HBO’S The Last of Us Cinema Experience and Episode 1 review – a Masterpiece

a picture of the actors in their roles for Joel and Ellie on a tarnished background where you can see cordyceps vines growing

This article has originally been featured on my Patreon page.

Hello dear readers!

Last night, Alina and I were fortunate enough to experience the first episode of the HBO Original series The Last of Us at the cinema. We won two tickets at the pre-premiere in a contest organized by HBO MAX on Facebook. The nice thing is that the winners were chosen based on their creative skills, not only on pure luck.

In case you are one of the 10 people on the planet who does not know what I’m talking about, I can tell you that The Last of Us is a 2013 action-adventure video game from Naughty Dog and PlayStation which has been successfully adapted now into a series for HBO by the game director Neil Druckmann and Chernobyl’s creator, Craig Mazin.

So, after a day of work for both Alina and me, we grabbed some salads, drank our afternoon coffees and headed for the cinema at around 5:30 pm.

As we left the apartment, a pleasant misty rain was dripping from the overcast skies, just perfect to set the mood for what we already knew would be a dramatic and dark night.

We arrived at the Gimle Kino, it translates to The Old Cinema. A lovely and cozy cinema running older movies and located in a nice, historical and old neighborhood of beautiful Oslo.

photo of the cinema entrance with a tarp ourside sprayed with a fireflies symbol

We were just on time, the doors opened at 6 pm and along other invitees made our way into the building. The venue was nicely made up with motifs from The Last of Us. From the tarp with the Fireflies logo covering the doors, to notices from FEDRA with info about the pandemic, posted all over the entrance area, to other stuff, the atmosphere was successfully reproduced.

We mingled with some nice people, looked around the place, enjoyed the music, The Last of Us soundtrack, of course and after grabbing our rations, bottles of water with the Firefly logo, popcorn in cans of paint, flashlights to better see in the dark and some bags, in which we were instructed to put our iPhones during the viewing, we made our way into the theatre.

As we were with a little over half an hour of waiting left until the show began, we played around with the nice flashlights, pointing them everywhere, on the ceiling, on the cinema screen and even under the chairs, just like everyone else did. You see? From the speakers all around us we were closely stocked by Clickers and other monsters, they were moving from side to side and making those unsettling noises that are sure to rise the hairs on anyone’s back.

Finally, the time came and after a short introduction from someone at HBO Discovery, the production began.

As you well know I never put up spoilers in my articles, so you can read further without any fears. I can tell you that we had big expectations from this show and even so, we were absolutely blown away by what we experienced. I can tell you this:

The first episode is fantastic! It has a duration longer than some movies, close to 90 minutes, the atmosphere is dark, ominous and oppressive, the pacing is excellent, giving enough time to set everything into place, we have even more time with Sarah so the events that follow are the much more impactful, I cried again, damn it, there is great character development and we better understand some things.

Of course, some things have been changed from the game, but I think that the changes are for the better. I won’t go into more details because I want you to experience them on your own. Suffice to say that this is the best version of the story yet!

Just like in the game, we have a time jump and after this we are introduced to the rest of the characters. From here on out things are following once again the events in the game closely, with a few small deviations here and there.

As I already mentioned, everything changed is for the better in my opinion. All the actors are doing a fantastic job, they are amazingly perfect and deliver breathtaking performances. Although in this first episode Joel and Elly have just met, the dynamic between them is palpable. Alina tells me that the cinematography is gorgeous, I can definitely appreciate the sound design, the instantly recognizable music and the superb acting.

Although I’m blind, I enjoyed this experience tremendously and I can’t wait to watch the show on HBO MAX, especially since it will include audio descriptions.

For now, Alina and I are impressed and delighted by the first episode! After leaving the cinema we talked all night about how good everything was, about how perfect Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey and all the actors are and what a fantastic cast this show is blessed with. All of these are made even better by the emotional script set in place by Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin.

The first episode of the show impressed even people who were not at all familiar with the game or the story, as the guy staying to my right confessed to me when the credits began to roll. I told him that I’m very happy that he and his partner enjoyed it, because I absolutely consider The Last of Us to be the best story ever told in a video game, and also told them that I played both games multiple times, while sighted, while going blind, and now, when I’m totally blind.

As there are just a few days until everyone will get to watch this, I can’t wait to do it again myself and after that to see how these talented people will take this story to the next level. For now, I want to congratulate everyone involved, it is a masterpiece of a show, I’m sure the entire first season will be amazing after such a gripping start. Congrats and thanks to Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin, to HBO and of course to Pedro, Bella and all the cast. Finally, I want to say thank you to HBO MAX for offering us the opportunity to live this immersive experience.

I wrote this article on my MacBook Air while listening to the sublime soundtrack composed by Gustavo Santaolalla which is also involved with the series, so I’m still in the zone, in this world that means so much to me. The Last of Us was the last game I was able to finish on my own before going blind, I spent hundreds of hours in the multiplayer and this year I was able to play it again when The Last of Us Part I was released in September with a revolutionary suite of accessibility features – including audio descriptions, which allowed me to experience the game like I never went blind.

These stories and experiences transcend the medium for which were created and now I’m super excited that people who never picked up a controller in their lives will get to discover why we are so hyped about The Last of Us even 10 years after its release. I’ll post this on Patreon as early access and after that I want to share it with everyone else and to tag these fantastic people on Social Media. Who knows, maybe one of them will have time to read the article and it will bring a smile to their face.

The Last of Us premiers on HBO and HBO MAX on January 16 and I’m sure it will become one of the best HBO Original productions and one of the greatest TV shows of all time! Yes, it is that good!

I will end with a quote from the game that stayed with me all these years. “When you’re lost in the darkness look for the light.”

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Victor Dima

Owner and Founder at victordima.net
Victor Dima is a Blind Gaming Journalist and Accessibility Ambassador, Living in Oslo with his wife Alina. Victor was the first journalist in Romania to receive the PS5 & the PS VR2 from PlayStation. He is also working closely with Xbox Nordic and other game publishers such as Ubisoft, Ea, Bungie, Activision, blizzard, square Enix, Capcom, Rockstar Games, Sega, PlayStation studios, WB Games, Bethesda and many others. With over 12 years of experience covering the Gaming Industry, he started victordima.net in 2013 and since February 2022 all his articles are posted in English in order to reach a more global audience. He is the owner and founder of the highly successful PlayStation Fans Romania Facebook Community, the largest independent source for PlayStation News in Romania, on social media with almost 35.000 followers. Victor is also running theAudiobookBlog.com. You can reach Victor at contact@victordima.net

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