Submitted by Sorry_Village13 t3_11a564g in television
Yeah I know that The Last of Us is an amazing tv show and a very strong contender for the greatest video game tv show of all time, but Arcane is just better for me.
Submitted by Sorry_Village13 t3_11a564g in television
Yeah I know that The Last of Us is an amazing tv show and a very strong contender for the greatest video game tv show of all time, but Arcane is just better for me.
Especially the “Unpopular opinion: I actually like this thing that is wildly popular” posts.
While nothing is wrong with liking one more than the other, it’s a little unfair to compare which is “better” directly. Last of Us is translating something that once a video game, directly into a TV show. Arcane simply took some of the lore in the world and crafted a whole new story.
The writers had far different jobs. For Arcane, they could make a story from the ground up that works perfectly for TV. They didn’t really have to worry about staying “faithful” besides making sure the lore itself was faithful. Meanwhile The Last of Us had to take an entire story that was written for a video game and rework it to fit as a TV show. And that doesn’t just come with the challenges of changing the story to work in the format. You also have to deal with constant comparisons. If a character is even slightly different than in the game, people while hyper fixate on it and nitpick every change. With Arcane, it’s a whole new story, so people could just see if they enjoyed it. There wasn’t a whole discussion of how “game Vi is better than show Vi”. Arcane made a great story and is amazing, but The Last of Us definitely had a ton of hurdles and restrictions that Arcane didn’t.
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I mean yes it’s easier to adapt than some yes. It is designed in a way that lends itself to be adapted to TV but it’s still not easy either. You can’t do a direct translation or 80% of the show would be killing infected or hunters which isn’t necessarily great to watch for the whole show. And then the other major point is that, as I said, comparisons will be made throughout, so anything slightly different will be observed under a microscope.
Arcane is an excellent show, but as someone who never played LoL how much of it is actually an “adaptation”? Does the game somehow explain that Vi and Jinx grew up raised by Vander and then we’re separated and taken in by various factions in the criminal underground, their eventual reunification marred and eventually ruined by the affection Vi has for a pretty young cop lady? Or is it’s like “Vi and Jinx are sisters who hate each other, now fight!”? It’s a hell of a lot easier to “adapt” a game which contains little to no plot (though admittedly the three mortal Kombat movies and a tv show and a weird web series suggests you can still fuck it up even then.)
It's an adaptation of trivia. Each champion has like 200-word background lore, and the show is essentially an adaption of Jinx's and Vi's lore.
The main lore of LOL revolves around two factions resettling their differences by playing a game in which they possess powerful individuals (like Jinx and Vi).
So, a proper adaptation of LoL would be Hunger Games mixed with Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (in which the Rock plays the game character, Dr. Bravestone who is possessed by a nerdy high schooler).
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>It’s a hell of a lot easier to “adapt” a game which contains little to no plot...
That's like saying, it's much easier draw a figure with no model. Unless, what you meant by "easier" is that there're less restrictions and more freedom to come up with something original.
That's definitely what they meant, that it's easier to create an original plot involving two (or more) central characters when each character's background, personality, and physical appearance have already been created.
In Arcane, the writers had free reign in writing story lines as long as they stuck to the basics of the lore (Vi and Jinx being sisters; Vi acquiring her gauntlets; Jinx going "crazy"; both being at-odds with each other), including the lore of other characters added into the show (Jayce developing hextech and becoming a leader; Viktor eventually ending up as he does in the game; Caitlyn becoming Sheriff of Piltover; Ekko developing his 'powers'; etc.).
In The Last of Us, the video game is the story line. It tells the entire thing from start to finish. The story of Joel and Ellie in the first season must start with Joel meeting Ellie (Point A) and end with the decision Joel makes at the end (Point B). There is no room to maneuver there for the writers, other than how the story gets from Point A to Point B (and they've cleverly added in some flashback material to flesh out certain characters and some key questions surrounding the infection).
