The Last Of Us Season 2 Is Going To Fix A Significant Complaint From Fans
Fans have been complaining that the landscape in The Last of Us doesn't match the terrain it's trying to be, and showrunner Craig Mazin said season 2 will do better.
Though HBO’s The Last Of Us just aired its season finale to fantastic reviews, the show is far from perfect. One major gripe about the adaptation of the hit 2013 PlayStation game cites the geographically inconsistent backgrounds, especially in the former half of the season, as pointed out by Stephen King via Twitter. According to a write-up by Yahoo Entertainment, showrunner Craig Mazin has heard his audience’s complaints and vowed to do better in season 2 and beyond.
Craig Mazin specified that much of the challenges regarding the show’s geography stemmed from shooting in and around Alberta, Canada, which lends itself nicely to settings such as the snowy mountains of Wyoming and Colorado, but struggled to act as a suitable stand-in for locations such as Western Massachusetts or Kansas City, Missouri. When describing his proudest behind-the-scenes moments on the set of The Last Of Us, Mazin pointed to episode 5’s bloater encounter, which took place in a suburb outside of Kansas City, in a town that was entirely constructed by the crew.
Given the diversity of foliage and topography present in Alberta, it was also particularly difficult to replicate areas in and around Boston for the series.
If The Last Of Us‘ second season chooses to faithfully adapt the second PlayStation game in the series, 2020’s The Last Of Us Part 2, the show will be taking Ellie and company across a series of diverse landscapes such as Seattle, Washington, and Santa Barbara, California. In order to reconcile these diverse climates and cityscapes, it will likely take a significant budget increase and some additional ingenuity from the behind-the-scenes team. Of course, there is always the option to swap locations from the game with cities that fit the shooting schedule better, as The Last Of Us traded the Pittsburgh portion of its story for Kansas City in the series.
Of course, the series saw very few major complaints from viewers, as Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey expertly brought the characters of Joel and Ellie to life in their faithful portrayals while making expertly placed changes in order to elevate the material. With Craig Mazin and Co-President of Naughty Dog Neil Druckmann behind the wheel of The Last Of Us‘ second season and beyond, the promise to improve the geographic accuracy of the series feels very much genuine and trustworthy. The pair have promised only to make significant changes to the source material when the changes would serve to benefit the story, such as the elongated romance displayed between tertiary characters such as Nick Offerman‘s Bill and Murray Bartlett’s Frank.
Overall, Craig Mazin has granted his own production team a B+ for their work on the first season, displaying just how massive his expectations are for the next chapter of the acclaimed show. Before signing on to helm The Last Of Us, Mazin was best known for his work creating HBO’s Chernobyl, so his lofty aspirations are well-earned and likely highly respected by the producers at HBO. The Last Of Us Part 2 has gone down as one of the most groundbreaking games in history in the years since its release, leaving a lot of work for Craig Mazin in his team.
