Sacred Symbols+, Episode 451 | The Last of Us (HBO) Review Discussion and Spoilercast (Season 2, Episode 4) (Video)
Added 2025-05-05 20:59:54 +0000 UTCFor your viewing pleasure.
Comments
To also offer positive feedback, I thought Colin's point about the news room segment and how it went a long way to demonstrate the actual TLoU gameplay in the show was a really inciteful observation.
Matt Hartzell
2025-05-07 20:25:19 +0000 UTC"I'm going to look at every change through the lens of 'does it make the story better or not?', because if it doesn't make the story better, why are you changing anything?" This admission might capture entirely the issues with this review series. This seems like a really naive way to approach this. The answer to "why would you change anything?" is BECAUSE IT'S A TV SHOW ADAPTATION OF A VIDEOGAME. It's a 30 or 40 hour game being adapted into hour-long episodes. OF COURSE there will be changes. To quote a Colin-ism in my best Colin voice, "What don't you get?" I even think Colin has been moderating these conversations in a more balanced way since some of the feedback after episode 2, AND I think I also agree with some of the criticisms around pacing and they "I'm a dad" moment. But like, the decision about what to change is a LOT more complicated than just "is it better or worse than the game." To go even further, is the goal to make the story "better"? Is that even the goal of Neil or Craig? I would assume the goal is to skillfully capture and translate the overall narrative of the game along with the themes that the story explores and the questions it raises about the human experience. I have not seen a single change that detracts from any of that in a major way (thus far). I don't know. Just feels like these episodes continue to be a lot of griping. It's straight WILD to me that a show of this insane level of quality is being made about an IP that we deeply love and the main takeaway from these discussions is mostly a list of complaints. I don't get it. I would highly recommend the official HBO podcast with Neil and Craig that is hosted by Troy Baker, where they discuss deeply each episode, the choices and changes they made, and why they made them, to add more context to the LSM discussions.
Matt Hartzell
2025-05-07 20:23:54 +0000 UTChaving been to seattle a few weeks ago and messed around at capitol hill, there's is a rather large convergence of pride there. there's even a street that's painted rainbow in the division. not sure what the reasoning of explicitly including capitol hill is, but that was at least accurate to the actual neighborhood or whatever you call a section of a major city.
K. Huntington
2025-05-07 07:56:17 +0000 UTC
