The character of Joel, interpreted by Pedro Pascal in the HBO adaptation, will have some differences with that of the game The Last of Us.
Naughty Dog’s video game is already renowned for its realism. The Last of Us is a nervous, brutal work and the characters (Ellie and Joel) are put to the test. But the format of a video game also implies that the heroes and heroines remain very resistant. Except when playing in “realistic mode”, Ellie and Joel can survive multiple bullet holes and many other injuries without suddenly interrupting the game.
For the series adaptation, on HBO, expected in January 2023, realism will have to be pushed much further. Craig Mazin, co-creator of the TV series, shared some details about Joel.
“His knees hurt every time he gets up”
In this post-apocalyptic universe where a zombie epidemic has caused the world to collapse, young Ellie is a key to the survival of humanity. And it is Joel, a former mercenary, who is in charge of his protection. Thus begins this gripping travelogue in a destroyed and dangerous America.
But to get there, Joel rolled his bump well. He is in his fifties, a soldier worn down by life and by physically exhausting missions. In the HBO series, all of this had significant bodily impacts on the character:
- He hears less well in one ear
- He has pain in his knees
Craig Mazin justified these choices to the New Yorker in an interview published on December 26. He says he explained to Neil Druckmann (co-director of the games, involved in the development of the HBO production) that the Joel of the series should be ” less resilient “.
He details: We had a conversation about the physical consequences of Joel’s life. Thus, he is hard of hearing on one side because of a gunshot. His knees hurt every time he gets up. We could have taken a direction à la Tom Cruise, which can do everything. But I like my middle-aged characters to be middle-aged. Clearly, Joel is no longer much of a superhero in the adaptation.
“If it’s the end of the world, everyone thinks we’re all becoming road warriors. This is not the case ! »
Craig Mazin
And the pandemic has had an impact on this more human realistic treatment of the characters – because with the covid, humanity has experienced a health catastrophe. ” If it’s the end of the world, everyone thinks we’re all becoming road warriors. This is not the case ! Nobody wears those leather clothes with spikes “says Craig Mazin (referring here to Mad Max). ” People are actually trying, as best they can, to regain what they had before amidst the craziness of their new condition. »
In general, the series will have a slightly different approach to violence, and in particular to the act of killing. ” When you play a section [du jeu], you kill people, and when you die, you are sent back to the checkpoint. All these people are back, moving the same way “, explains Craig Mazin to the New Yorker, to mean that at this stage of a game, these secondary characters are no longer necessarily perceived as human beings. The series must therefore, according to him, increase the weight of these deadly encounters. ” Seeing a person die, I think, should be a lot different than seeing pixels die. »
Despite these differences, and all those of which we are not yet aware, the images and trailers show an important fidelity to the universe of the game.
