in The Last of Us, and due to the quotes and factual changes, I believe the Joel Neil created and the Joel Neil may have intended made that choice for completely different reasons because their core drives are completely different.
(Be mindful of extreme spoilers of the entire The Last of Us saga, including both games and the TV show, moving forward)
We’ll start with the core drive of the Joel Neil may have intended, the Joel in the show, because that core drive can be related to a quote from Neil.
In the show, Joel is driven by love. In the companion podcast to the show, Neil claims The Last of Us is “a love story” that explores what people will do when they love another person more than anything in the world.
Initially, this core drive is presented in relation to Joel’s daughter, Sarah. Certainly not uncommon for a father to love their daughter more than anything in the world.
And yet, the Joel Neil created, the Joel in the game, might actually love himself more than he loves his daughter, and this can be seen in the first major factual change in between the mediums: the prologue, or rather, the section where Sarah takes the lead.
Joel As A Father
Joel Miller in the game is a selfish piece of shit.
Literally from the moment Joel’s introduced we see that he’s left Sarah, his 12-year-old daughter, at home, alone, all day and almost all night. Not the sign of the best father.
As he’s walking in he’s talking about getting fired from his job. So he clearly wasn’t out all day working, and if he was working he was fucking up at it.
Then the next scene switches to Sarah’s POV in the first play sequence. Now, to preface, this next bit is something I only noticed after maybe my tenth playthrough, but it is a critical detail.
If you search around Sarah’s room while you’re controlling her, you find a note (it’s actually a birthday card she forgot to give Joel). That note reads:
“Dear Dad,
Let's see...
you're never around, you
hate the music I'm into, you
practically despise the movies I
like, and yet somehow you still
manage to be the best dad every year.
How do you do that?
Happy Birthday, pops!
Sarah.”
You’ll notice I specifically bolded the words, “you’re never around.”
Now, the fact that Sarah still says Joel’s the best dad ever is worth something, but now that I’m an adult, I feel like that’s mostly because Joel’s the only dad she’s ever known.
The core function of a parent in relation to their children is to keep them safe. If he’s never around, he is disregarding that function. He’s a bad father.
We literally saw him leaving her alone all day in the first scene of the game. Clearly, he does that frequently enough to where she mentions it in her birthday card to him…
…Then we see him do it again just a few moments later, as the infection is taking over.
Sarah is wandering through the house alone, seeing all these ominous signs like explosions in the distance and police cars speeding by, and then she finds Joel’s phone with a ton of messages from his brother Tommy that are clearly distressful.
So when the world is going to shit, Joel left his 12-year-old daughter alone, without taking his phone. If something were to happen to her she would have no way to contact him.
In the game, Joel’s clearly a bad father. Now the factual differences in the show:
In the show, instead of being a bad father Joel’s an incapable one. He needs Sarah to wake him up for work. He forgets to buy a birthday cake, but he’s there.
Also, Sarah is 14 in the show instead of 12. Not a huge difference, but with every passing year it’s more acceptable to leave a child at home alone, and on top of that, Joel knows she’s going to spend the afternoon at the neighbor’s house, so we know that he knows someone will be looking after her.
In the game, there is a note on the refrigerator when you’re controlling Sarah that just says:
“I’m going to be home late tonight. Go ahead and order food. See you in the morning”
Joel was content to let a 12-year-old fend for herself…
Furthermore, when the world is going to shit because of the infection, Joel leaves Sarah alone in the show as well, but only because he’s bailing Tommy out of jail.
Still not a great father move, but we know he takes his phone, and he didn’t just disappear like in the game, which leads to another important factual difference between the show and the game: Joel’s relationship with Tommy.
Joel & Tommy
Pre-cordyceps in the game, there isn’t too much to go on with Joel and Tommy. We know they live close to each other and have maintained a moderately close relationship.
They rode motorcycles across the country at some point in the past.
Joel is talking to Tommy about losing his job in the prologue.
However, that changes completely after the cordyceps hits. In the game, Joel is not interested in maintaining a relationship with Tommy after the infection.
He’s obviously bitter that Tommy joined the Fireflies based on what he says to Marlene when she first mentions him:
“Was that before or after he left your little militia group?”