While Arcane is certainly exceptional in its creativity, its aesthetic, its marriage of action and dramatic tension, and its engaging cast of characters, it certainly had an easier time offering something new for viewers compared to The Last of Us.
With that said, I think both are exceptional.
Unpopular opinion- people need to stop judging shows that haven't finished.
Yep. You end up with Westworld situations.
The Last of us season 1 isn't even finished yet, seems a bit premature to compare the two.
Also, Castlevania.
i love castlevania dude but it doesn’t come anywhere close to arcane imo
I really enjoyed Castlevania and the third season, especially, was fairly unique for TV and especially animation. Not perfectly executed but interesting. Great to see since adult drama animation is still rare in the west.
Arcane didn't do much for me, but I really don't enjoy long prologues. I think if it had started at episode 5, i would have liked it a lot more. Theres enough context clues about character relationships and word building that the prologue episodes feel unnecessary.
Castlevania isn't even close to be as good as Arcane
castlevania is one of the most overrated animated shows of all time, propped up by people who were desperate for any decent video game adaptations. putting it in the same league as arcane and TLOU is insane
Seriously, someone tell me what's so good about it? Its got some nice animations I guess, but the dialogue is quite a miss and shit just gets meh after they kill Dracula.
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Unpopular opinion...I play lol every day and I can't stand arcane..it's cringe and uninteresting.
Never played a second of lol and have no intention to, I really liked it a lot.
What made it cringe and uninteresting to you?
love arcane but the weird side plot with jace and a lot of the pseudoscientific dialogue made me cringe out of my seat
Interesting. For me it was Jinx. Some of her scenes made me cringe lol.
I haven’t seen it so sorry for being so dumb but which one with jayce is the side plot? His backstory with the mom, his relationship with Mel, his friendship with Caitlyn?
The dialogue sure maybe I agree, I’m sure there’s some stuff that’s worthy of an eyeroll but I can’t recall specifics.
Still my favorite line is “In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.”
everything to do with Jace and the council, especially that weird old little hamster guy, what a fucking cringe ass character. i didn’t dislike his relationship with Mel, i actually thought that part was pretty solid (mostly because Mel is a good character, not Jace)
he felt like an ultra generic “city leader” archetype of a character complete with the tale as old as time of “young man discovers magic that the council has outlawed for generations due to its power”.
Oh, well I liked hamster man. I thought he was an interesting foil to Jace with different perspectives on magic and it’s place in society and a good mentor figure for him to eventually outgrow as their ideas differ.
Id say yeah his character bio is pretty boilerplate, but he’s not a hero who wins at everything and is always right and “destined to save the world” or some generic crap. He’s lost things, and caused irreparable harm and loss for others because he couldn’t see the whole picture of his inventions.
Thanks for engaging. Interesting to see others viewpoints
Agreed. I’m super happy a lot of people love it but as a player I feel the same.
Arcane is a great show, but man now I’m starting to think it’s massively overrated.
I'm not sure I'd call it an adaptation because it isn't directly adapting any game's story. It's using the world, yes, but it's kind of its own thing whereas The Last of Us is directly adapting the story almost 1:1 from the game. Absolutely loved the show though and cannot wait for season 2.
Lots of movie adaptations (like comic ones) don’t adapt the source story even close to 1:1. Most video game adaptations don’t do this. Mario bros, sonic, Pokémon, Halo, resident evil, assassins creed are their own thing but use events and characters to create their story.
The only medium then tends to get close to 1:1 adaptations are books.
They are simply two different approaches to adapting.
Well, they are using events from the stories so you're only reinforcing my observation. May not be 1:1, but they are pulling from the source material for the the story being told.
It’s absolutely an adaption. It’s based on the world of LoL, using characters designs ideas. The only question is how “faithful” or how much they’re adapting the story itself. Overall there’s plenty of things they’ve changed from TLOU the game towards the show (how the virus spreads being the most obvious) but it still has a lot of similar or 1:1 scenes.
