Why is Last of Us so popular?
Some of you may have already heard about this, either as a series or a video game. Either way, they both have something in common: it can be used to procrastinate at God level.
Previously I wrote an article about how not to overwhelm yourself. Now if you want to slow down and just think a bit, this series is your best choice. I would not recommend the game, since it’s too long, too catchy, and you wouldn’t do any learning, which is exactly the other end of the spectrum where we want to find the “Goldilocks zone”.
The Last of Us is a series that was released in Jan 2023 in the USA. Since I should be giving you an overall opinion and outlook of the series, it would be wise to start by categorizing it by different points. I have watched many post-apocalyptic movies, and series, read books on the same topic, and have written essays about it as well. Many of my friends were of the same opinion that The
Last of Us is just a copy of The Walking Dead. I refuse to agree with that since the series focuses more on the moral decisions the characters make throughout the 9 episodes than the fact that there are zombies everywhere you’ve got to survive.
Nine episodes in a season might sound a bit few, but each episode is about 80-90 minutes long which creates a lot of place for dramatic scenes, still, scenes where we can absorb the shocking events, etc. I am deliberately not writing anything concrete so that you can go ahead and watch the series on HBO, however, do let me share with you some parts and morals.
The protagonists of the story are Joel and Ellie who need to get from A to B in the US (yes, in all the American apocalyptic stories “The World” means The US) and fight against evil (people who turned into zombie-like monsters by a certain type of fungi). Throughout their journey, they encounter many difficulties not just due to the (let’s just call them) zombies, but places, moral issues, hunger, etc. as well.
Ellie is a 14-year-old who seems to be really worn out by the harsh conditions she had to grow up in. So far, it sounds like any other stories, including The Walking Dead, The Road, and so on and so on. What makes this series special, is the way we slowly get to know more and more not just about our main characters, but about the history of a certain scene, situation, or place too.
The series left me speechless but most of the time breathless. The shocking depictions they managed to put on screen about the scars and beheadings, kills, etc. lead their way up to the nomination board of the CAFTCAD award that goes to the Canadian costume artists and designers in the international industry of filmmaking.
In most of the cases when it comes to stories – be it fairy tales, bedtime stories, movies, series, etc. – it is always about the fight between good and bad, and at the end, to make us feel good, the good always wins. In this case, I cannot decide, since it is like an open- ended question. You are constantly struggling who to cheer for, which side to stand.
You are constantly questioning yourself “What would I do in this situation? Wouldn’t it tear my soul apart into millions of pieces?”. If you want to test yourself, go and watch it now, I’ll bet you, you won’t regret it.
However, I do want to finish my writing with one quote from the series, which I think holds for every aspect of life:
“I’ll follow you anywhere you go. But there’s no halfway with this. We finish what we started”
Have you seen Last of Us?
Kiemelt, Kep1, Kep2, Kep3
