Media Matters: The Last of Us
Released in September of 2016, The Last of Us was an epic post-apocalypse film directed by Sam Raimi. Based on the Atari-exclusive game of the same name, TLoU likewise centered on a tale on a survivalist road story set twenty years after an extremely virulent strain of cordyceps fungus became capable of infecting humans and caused the almost spontaneous collapse of human society under the weight of the zombie-like "Infected". Following a harrowing prologue set on "Outbreak Day" where his daughter is killed, Joel (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is tasked with escorting Ellie (Bella Ramsey) from Boston to northern Colorado in the hope that her immunity to the cordyceps infection can be used to synthesize a vaccine, dealing with Infected, raiders and the fascist remnants of the American government along the way.
An immediate hit with Atari fans and newcomers alike, The Last of Us garnered praise for its pragmatic but still faithful adaptation of the game, as well as for its masterful use of practical effects, best seen during the film's (comparatively) rarer but more impactful encounters with the Infected. While Morgan was incredibly effective in his role as Joel, the breakout casting of the film would be Ramsey, with critics gushing about her emotionally-moving and action-packed performance, all the more remarkable for being an essential unknown among American audiences. At its core a story about surviving and living on in the face of loss and trauma, the arc of Joel and Ellie gradually connecting, letting down their guard and coming to develop a genuine father-daughter bond was a prominent feature of many glowing reviews, netting Ramsey herself an Oscar that year.
Originally "merely" a critically and popularly acclaimed story of zombies and the families we choose, several aspects of the film have gained new attention in the wake of the election of Buchanan. The fascist American remnant "FEDRA" became a repeated point of comparison with the Department of Heartland Security and the rest of the domestic security apparatus under the new administration, while the revolutionary "Fireflies" drew parallels with groups as diverse as the Weather Underground, Extinction Rebellion, and the Double-V movement, with differing degrees of sincerity depending on who was making the remark. While much of this early analysis would focus on the various factions present in the film's world, perhaps the most shockingly prescient was the nature of the Infected.
With the outbreak of the Gray Lung pandemic, Candida auris, new attention was paid to the nature of the film's apocalypse. Beyond the simple commonality of a global fungal pandemic, and one where one of the earliest signs of infection is wheezing, no less, the complete collapse of an effective government response over the course of weeks went from being a fanciful invention to a scathing bit of foreshadowing to the seeming inability of the Buchanan administration to staunch the tide of new C.a-19 infections. Another uncomfortable parallel was Raimi's choice to adjust the timeline of the game for his adaptation, shifting Outbreak Day from 2013 to 2000. While he has said he intended it as a critique of the inherently reactionary nature of the DHS during the Powell years, this had the unfortunate effect of shifting the narrative present of the film to 2020, further intensifying its preexisting culture war cachet and ironically turning it into a must-watch for many on all sides of the fractured political landscape.
An immediate hit with Atari fans and newcomers alike, The Last of Us garnered praise for its pragmatic but still faithful adaptation of the game, as well as for its masterful use of practical effects, best seen during the film's (comparatively) rarer but more impactful encounters with the Infected. While Morgan was incredibly effective in his role as Joel, the breakout casting of the film would be Ramsey, with critics gushing about her emotionally-moving and action-packed performance, all the more remarkable for being an essential unknown among American audiences. At its core a story about surviving and living on in the face of loss and trauma, the arc of Joel and Ellie gradually connecting, letting down their guard and coming to develop a genuine father-daughter bond was a prominent feature of many glowing reviews, netting Ramsey herself an Oscar that year.
Originally "merely" a critically and popularly acclaimed story of zombies and the families we choose, several aspects of the film have gained new attention in the wake of the election of Buchanan. The fascist American remnant "FEDRA" became a repeated point of comparison with the Department of Heartland Security and the rest of the domestic security apparatus under the new administration, while the revolutionary "Fireflies" drew parallels with groups as diverse as the Weather Underground, Extinction Rebellion, and the Double-V movement, with differing degrees of sincerity depending on who was making the remark. While much of this early analysis would focus on the various factions present in the film's world, perhaps the most shockingly prescient was the nature of the Infected.
With the outbreak of the Gray Lung pandemic, Candida auris, new attention was paid to the nature of the film's apocalypse. Beyond the simple commonality of a global fungal pandemic, and one where one of the earliest signs of infection is wheezing, no less, the complete collapse of an effective government response over the course of weeks went from being a fanciful invention to a scathing bit of foreshadowing to the seeming inability of the Buchanan administration to staunch the tide of new C.a-19 infections. Another uncomfortable parallel was Raimi's choice to adjust the timeline of the game for his adaptation, shifting Outbreak Day from 2013 to 2000. While he has said he intended it as a critique of the inherently reactionary nature of the DHS during the Powell years, this had the unfortunate effect of shifting the narrative present of the film to 2020, further intensifying its preexisting culture war cachet and ironically turning it into a must-watch for many on all sides of the fractured political landscape.