Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Since its launch in January, the "Last Survivor" series produced by HBO has received quite positive reviews at home and abroad. On Douban and IMDb, although the number of participants was different, the final scores were almost the same, with a high score of more than 9.

The game adaptation of film and television works has always been very prone to word-of-mouth crisis, and "the Last Survivor" has passed several hurdles that are most likely to turn over. The two episodes recently broadcast have also continued the previous scoring momentum, and it seems that there is a tendency to end with such a high score.

This kind of performance is very rare in game adaptation film and television. Especially considering that the game adaptation film "the mysterious Sea", which is also from the naughty Dog Studio, barely reached 6.3 points in Douban, it is all the more necessary for us to review the successful "Last Survivor" series. In what ways did you get it right?

1. Before you start writing, you should first make sure that you really understand the game, and it is best to become a true love party thoroughly. Only in this way can we ensure that our next adaptation can retain the essence of the game. "

This is Craig Maxine, one of the writers of "the Last Survivor" (Craig Mazin,HBO "Chernobyl"), talking about how to start adapting the game.

Maxine's words sound very familiar, and the most common point of game adaptation of film and television works is "disrespect for the original". At first glance, this seems to be a matter of attitude. It seems that the screenwriter adapted by the knife plays a good hand because he despises the game works.

However, in the view of some film and television practitioners, this is a cross-industry technical problem, and what is most needed to adapt the game is to boldly develop and discard the game content.

This is the view of the team that initially tried to adapt the Last Survivor. In 2014, Sony's Mubao Pictures tried to work with naughty dogs to adapt "the Last Survivor" into a movie. At this time, Mubao has released a series of movies adapted from the game "biochemical Evil" that have a poor reputation but are very popular at the box office.

I believe that domestic audiences are already familiar with the appearance of Mila Jovovich in it. In their view, if "the Last Survivor" is to be adapted into a film for a wide audience, the best way is to simplify the plot of the game's almost road movie, extract some of the main characters, and put them into a popcorn movie full of hot action scenes.

The original plot is too long and complex for a film, and the game is close to the atmosphere of survival horror, because the audience is too narrow, which will greatly affect the box office.

Another game series of naughty dogs, "mysterious Sea", is adapted from this "Hollywood blockbuster" model. The film, released in 2022, restores the story framework of "protagonist partners solving mysteries, defeating enemies and looking for treasure" and pays homage to several classic action scenes in the game. however, the imbalance between narrative and action parts leads to the thinness of characters, lack of growth and emotional portrayal, and villains go through the formality without questioning "how greed aroused by treasure corrupts people" in the game.

The word-of-mouth of the mysterious Sea Film, which misappropriated the classic movie "the mysterious Sea" in the original plot, barely passed, but it also grossed more than $400 million at the global box office, making it the fifth highest-grossing game adaptation film in history.

It is precisely because of "Business" that the film team that starts to adapt the game often gives priority to how to make a qualified commercial film, and it may also be important to be faithful to the original, but it is not worth the risk of losing money.

Because of this, the huge disagreement between Mubao Pictures and Neil Druckmann, the creator of "the Last Survivor," eventually stalled the plan to adapt the film.

By contrast, this is the biggest difference between Masin, who is in charge of adapting "the Last Survivor" into a TV series, and the rest of his peers-he was a loyal player of "the Last Survivor" before he took over the adaptation work.

He firmly believes that the success of the Last Survivor game lies not in the action scene of Heroes vs. fungal Monsters, but in the players' experience of the growth of the protagonists and the changes in the relationship between the characters on this journey. As a player, he was moved by the story, and as a screenwriter, he was sure to show the story to the TV audience.

Twenty years later, when Joel called "baby" to the goods he delivered, his dead heart came back to life. Maxine and Druckerman met during the production of the game "Last Survivor: part II," when Maxine had just finished the critically acclaimed screenwriting of Chernobyl.

The two met late and quickly pushed forward the adaptation of the TV series "the Last Survivor". If it is half successful to find the right person, then the next thing the creators have to face is the technical problems that do exist in the adaptation. Judging from the episodes that have been broadcast so far, they have also succeeded in the second half.

two。 Playing like a movie does not mean a good movie. Although "cinematic narrative" is synonymous with naughty dog studios in recent years, it is definitely not a good idea to copy the game content into a TV series.

The fundamental reason is that playing and watching are two completely different experiences. Players manipulate the characters of the game and actively perceive everything in the game from the beginning to the end. the content of the game will have differences in detail, speed and so on because of the player's operation. As a game, when the creator gives the player the freedom to manipulate, the priority of narrative has given way to the play experience.

In order to let players enjoy a smooth play experience, naughty dogs think of a lot of ways. They have an unwritten rule-"Don't use theatrical animation until you have to, and keep the handle in the player's hand as much as possible." "

In their view, when players put the controller down, they get out of the play experience. Therefore, it takes less than three minutes from the player to click to start the game to be able to play. During these three minutes, the game briefly shows the world of the protagonist Joel and his relationship with his brother and daughter through animation. Next, players began to operate Joel's daughter Sarah, waiting for Joel to come home in the face of disaster.

In the game, even if the character sits in the car, players are still free to adjust their perspective and control where they look, and in TV dramas, the same segment does not appear until 20 minutes after the first episode.

Before that, the audience will see Sarah get up, make breakfast, go to school, prepare a birthday present for Joel and go to the neighbor's house. Wait, wait, They are all original characters of the show, and through a seemingly calm but undercurrent day, the audience can feel the whole process in which the calm reality is shattered step by step by the disaster.

