Did anyone else get It Am Legend vibes from that opening scene with the talk show? I knew it reminded me of a movie but I couldn't remember which one.

The opening scene with the TV interview completely subverted my expectations. Again, having only played very little of the game, I forgot it was all about the spores and such. So when the other scientist started acting like a virus was not something he was afraid of, I thought they were going to give us some parody of an anti-vaxxer or something. When he instead went into his description of how horrible fungi could be, it was chilling.

Never played the video game and know nothing about the story but am hooked.

Great first episode.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Sorry for the slight derail, but that Halo show came and went and I never heard a thing about it, even from my gamer friends. For being the first adaptation of such a popular video game franchise, I found that surprising. From what I could tell there was ZERO hype for that thing.

Did anyone actually watch that? I assume it must have sucked since it didn't make the slightest impact as far as I could tell.

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To help drive home the point that the other poster made about the Halo show, this popped up on /r/gaming today

Sex Panther said:

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The opening scene with Bighead and the scientists was not in the game at all right? I don't recall if it was.

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Not that I recall. It seems like they inserted that scene for the sole purpose of making the infection be caused by climate change because they said the earth getting warmer would allow the fungus to control human minds. My eyes rolled into the back of my head so hard for that scene.

I just saw it as a way to give a semi-real world explanation for how this could suddenly happen.

I thought it was pretty clever, not to mention terrifying in how plausible it sounded.

XXXVII said:

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Sex Panther said:

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The opening scene with Bighead and the scientists was not in the game at all right? I don't recall if it was.

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Not that I recall. It seems like they inserted that scene for the sole purpose of making the infection be caused by climate change because they said the earth getting warmer would allow the fungus to control human minds. My eyes rolled into the back of my head so hard for that scene.

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For ****'s sake. I'm as tired of hearing about climate change as the next person at this point, but this scene wasn't added solely to score politically correctness points. It was added for a very simple and obvious reason (if you'd take your political blinders off) - to give the non-game playing viewers a very quick, succinct, and scary backstory explaining what caused the whole upheaval at the root of the story. You can roll your eyes back their normal position now.

Are gamers smarter than nongamers? Just curious why nongamers need to have things spelled out in more detail apparently.

Agreed, as a non gamer I think that was a really good opener and interesting take on the whole zombie genre.

It was a perfect little opener to fully key me into what the story is going to be about. I personally never liked TWD take on it where it just happens because …. They don't know.

I agree. I'm the first to roll my eyes at virtue signaling and thought they were about to take that left turn, but it was a simple explanation of what allowed the fungi to evolve and didn't even slightly get preachy.

I also never watched TWD. I tried to watch the pilot and it just didn't grab me at all. I think it turned it off after 15 minutes and did something else. This one did an absolutely amazing job.

I mean I agree with that in principle but not sure how it applies in this scenario. It's not like last of us was some dark souls like game with no overt narrative plot and everything plot wise is hidden in environmental storytelling. There are extra bits of info in the game to be found but it's rarely more than supplemental info. Stating that it's a mutated form of a fungus is not hard in either form of media.

I don't think it's a particularly big deal (and I suspect neither did the original poster since he merely rolled his eyes at it). I doubt it plays a big part in the story. If anything Florida ag showed more angst at that eye roll than the original poster did at the insertion of something unnecessary (because the original explanation is neither insufficient or difficult to convey) that could easily be viewed as a political slant.

Ok this was hilarious.

Fenrir said:

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I mean I agree with that in principle but not sure how it applies in this scenario. It's not like last of us was some dark souls like game with no overt narrative plot and everything plot wise is hidden in environmental storytelling. There are extra bits of info in the game to be found but it's rarely more than supplemental info. Stating that it's a mutated form of a fungus is not hard in either form of media.

I don't think it's a particularly big deal (and I suspect neither did the original poster since he merely rolled his eyes at it). I doubt it plays a big part in the story. If anything Florida ag showed more angst at that eye roll than the original poster did at the insertion of something unnecessary (because the original explanation is neither insufficient or difficult to convey) that could easily be viewed as a political slant.

