The Last Of Us Movie: 12 Reasons An Adaptation Is A Horrible Idea

By Daniel Rafacz /

5. Interactive Story Moments

The high five after crossing the dam, the snippy dialogue when moving the grand piano, the conversation about a child€™s grave, and the discovery of a card in Sarah€™s room: what did all of these moments have in common? They were just a few of the many interactive story moments and conversations that could only be initiated by the press of a button. If a player missed these instances, or chose not to initiate them, his or her gaming experience would be quite different from someone who did experience these sequences. This interactivity and variety within a game really separates it from a movie which, barring something like a director€™s cut of a film, exists in one definitive version. These interactive moments provided interesting, poignant, or funny background information or further fleshed-out the motivations or the mindsets of the characters. They added to the authenticity of the world and to the people that inhabited it. We learned so much about Joel and Ellie with these moments and got to observe first-hand their growing relationship. Obviously, these are the types of things that games excel at, being an interactive medium. But the subtlety and intricacy of these moments would be sorely missed in a film adaptation.