Art Analysis - The Last of Us

Visual Art

I recently began watching a new TV Show on HBO called The Last of Us. Based on a video game in which the main characters are a man and a teenage girl living in a post-apocalyptic world. The world has been destroyed and taken over by a fungal infection. The show tells of their adventures to survive and safely transport the teenage girl to a location on the West Coast.

The opening credits caught my eye, and I analyze the sequence using my newly learned terms in art elements.

The Last of Us - Opening Credits

The Last of Us, created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, season 1, episode 1, HBO Entertainment, 2023.

Art Elements

The opening credits contain all the art elements I learned about on artyfactory.com. I will be focusing on Tone, Pattern & Color, and Shape. These elements are the ones that I appreciated the most and invoked emotion when watching the video. Each element will be linked to a specific timestamp in the video to demonstrate the aspect.

Tone

Throughout the intro sequence, a source of soft white light that resembles daylight is in the background. As the light reflects off the shapes, it changes the tone of the colors and creates highlights and shadows.

A city landscape turns into nuclear missiles.

Beginning at 0:07, the fungus grows vertically and partially obscures the light. The vertical fungus resembles a city landscape, with the tops of the buildings being well-lit and the bottoms being darker.

As the camera continues to pan and reaches 0:26, it reveals that the fungus formed a map of the USA. From this perspective, the state of Montana is where the fungus grew vertically. The state of Montana has a building of at most 20 floors. The building height limitation leads the viewer to reconsider the previous interpretation of the city landscape and realize that the vertical fungus can also be missiles launched from nuclear silos.

The tone of the vertical fungus, with bright tops of the vertical fungus and darker bottoms, allows it to be viewed both as a city landscape and missiles launching.

Pattern And Color

The color palette is primarily dark, with the lightest colors reserved for the fungus and the light source. The pattern is natural, as it would be with the growth of the fungus.

A fungal map of the US infection rate.

The entire intro sequence follows the growth and spread of the fungus as it depicts various scenes. The most captivating scene is how the natural pattern of fungal growth illustrates a map of the US at 0:26. The growth pattern aligns with what a map of the path of a contagion spread would resemble. The lighter yellow fungus represents large metropolitan areas such as Seattle, Chicago, and New York and suggests their infection rate. In contrast, the darker yellow and black areas represent lower-population states such as Wyoming and Idaho.

Shape

The creation of shapes with the fungus spread is used heavily throughout the video. The fungus spread creates everything from a city landscape to the silhouette of the main characters walking.

The skull and fungus join to make one shape.

At 0:34, the viewer can observe the shape of a heavily decomposed human skeleton with a wide-open month. The fungus spread creates the form of a nose on the skull. The creation of the nose turns the negative background space into a positive space when the skull and fungus are combined and viewed as one shape. The union of the fungus and skull using the shapes symbolizes the more significant fact that the fungus has taken over humans and become one with their human hosts.

Presentation & Placement

I enjoyed this video from the first moment I watched it. Too often are opening credits for TV Shows bland and consist of a shot of the actor with their name predominantly displayed on the screen. This opening credits scene goes out of its way to tell a story of the spread of the fungal infection. The credit placement changes positions multiple times to minimally disturb the art unfolding in front of us. I would like to see more shows create high-quality intro credits, similar to The Last of Us, that express more than the actors' names and can be appreciated individually for their creativity, visual appeal, and more profound messages.