{"id":617395,"date":"2023-03-13T09:49:28","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T14:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/13\/the-idea-for-the-last-of-us-big-season-one-finale-cameo-almost-led-to-another-game\/"},"modified":"2023-03-13T09:49:28","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T14:49:28","slug":"the-idea-for-the-last-of-us-big-season-one-finale-cameo-almost-led-to-another-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/13\/the-idea-for-the-last-of-us-big-season-one-finale-cameo-almost-led-to-another-game\/","title":{"rendered":"The idea for The Last of Us\u2019 big season one finale cameo almost led to another game"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While HBO\u2019s The Last of Us<\/em><\/a> <\/em>brought quite a few of the original video game\u2019s actors back for cameo roles throughout the first season, the show was always careful not to draw too much attention to them so as not to pull focus from the larger story being told. But for its season 1 finale, The Last of Us <\/em>pulled out one of the bigger guns for a tense and moving scene. It\u2019s a moment that series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann<\/a> wanted to capture the ethos of the entire series.<\/p>\n

Heads up, this post contains spoilers for The Last of Us\u2019 season 1 finale.<\/em><\/p>\n

Though most of \u201cLook for the Light\u201d takes place in The Last of Us<\/em>\u2019 present as Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) complete the last leg of their journey to Salt Lake City, the episode opens in the not-so-distant past just as Ellie\u2019s about to be born. Aside from the facts that she\u2019s very much in labor, on the run from infected, and armed only with a pocket knight, \u201cLook for the Light\u201d doesn\u2019t reveal all that much about Ellie\u2019s mother Anna (Ashley Johnson) as she runs for her life and finds refuge in a small, deserted house somewhere out in the countryside.<\/p>\n

The episode does establish, though, how Anna gave birth to Ellie while also fighting off an infected that managed to bite her while she and her daughter were still connected via an umbilical cord. Harrowing as it is, the flashback to Ellie\u2019s birth and how Anna entrusted her close friend\u00a0Marlene (Merle Dandrige) with protecting her newborn baby both suggest an interesting reason for Ellie\u2019s immunity to the cordyceps infection and makes Marlene\u2019s fate in \u201cLook for the Light\u201d that much more impactful.<\/p>\n

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But according to The Last of Us<\/em> showrunner Craig Mazin and co-creator Neil Druckmann, their reasons for opening \u201cLook for the Light\u201d on Anna and wanting Johnson to portray her were always much bigger than simply wanting to spell out some of what makes Ellie so special. When we recently spoke with the creative duo at a junket ahead of the show\u2019s season finale, Druckmann revealed that he\u2019d actually begun thinking about Anna and how he might explore her story back when the first The Last of Us <\/em>initially came out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were wrapping up the game, there were these opportunities to do other pieces of art or storytelling to help promote the game,\u201d Druckmann recalled. \u201cSo we did this comic book called American Dreams <\/em>\u2014 that\u2019s where we developed Riley \u2014 which led to the Left Behind<\/em> [DLC], and there was an opportunity to do an animated short.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Troy Baker disappears into a thousand roles, but Ashley sounds like Ellie, and Ellie sounds like Ashley<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Druckmann quickly set to writing a script about Anna giving birth that he described as a \u201clittle character drama that felt like it spoke to the game\u2019s themes of parental love for their child, and how much you\u2019re willing to do even when you\u2019re at death\u2019s door.\u201d When plans for an animated short failed to materialize, Druckmann entered talks with a new game studio to \u201cpotentially do [Anna\u2019s story] as a whole other game,\u201d and when those plans also<\/em> fell through, he began considering a live-action short that could star Ashley Johnson as the lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At some point, Druckmann reached out to Johnson, and the two discussed the possibility of working together again on another The Last of Us <\/em>project. Between their conflicting schedules, though, it seemed like they wouldn\u2019t be able to make things work. For a while, Druckmann thought his idea might never be realized. But when the opportunity for a The Last of Us <\/em>series presented itself, and Druckmann met Mazin, the idea resurfaced organically as part of a conversation that Mazin described as \u201cone of the most fulfilling moments\u201d of their collaborative process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI often say, Troy Baker disappears into a thousand roles; I can\u2019t believe he has all the different characters he plays,\u201d Mazin described. \u201cBut Ashley sounds like Ellie, and Ellie sounds like Ashley. She\u2019s already this, like, quasi-mythological creature to me, and to see her giving birth to herself \u2014 in a sense \u2014\u00a0and to create that genetic connection between her performance as Ellie, and the origin story of Bella-as-Ellie was just profound.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Though the scene when Anna gives birth strongly implies that Ellie\u2019s immunity to cordyceps in the present is due to exposure to the fungus through umbilical cord blood, Druckmann said that \u201cLook for the Light\u201d isn\u2019t meant to \u201canswer that conclusively.\u201d It\u2019s interesting to consider how knowing more about the circumstances of Ellie\u2019s birth might have charged Marlene\u2019s approach to searching for a cure, and by extension, her ultimate fate in \u201cLook for the Light.\u201d But rather than focusing on how things might have played out differently, or the specifics of why Ellie\u2019s special, what Druckmann wants viewers to take away from the finale\u2019s flashback is a deeper appreciation for all the women around Ellie who wanted her to do big things with her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think more importantly than that is it builds the relationship between Marlene and Anna,\u201d Druckmann said. \u201cKnowing how close she was with Anna, and that Anna\u2019s dying wish was like, \u2018take care of my kid,\u2019 I think gives more weight and maybe more tragedy to Marlene and the sacrifice she\u2019s trying to make for the betterment of mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Charles Pulliam-Moore<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While HBO\u2019s The Last of Us brought quite a few of the original video game\u2019s actors back for cameo roles throughout the first season, the show was always careful not to draw too much attention to them so as not to pull focus from the larger story being told. But for its season 1 finale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":617396,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[795,46,43697],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-617395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-season","category-technology","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}