In fact, similar segments have long existed in the settings of game development, but eventually gave way to the play experience and did not stay in the official game: it is hard to imagine what it would be like for players to be forced to watch an animation that cannot be skipped for more than 20 minutes before starting the game.

However, the audience of the show, especially those in the first episode, tend to be patient with the rhythm of the story. As the saying goes, "the progress bar reveals everything", viewers have a rough expectation of what they will see in the first five minutes, half an hour, or even near the end of an episode. Viewers can accept that screenwriters spend a lot of time laying the groundwork and even digging holes-just remember to fill in the holes later.

The original lines of the first episode are echoed in the third episode: why didn't Joel get infected in the first place? He doesn't eat carbon water. in addition, the adaptation of the game content is not only increased, but also the adaptation of the early enemy Robert is particularly successful. In the game, Robert, as a small leader of the smuggler who was quickly defeated by the players, exists for the players to finish the tutorial, be familiar with the operation, and meet the protagonist Joel and the heroine Ellie after his death.

Generally speaking, if too much story information is inserted in the game tutorial stage, it is easy for beginners to take care of one or the other, either they can't remember some of the game mechanism, or they ignore the key plot.

There is no similar problem in the TV series, in which Joel finds Robert dead when he finds him dead. This clue briefly shows Joel's identity in the post-hijacked world and then neatly ends and returns to the main line, which is called "a little bit more detailed".

3. It's a good thing to be considerate of others, but don't change too often. When players are thoroughly immersed in the world of the game characters, they gain not only a sense of substitution, but also a pair of shackles: players tend to perceive the game world only from the perspective of the characters.

By contrast, the audience of the show is a bystander, even if they care about the protagonists in the story, it does not prevent them from switching back and forth between different people, different places and even different times of the story. Flashbacks and flashbacks and switching of perspectives are common narrative methods in TV dramas, but in games, it is easy to destroy the player's experience.

The voice of the player: "if you are alone, don't move, let me strangle you from behind." "A typical example is the human enemies encountered by players in the game. Their behavior shows players what kind of alienation the human society encounters for the rest of their lives. However, the vast majority of these enemies are unnamed "passers-by" for players to kill. Only a very small number of leaders and enemies have rich images, and even if players can understand a small part of their life stories, they know it through the characters they operate.

Whether it is laying the groundwork for a large number of plots before the battle, playing large flashback animations after the battle, or even allowing players to switch to the enemy for operation, it is a risky way to design the game.

Even if the designer's intention is to expect players to find similarities between the two rival characters while playing, the controversy caused by this design can be imagined.

This is the reason for the controversy in the second half of the Last Survivor: part II although there are players who can match the airwaves with the designer, but a considerable number of players feel as if they have been forcibly pulled out of the character they were previously immersed in. and then press into the body of another character, forced to think of others.

On the rating website Metacritic, the positive rate of players in the first generation of "Last Survivor" games is more than 90%, while the current positive reviews of "Last Survivor: part II" are barely more than half, and a considerable part of the bad reviews focus on the aversion to the game forcing players to change roles.

Similar episodes are used in TV dramas, although writers are also required to play storytelling skills, but the effect is often not as uncomfortable as games.

The TV series "the Last Survivor" spends a considerable amount of space in the two episodes, so let's look at the world from the perspective of Catherine, the leader of hostile forces. The TV original character, like a fat kindergarten teacher, reinvented himself after losing a loved one, liberating the people of Kansas City from the brutal rule of the Federal disaster Relief Agency, but has since established a new tyranny.

The audience can not only see how ruthless she is in dealing with her enemies, but also imagine that if there had been no catastrophe, she might have been a kind neighbor around us, at least not to this extent. Her dedication to justice and the tragedy engulfed by revenge have created a villain who can be perfectly integrated into the story of the Last Survivor.

At first, the eldest sister will make the audience wonder why the leader is her, and the subsequent plot will give the answer. Throughout the adaptation of the original game by the episode of "the Last Survivor", they have made appropriate subtraction in view of the differences between the game and the TV series. At the same time, the gaps between the plot milestones are filled in in a way closer to the extended version of the director's editing, giving full play to the strengths of the TV series and complementing based on the core theme of the game. Rather than a "parallel world" that starts anew.

Of course, as outstanding as the adaptation is the performance of the actors. The crew specially encouraged the leading actors not to play games in advance in order to encourage the actors to play freely. Good performance often comes from the actor's own understanding of the role, rather than the imitation of the existing object.

At the end of the first episode, Joel, played by Pedro Pascal, is caught by soldiers under curfew while transporting Ellie and is once again pointed to the head by a bright flashlight and rifle, uncovering the scar of losing his daughter 20 years ago. Before he rushed to the soldier and punched him to death, Joel's face flashed not with anger, but with imperceptible grief and fragility. Such details do not exist in the original game, but the icing on the cake of the actor himself.

Pascal made countless contributions to the show. Just two episodes later, HBO announced an early renewal of the second season. Considering that the first season will cover all the main lines of the original game, it means that the second season is likely to involve the controversial content of the second game. Even if it is acceptable for new audiences to come into contact with the series from the beginning of the series, it remains to be seen whether the old players who were hurt by the game will buy it.

At the end of the Last Survivor: part II, Ellie recalled the last night she talked to Joel and said, "I don't think I'll ever forgive you, but I'm willing to try." "

"I am very happy. "replied Joel.

If HBO's second season can continue its current success, it may be able to satisfy a new audience and give players who once loved the series another try.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag), author: Weng Xin

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