Plus, Tommy’s last words to Joel before their reunion were:
“I don’t ever want to see your goddamn face again,” a request Joel was happy to honor until Ellie is forced into his care
In the show, their relationship is factually different following the cordyceps, and this communicates the difference in Joel’s core drives between the mediums.
In the show, Joel is ready to leave Boston with Tess for no other reason than to ensure Tommy’s safety. He’s willing to risk everything, travel from Boston to Wyoming, to save Tommy from some assumed danger all because Tommy hadn’t been on the radio in a couple weeks.
This is an intention stemming from Joel’s core drive of love. He loves Tommy and he will do anything to protect the one he loves.
In the game, Joel doesn’t even have any intention of leaving the Boston QZ because instead of catching him on a benevolent mission to save his brother at the start of the story, we catch him trying to reclaim a shipment of guns.
In the game, Joel would never have risked an interstate journey to save Tommy. No way. No how.
After Joel Loses Sarah…
You see, after his daughter is murdered on the day of the outbreak in the game, Joel is only concerned with survival and he continues his selfish intentions of putting himself before everyone. He’s all about self-interest.
He doesn’t care who he hurts or kills. As long as he is alive, nothing else matters. That’s why he’s after a shipment of guns, because he works as a smuggler in the QZ, bringing in anything as long as he gets paid.
In both the show and the game the QZ is crumbling to bits, and yet Joel in the game is chill with bringing in more guns. He’s obivously not selling them to the government, so he’s just stoking more violence in the QZ. What a stand-up dude right?
Then when the guns are stolen from him, he murders plenty of people to get them back without a second thought. Cause who cares right? As long as he’s alive.
Yes, he is with Tess in the show and the game so he does care about one person, but she is aligned with his selfishness in the game. She murders without inhibition as well, and she enables Joel as a murderer and torturer. They are a match made in selfish-piece-of-shit heaven.
The only reason Joel agrees to watch over Ellie in the game is because that’s the trade for Joel and Tess to get their guns back. They have no intention of leaving, they just want to stay in Boston surviving together without giving a shit about anyone else. Not Tommy or Ellie.
It’s only when they start to give a shit about more than that, when they start to give a shit about Ellie, Joel sees that giving a shit is a fast track to no more survival.
First Tess dies. Then every story point in the game after that demonstrates to Joel that caring about other people will just lead to more pain, and most likely, his death. The story shows him that acting out of self-interest is the right call.
And no portion of the story drives this home, in the game, more than when Joel encounters Bill.
Bill & Frank
Between the show and the game, the sections with Bill are antithetical, and in that opposing quality, they delineate Joel’s antithetical intentions.
In the game, Bill and Frank are not together when Joel reaches him. It seems they haven’t been together for quite some time.
It actually goes further than that. Not only are Bill and Frank not together, but Frank is dead, and he died because he became sick of Bill trying to keep him safe.
A note from Frank you find in the game reads:
“Well, Bill, I doubt you'd ever find this note cause you were too scared to ever make it to this part of town. But if for some reason you did, I want you to know I hated your guts. I grew tired of this shitty town and your set-in-your-ways attitude. I wanted more from life than this and you could never get that.
And that stupid battery you kept moaning about -- I got it. But I guess you were right. Trying to leave this town will kill me. Still better than spending another day with you.
Good Luck, Frank”
Joel finds this note after finding Frank hanging by his neck. He had to escape Bill’s overprotective ways and got bit by an infected in the process.
Now, what does this say to Joel in that scenario?
It says, that if you care about someone so much that you’ll do anything for them, they’ll just hate your guts and die anyway. So what’s the point? Might as well only care about yourself. At least then you’ll stay alive.
In the show, Bill and Frank are star-crossed lovers. They find each other in this crazy, post-apocalyptic world, and build what seems to be as perfect a life as humanly possible.
They grow strawberries together. They drink wine together. They host Joel and Tess at their house for picnics, and at the end of the episode, when Frank decides he’s going to end his life on his own terms after his body continues to deteriorate, Bill takes his own life as well.
They die in each other's arms together, and just before, Bill leaves a note for Joel saying that his mission is to do everything he can to protect the one he loves.
In this scenario, Joel sees that doing anything for the one you love will lead to a happy ending. Like even a happier ending than pretty much everyone gets in the non-infection-razed world of today.
He sees that the answer is being selfless.
Completely opposite.
