(The Last of Us 2) It's Not That Deep... | Why It Fails to Connect

[@WorthlessWinner]

It's a shame people are down-thumbing this video. As others have commented, i found the political discussion in the last 1/3 to go a bit too far and you probably spent a bit too long on the "better editing could have fixed this" point, but that was a really valid thing to mention and the rest of the video is a good explanation of the many ways the execution of the theme doesn't work in comparison with the first game.

[@puredemon6349]

Welcome back. I've missed seeing content from you Boss Attack, one of my favorite youtube channels.

[@solidwarrior]

Just wanted to note on the Jackson part, you don't need a mosque or Chinese dancing lessons to be diverse, I'm a brown person myself, but I'm no longer a Muslim and having a mosque or quran lessons does not by necessity appeal to a person like myself just like how a Chinese person wouldn't necessarily have Chinese dancing lessons appeal to them. Even People of color are diverse in their opinions and interests and such superficiality doesn't really help all that much. I know black people who are into country music and white people who are into hip hop, they do exist. Aside from that, I loved the video, you gained a sub!

[@puredemon6349]

Yeah. Individuals are individuals, not tribes. Tribalism has become quite the problem these days, where people think other people need representation of their specific tribe, but honestly it doesnt matter. The people who care about that stuff are the kind of people who shouldnt get what they want anyway. It only leads to the tribes demanding more.

[@chumunga648]

you deserve more subscribers, Boss Attack. This video is great!

[@pappyman179]

I really enjoyed your very detailed and deep discussion of cinematography and film making etc.. I'm old, so I've picked up a lot of trivia and stuff over the years, but I learned several things here today, and had to pause a few times to fully contemplate all the nuance and implications of your finer points. I never want to stop learning or contemplating new things, and I'm sure I'm not the last person to see this video and have a think. Thanks for that. P.S. It'd be a great loss to the world if you didn't share your thoughts very often. Just sayin', your 'rambling' is deeper and more thought provoking than most high dollar scripted documentaries.

[@pyrodontcutoffsoldiershand2746]

but aren’t the butterflies in mgs a similar “subtle” motive? There is no scene where someone says they represent big boss’ innocence or the Boss herself

[@pappyman179]

OMFG, that very last 2 min of the video was hilarious. :-)

[@pappyman179]

I generally agree with your discussion of Americana, but if I made a movie about families in South Africa, I'd expect to see the society that exists there, and the people there to act in a way that was consistent with the local culture. Have you ever been to Wyoming? The game painted the people in a much more sympathetic light than reality. And yes, they ride horses at work all day and wear hats and boots. Also, while I agree in general about your take, I remember a scene (in an unrelated film) where a gay guy was trying to get a right wing bigot elected and a lefty yells at him "I don't understand, you're gay and this guy would have all your rights stripped from you!" Or something along those lines. The gay guy tells him that HE is a lot more than just gay, there are much more important issues to deal with. My point is that just because people are non-hetro, does not mean they wear it on their sleeve every moment, like it's the only thing in the universe. My mom (who was CIS and married) had dozens of gay and lesbian friends stay over on their vacations or whatever. Maybe it was nice for them to have a place to stay where they could let their hair down and not be judged. These were really close family friends that I grew up with. I admit, when I walked in on two men making out, it was a bit awkward, but it would have been awkward if my parents were sucking face like that too. Aside from that one moment, I never thought about their gender, what I saw was two people in a long term relationship squabbling, and being petty, and bitchy occasionally, or being really sweet and kind, at other times. They weren't "correctly representing the gay community", they were just real people doing real things the way real people are complicated and multi-faceted. Sometimes gay people just wish that hetros would not hang a lantern on their gender and just show them being regular people dealing with the regular bullshit that we all have to. Sometimes. Not that this game did that, but I just thought I'd mention that side of things.

[@Edit12332]

You got my support bro :)

[@DuePancho]

Your videos are great you deserve at least....10 more views hahaha. Hope you can keep doing more content, don't give up

[@lokp7]