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Nice attempt to reverse the heat and downplay your smartass reply to my post, but clearly the original poster let the global warming line bother him enough to post his "eye roll" reaction to it on here. He desperately wanted everyone to know how over global warming he is.

And yes, I'm over people who can't drop politics long enough to watch a 1 hr show without seeing political boogeymen in it and then derailing a non-political Entertainment Board thread with those boogeymen.

lol... chill out, brah.

FL_Ag1998 said:

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Fenrir said:

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I mean I agree with that in principle but not sure how it applies in this scenario. It's not like last of us was some dark souls like game with no overt narrative plot and everything plot wise is hidden in environmental storytelling. There are extra bits of info in the game to be found but it's rarely more than supplemental info. Stating that it's a mutated form of a fungus is not hard in either form of media.

I don't think it's a particularly big deal (and I suspect neither did the original poster since he merely rolled his eyes at it). I doubt it plays a big part in the story. If anything Florida ag showed more angst at that eye roll than the original poster did at the insertion of something unnecessary (because the original explanation is neither insufficient or difficult to convey) that could easily be viewed as a political slant.

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Nice attempt to reverse the heat and downplay your smartass reply to my post, but clearly the original poster let the global warming line bother him enough to post his "eye roll" reaction to it on here. He desperately wanted everyone to know how over global warming he is.

And yes, I'm over people who can't drop politics long enough to watch a 1 hr show without seeing political boogeymen in it and then derailing a non-political Entertainment Board thread with those boogeymen.

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Your initial response was full of smartass and you're going to get upset about someone being smartass about a weird train of logic? Between that and a dude eye rolling something in a discussion thread setting you off this much, you should probably seek a therapist for your unresolved issues.

Well that episode was as amazing as the game was. If it keeps it up, this will be an all-timer.

The outbreak day sequence left a huge impact on my when I played it. Very chaotic and emotional. This show did a fantastic job with it as well.

Loved seeing the next door neighbor grandma "change" in the background. That was hella creepy.

Seeing the fungus coming out of the mouth was also a huge *ick.

So far, it looks like they've nailed the adaptation.

Edited to add that I did really like "Big Head" and that opening scenes with the doctor/scientists. Great addition.

FL_Ag1998 said:

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Fenrir said:

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I mean I agree with that in principle but not sure how it applies in this scenario. It's not like last of us was some dark souls like game with no overt narrative plot and everything plot wise is hidden in environmental storytelling. There are extra bits of info in the game to be found but it's rarely more than supplemental info. Stating that it's a mutated form of a fungus is not hard in either form of media.

I don't think it's a particularly big deal (and I suspect neither did the original poster since he merely rolled his eyes at it). I doubt it plays a big part in the story. If anything Florida ag showed more angst at that eye roll than the original poster did at the insertion of something unnecessary (because the original explanation is neither insufficient or difficult to convey) that could easily be viewed as a political slant.

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Nice attempt to reverse the heat and downplay your smartass reply to my post, but clearly the original poster let the global warming line bother him enough to post his "eye roll" reaction to it on here. He desperately wanted everyone to know how over global warming he is.

And yes, I'm over people who can't drop politics long enough to watch a 1 hr show without seeing political boogeymen in it and then derailing a non-political Entertainment Board thread with those boogeymen.

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F16 conservative here and didn't see any woke/SJW nonsense in the show (yet). Also think you had a major melt over a flippant comment.

Get over it.

The premiere drew 4.7 million viewers, second only to HOTD for highest HBO debut since 2010. Nice.

never played the game, only vaguely aware of the premise, but loved the first episode.

i thought the opening scene was just brilliantly done. so many shows get bogged down in exposition, but i just thought that was just an incredibly effective way to tell us what happened.

really looking forward to how this one plays out, should be a fun way to tide us over until succession hits.