Gabriel Luna as Tommy in The Last of Us.Image: HBO
The word “reshoot” means different things to different people. Some assume they are a sign of a troubled production that needs to fix its own bugs. Others see them as a boon, a rare chance to go back and improve on something with added perspective. Both points of view can apply depending on the situation, but with HBO’s The Last of Us, new recordings fall squarely into this second category. They gave the show even more emotion than the game it’s based on.
Speaking to the PlayStation Blog, Last of Us showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann revealed that several scenes in the first segment of the premiere episode, which focuses on Joel and his family on the day that the Virus spreading, have been reshot to add more specific character. A decision that will later pay off for the audience.
“That breakfast scene [in the premiere] is one of those scenes where initially Tommy wasn’t there when we shot it and we had a budget to reshoot some of the stuff in the pilot episode and that’s one of those ideas that we had,” Druckmann said site . “We put him in that breakfast scene, and that call where Joel has to get him out of jail was also part of the reshoot.”
Since Tommy Joel’s main motivation was to get out of the quarantine zone with Ellie and who will play a bigger role in moving forward, introducing him earlier and giving him more to do than in the original video game version, it felt like one of those cases to be in which The team was able to give the game a little boost.
“You see pretty quickly that Tommy is more than capable of taking care of himself, in fact it is Tommy who saves Joel’s life [in the premiere]’ Mazin said. “And this interesting concept of who needs to save and who will save is a topic that we’re going to bring up again and again.”
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Visit the PlayStation Blog to read not only more from Mazin and Druckmann, but also from Gabriel Luna who plays Tommy and Pedro Pascal who plays Joel. The Naughty Dog game developers also explain major changes and decisions made in the game’s opening sequence, which then became the first act of the show.
The first episode of The Last of Us is streaming now.
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