You could argue “it’s not a good adaption” because of how much it changes, but it’s definitely one. What else would it be when it’s using the same IP?
It’s not an adaptation, unless League of Legends has a story to adapt. Does it? I’ve never played it.
If not, it’s just a story that takes place in a previously established world.
So, you’re adapting that world to a new medium.
Adapt - make (something) suitable for a new use or purpose; modify.
Thats not the definition for film though.
"A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film."
There is no story from LoL that it takes and expands upon so technically it's not, but it's beside the point. The show is excellent regardless.
I guess it comes down to what you’d say a story is. There’s blurbs in the games about character backstories, and I know it’s a popular theory (or even confirmed I’m not really sure) about >!Vander becoming Warwick!< just based on what happened to them in the season.
There’s lore, and that’s getting adapted for tv. Again I think it’s more just a discussion of “how good an adaption is it” than if it is or not.
But yeah I really like it
I would call it writing an original story in a previously existing world.
Like Fantastic Beasts. Or the Cloverfield sequels.
Okay but even then, those are movies. Cloverfield is a movie, and there are sequels.
Fantastic Beasts is a spin off from the Harry Potter movies, which are adaptions of the Harry Potter book franchise.
The game and tv show exist in two different mediums.
The EU of Star Wars, is an adaption of the films to a book.
My point is that Arcane is an original story. It’s not an adaptation because it’s not based on an existing story.
It takes place in an existing world but that’s just the setting. The story is what matters.
And thanks for bringing up the Star Wars EU. That’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about.They ARE NOT an adaptation of Star Wars. They are stories that take place in the Star Wars universe.
What is an adaptation of Star Wars? The novelization of the movie Star Wars.
Rings of Power isn’t an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. That would be the movie trilogy The Lord of the Rings.
Okay I think I’m starting to see what you’re talking about, but in my mind I would still say it’s an adaption of league on the whole. Thanks for the discussion!
Unpopular opinion? Have you been anywhere on Reddit for any amount of time in the past year? It's also not like there's much conpetition, this and TLOU are like the only videogame based shows (or movies for that matter, afaik) that aren't terrible. TLOU didnt even finish dropping its first season yet.
Both have tons of room to go down the drain
Coldest take ever
What do you mean?
I have watched both and am enjoying The Last of Us a lot more than Arcane. I have never played either game really (played a couple rounds of League in college and watched my wife play a bit of the first Last of Us game) but yeah just find the experience in the Last of Us a bit more satisfying as a show so far.
Arcane is certainly a fantastic show too.
I like LOU more but that may be due to me identify with the character and story more.
No need to compare, they are both excellent at what they do. The common thread for both is the people who create and also fund these shows respected the source material enough to do it justice. Arcane has more leeway but they didn't shit out something compared to the recent Resident Evil show that did their own thing, but it became a teen drama which is a different genre compared to the games.
Who cares there aren't even that many lol
Clearly you’ve never seen the Super Mario Brothers’ Super Show.
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This isn’t unpopular
The bar is so low that they drill for oil next to it.
As far as the actual work of crafting a narrative, yeah.
TLoU had an infinitely easier time because there was a solid, "cinematic" narrative as the baseline.
Meanwhile, Arcane had to make something out of the half assed bios of discount Harley Quinn (and that's already a pretty low baseline) and fisting and police brutality jokes the girl.
Super hot take.
What does it mean?
how is that unpopular?
This absolutely is not an unpopular opinion.
lmao, that's not an unpopular opinion tons of people here would probably agree with you.
What if last of us the video game never existed. And the first time the story came into existence was as a brand new Netflix original series, would it be getting the praise it’s been getting?
How do you expect anyone to answer that
What if I was centipede? Would I still be able to to make this reply?
This is not only a popular opinion,its also factual.
PleaseHurryIHave2Pee t1_j9qis1o wrote
Unpopular opinion: Hyperbolic posts are getting really fucking annoying on this sub