And more than just the completely opposite intentions attached to Joel, the Bill and Frank sequence in the show tells the viewer that there is hope for love in this infection-razed world.
That even though all the facilities of civilization are gone, you can still live happily ever after.
In the game, the player doesn’t see one bit of hope for love at this point, and even beyond.
The quarantine zone is hopeless (hence why Joel and Tess murder and smuggle without restraint), except for the slight hope of Tess and Joel’s relationship, but that gets snuffed out when Tess dies. Then Joel finds the isolated Bill who drove away the person he loved. Then they go to Pittsburgh where Henry murders the person he loves the most, Sam.
The player, through Joel’s eyes, sees over and over that there is no hope in this world. Even though Ellie is supposed to be hope for the entire world due to her immunity, the story is attempting to beat that out of you.
That is until you arrive at Tommy’s Dam.
And when we arrive at Tommy’s Dam, we also arrive at the choice.
There Is Hope. What Now, Joel?
Like when Han Solo had to choose whether or not to attack the Death Star, whether to choose himself yeat again or to choose others, Joel is presented with the same choice at Tommy’s Dam in both the game and the show.
But due to the factual differences in what came before, every overlapping moment in this sequence is fucking outstanding in the game and falls completely and utterly flat in the show
Where in the game there is tension and release, the show is just more release. Like trying to empty a balloon that’s already empty so you tear holes in it.
I will still just play through the Tommy’s Dam section of the game on its own. If that section were an episode of television it would be perfect.
In the game, we arrive at the dam and we expect the reunion between Tommy and Joel to be contentious (remember their last words to each other) and so when Tommy sees Joel and embraces him, we are doused in hope.
Even after Joel has been selfish for so long, Tommy still loves him (I watched the scene again while writing this piece and I got fucking chills).
Tommy guides Joel around the dam and we see the dam is not only hope for their relationship, it’s hope for the entire world. Tommy’s new wife (more hope) Maria has built a functioning civilization in the post cordyceps world.
And yet, even in the face of this hope, we see that Joel is still Joel. Only interested in caring about himself.
First, Joel declines a picture of him and Sarah that Tommy found at their old house, unwilling to take the risk of remembering what it means to care about another person (even in his own way of being a bad father).
Then Joel takes it to the next level and tries to guilt Tommy into taking Ellie. Not out of care for Ellie, but out of his own self-interest. He knows he can survive better without her, and so he wants to get rid of her.
Remember, in the game the only thing Joel has seen is that caring about people is pointless in this world.
Tommy won’t take Ellie because he cares about his wife and what they’ve built. This triggers Joel, and Joel invents some pseudo-debt that Tommy owes him, but Tommy stands up to him and Joel reacts violently, a.k.a. the only thing he knows how to do.
Watching Joel be completely unaffected by Tommy’s love brings about so much gut-wrenching emotion in the game. The hope is snatched away and any humanity Joel may have had vanishes as we see him try to discard Ellie.
Then after some premier action in the game, Tommy sees how Ellie and Joel are together, and he feels he has no choice but to take Ellie.
Because Tommy is the only one who knows why Joel acts purely out of self-interest in order to survive. It’s because he lost Sarah.
Tommy saw what that loss did to Joel, and Tommy, the one who is capable of love still, the one who loves his brother, loves his brother enough to prevent Joel from having to go through that again.
Then comes the choice. Joel’s choice.
Ellie discovers Joel’s plan to pawn her off, she runs away, and when Joel confronts her, Ellie explains why she’s so upset:
“Admit you wanted to get rid of me the whole time,” she says to Joel.
And she is absolutely correct. Joel wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible so he could continue acting purely out of self-interest in order to survive.
Joel won’t admit it, but he knows it’s true.
Then Ellie shares that she now knows why it’s true: Sarah.
Bombshell. This little girl is tearing this grown man a new asshole. Getting right to his core wound and laying it bare for everyone to see, including himself.
Joel’s instinct is to shut down, to push her away.
“Ellie you are treading on some mighty thin ice here.”
And when she tries to relate to him, he completely rejects her feelings.
“You have no idea what loss is.”
So the only thing she has left is to share her own core wound, her greatest fear.
“Everyone I have cared for has either died or left me. Everyone fucking except for you! So don’t tell me that I would be safer with someone else because the truth is I would just be more scared.”