Your analysis on the influence of "the western" is spot-on, and this could apply to many writers before and after the ones who made this game; I guess it's more of a diagnosis on a part of American culture (and its franchisees) through commercial cinema. I would like to point out something kinda related to this, about how games like this seem to relate more to the industry of cinema rather than to cinema as an art form. Having a background in cinema myself, I believe that the people who didn't notice by themselves at least half of the stuff you talked about, just haven't watched a minimum amount of classics, or "world cinema", or whatever proves to be at least a bit challenging to a casual american(ized) audience. But not having a "qualified" audience isn't the worst problem, having the people that wrote this also lack a solid "vocabulary" in cinema is the real problem; everything in this just screams "American television", made by people whose careers were inspired by "lost" or some show like it. If we remember some discussions about the first TLOU back in 2013, some critics said it was flawed because it wanted to be like a movie, but the real question was supposed to be: does it want to be "like a movie" in its dignity as an art form? or " like a movie" in its resemblance to what looks "like" a movie or a contemporary trend in particular? Although I agreed with you on the value of the first TLOU game, I still think it fits in the category of wanting to have the credibility of film, the same validation, something that a show like the sopranos achieved, and then was used to sustain the image of the rest of HBO shows. Philosophical theories of cinema were born with literary (and theater) already as its foundation, but videogame "auteurs" seem to love (and drink heavily from) cinema from inside a vacuum; Kojima uses references just like an advertisement would, he is a "video-store-phile" and not a cinephile. I think RDR2 and the recent GOW are also inspired by television and not cinema, the best comprehension of cinema these people have is the "Kurosawa mode" in Ghost of Tsushima,; it's an unintended parody. Scenes like the one with Ellie all bathed in red, are just like the scenes that rip-off "children of men" in the first one; these are the efforts akin to first-year film students (at best), complete amateurs, and not just by lack of age or experience, but because they never really were interested in cinema as an art form, just like they aren't interested in videogames as an art-form. Cinematic movements like "La Nouvelle Vague", Brazilian "Cinema Novo", recent stuff from Indonesia, were all movements made by amateurs (at least at first), but their intentions were to make art, and they knew art from literature and other places. As long as videogames are not inspired by a real motivation through art, they will habit the same place as animation (and anime); Animation can be called art in general (although it's a craft, similar to ars in the old Greek sense), but what is made with animation technique depends on individuals usually inspired by other forms, artists that break the mold. As an example, the work of Satoshi Kun, Hayao Miyasaki, and Mamoru Oshii in anime hails to cinema more than other anime at the time. And I think that what groundbreaking games can do/are doing nowadays hail to other arts more than to videogames themselves in the same way. It didn't have to be like this, but it is. Videogames that are not really inspired by more mature arts are bound to be very basic in discourse. This medium has become terribly dependent. Some of TLOU 2's mishaps mentioned (and the fact that people think they are actually deep qualities) are the result of this lackluster culture.

[@matthewmelange]

He awakens!

[@puredemon6349]

Jesus christ I could have done without that last half hour. You began this video complaining that other reviewers complained about the "wokeness" only for the end of your video to say TLOU2 wasn't Woke enough. This channel produced one of my favorite video game critiques, hell one of my favorite youtube videos of all time, "MGSV the Phantom Plot". And yet, with the current social climate went on an extensive rant about how cis white people are "problematic". I dont want to start an argument on everything you said in the last half hour, because I doubt we could find common ground, but I do need to address your criticism of Cowboys. You say the revolver, hat, lasso, and horses are symbols of oppression of Native Americans, then you seem to have missed the point. They are symbols of the tools the settlers used in there daily life of boys who herd cows, aka Cowboys. Yes, the western lands were taken from Native Americans, so were the eastern lands and basically the entire country. To say that white colonialism itself is evil is an oversimplification. Yes there are evils of colonisation, and the "oppression" of others throughout the development of America. But these things are not exclusive to America, white people, Or Cowboys. And to imply that is kinda racist bro. While not fully blown bigotry like Seth there, it leans into a mindset of racist stereotypes. Back to the tools of the western settlers, yeah I'll agree these things all fall into the category "western" troupes in media, and theres nothing wrong with that. Just as theres nothing wrong with orange robes being a troupe of Buddhist monks, or Plate mail armour being iconic of the late mid-evil era. They are symbols of the time, iconic to an era, and used in media to depict iconography, themes, visuals, ect ect. Im sure you know all of this, you pointed it out yourself, what I do not understand is why you jump to the conclusion the tools of the cowboy represent oppression. I think thats a pretty close minded perspective man. Icons can have many meanings, not all intentional. I don't recall you criticizing MGS for glorifing the advancement of Miltary Technology like the Metal Gears themselves, or the AI in Peace Walker. Or hell, there sure are a lot of fucking whities in the MGS Series, i dunno dude, seems problematic. In fact, there sure are a lack of Trans issues brought up by MGS, that seems pretty bigoted of Kojima, not to include such an important topic in his games. Dude, fuck social justice in media, if it helps the story great, but it clearly did not in TLOU2. Perhaps because of what you pointed out, or maybe because those issues don't relate to the greater theme of revenge (as you pointed out) and thus shouldn't be in the game. No matter how you slice it, the game would be better off not being so "Woke".

[@Exigentable]

Agreed. It also ages very poorly. In 20 years it will be cringeworthy, it adds nothing of substance and is pandering. Defending it is even more substanceless.

[@Heckler456]

@@Exigentable The absolute idiocy of calling this game 'pandering'.

[@TheConst4nt]

OH NO NO NO YUOKE ON SUICIDE WATCH

[@superstrat5826]

Forgiveness doesn't require Ellie to have positive feelings or have reconciliation with Abby. It just requires you to let go of your corrosive anger towards the person to bring you peace of mind, so yeah, she does forgive.

[@mysteronix]

For such a long video, it is a very shallow reading of the nuances of the story.

[@redik_92]

Smh