The Lord of the Rings and The Last of Us? They may not have much in common, but surely what we are going to tell you will surprise you.
The Lord of the Rings has inspired a scene from The Last of Us. An important scene from the series HBO in which a giant swarm of infected appears is inspired by the fantasy classic of J.R.R. Tolkien. A surprising connection and that no follower expected.
HBO
In an interview with the magazine Empire Magazine, series director Craig Mazin spoke about the climactic scene of the fifth episode of The Last of Us. The night action scene was characterized by showing the huge swollen enemy. And Craig Mazin wanted that Bloater and the swarms of Infected to be as scary as possible. For it was inspired by the Mines of Moria, the ruined dwarf kingdom of Middle-earth featured in the first trilogy from Peter Jackson’s film adaptation, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. During that scene, the Fellowship are forced to flee through dark tunnels while being pursued by a swarm of orcs, a cave troll, and eventually a fiery Balrog.
The inspiration of the Mines of Moria in the HBO series
The ending of The Last of Us Episode 5 plays out similar to the Lord of the Rings scene we mentioned.. Joel (Peter Pascal) y Ellie (Bella Ramsey) must escape Kansas City resistance leader Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) under cover of night, but are cut off by a swarm of infected who have escaped Phaedra’s containment. In the midst of the swarm, the Bloated Giant arrives, beheading Perry (Jeffrey Pierce), Kathleen’s lieutenant. “It was supposed to take place during the day, but at that point in production we had learned that the infected tended to look better when they were more mysterious,” Mazin said. “So I was like, ‘Damn, this is going to look so much better at night.’ And I sentenced myself and a thousand other people to three weeks of night shooting.
New Line Cinema
Although HBO’s The Last of Us is an adaptation of the 2013 video game of the same name, this was an original scene. That’s why they were able to imitate The Lord of the Rings. Both the series and the game continue the story of survivors Joel and Ellie who travel through a post-apocalyptic United States after a plague caused by the Cordyceps fungus destroys the country. Joel learns that the young and orphaned Ellie is immune to this disease, which causes most humans to mutate into fungus-bearing zombie-like creatures called clickers. The two must fend off the infected, as well as government soldiers and resistance groups, and Joel goes to great lengths to protect his newfound family from him.