My god.
Remember how I said I got chills from watching the Joel and Tommy reunion while writing this?
Well, I watched that scene from the game again while writing this. Twice.
I cried. Twice.
It’s not just the most emotionally-destroying scene in any video game ever, it might be one of the best exchanges ever written between two characters in any medium.
And even though Joel triples down on his selfishness in that moment, pushing her away again. We find out after another action sequence, that Ellie’s pure and unfiltered honesty changed something within him.
Joel decides, after reaching Jackson, that he is going to give up his selfish ways and instead act in the interest of another for the first time in 20 years.
Fuck.
It still flummoxes me how Neil put such a story into a video game, a medium that for so long was entirely discounted by the artistic community vis a vis drama and emotion.
It’s equally flummoxing how when Neil transferred the story to TV, it has less than one percent of the emotional resonance. It’s almost embarrassing.
Let’s go back to when Joel and Ellie arrive in Jackson, this time in the TV show.
Firstly, we already knew there was hope for happily ever after in the show because of Bill and Frank, from both an emotional and logistical point of view, so finding the dam provided no real hope. It’s just a bigger version of Bill’s compound.
Second, Joel was going to leave Boston to find Tommy anyway so when they see each other and hug it out, there is no emotional effect. It’s what we expected rather than it being a surprise like in the game.
Then when Joel guilts Tommy into taking Ellie, it’s because he’s scared that the last little bit of their journey together is too big of a risk.
He doesn’t want to risk failing Ellie (who is now the one he loves) because he’s too slow and old or some shit.
But regardless of how slow and old he is, he’s willing to risk traveling across the whole goddamn country to find Tommy in the first place.
Why would a couple hundred miles to Colorado be so much worse all of a sudden?
They’ve been taking giant risks this whole time and turned out fine. Joel literally protected Ellie from a horde of infected with a fucking sniper rifle in the show. Why is a journey that Tommy himself says isn’t all that dangerous so terrifying?
It just felt shallow and lazy and lacking in substance.
But Tommy still agrees to take Ellie again because his care for Joel is the same across both mediums. He doesn’t want Joel to experience the same loss he did for Sarah.
And now we arrive at the choice, the confrontation between Joel and Ellie again, and like an experiment under the scientific method, this scene serves as the control group because the dialogue is almost identical.
The important lines are all there.
The line about not knowing what loss is.
The link about Ellie being more scared with someone else.
But even with identical dialogue, the scene is a shadow of its source material.
Because when Joel makes the choice to keep Ellie around, he’s not actually shifting his character at all. He’s doing what he’s already been doing the whole game.
At this point, Joel has spent the entire show doing everything he can to protect the person he loves the most, acting selflessly, and then he makes the choice to do it again.
In reality, it’s even less substantive because Joel doesn’t even make the choice himself like he did in the game. He instead cops out and gives this half-choice to Ellie.
“You deserve a choice,” Joel says before Ellie throws him her bag.
NO SHIT SHE’S GONNA CHOOSE TO GO WITH YOU. SHE JUST TOLD YOU THAT.
It takes what is one of the best character arcs in the history of anything ever and turns it into a fucking fourth-grade English assignment…
…And I Blame The George Lucas Compulsion.
Whether he intended to or not, Neil created a character who is a selfish piece of shit.
Which is why when he chooses to do something that a selfish piece of shit wouldn’t do it’s soooooo good.
The same way George Lucas created a character (Han Solo) that would happily kill out of self-interest and abandon a rebellion that needs him, which is why when he chooses to not abandon that rebellion it’s soooooooooooooo good.
But for whatever reason, both of them, after seeing their creation for what it is, decided to fuck with it, but I guess they did it out of love right?
Neil did all that could to protect someone he loves, the character he created. The character that is the reason anyone knows who he is.
Neil didn’t like seeing Joel as a selfish piece of shit. So he changed him into something else.
Except given how well the show is resonating, no one is going to make a shirt that says “Joel is actually a piece of shit.”
Well, maybe I will.
And if I do, and someone out there in the world says “actually Joel’s just protecting the people he loves!”
Well there won’t be any form of violence coming from me as a result.
But I would immediately realize that that person is missing out on one of the greatest character arcs of all time.
What a shame, Neil.