In the game, memories of Joel are presented in an interspersed manner, but the series has consolidated them all into the sixth episode for a concentrated presentation. This also means that Joel's story in the series has almost been told (RIP).
1.The opening original story of Joel's childhood
In the game, Joel and Tommy's childhood lives are rarely mentioned. The series adds the role of Joel's father to show how his educational methods had a profound impact on Joel in the future.
In addition, the series has revised Joel's birth and death years. It can be seen from the tombstone in the third episode that he was born in 1967 (in the game, it was 1981), so he was 16 years old in 1983.
2.The series has revised the origin of the moth symbol
In the series, Joel personally made a guitar with a moth symbol carved on the neck and gave it to Ellie. He asked her why she liked moths so much, and later, in a conversation with a psychotherapist, he attributed the imagery of death to moths, seemingly implying that Ellie has a self-destructive tendency.
But in the game, this guitar with the moth symbol belongs to Joel himself, and it represents a certain trait of Joel. Later, he gave this guitar to Ellie.
After that, influenced by Joel, Ellie began to draw moths on her tattoos and her diary, which became an important symbol for her to miss Joel.
3.The series streamlines Ellie and Joel's trip to the science museum
In the memories in the sixth episode, the series mainly restores the scene where Ellie finally counts down on the Apollo spacecraft. But in the game, the two had a lot of interactions on this day.
In the game, Joel first competed with Ellie in swimming on the way (this will be very touching for players of the first generation, because Ellie couldn't swim in the first generation), then stayed in the dinosaur museum for a while (Joel showed off his dinosaur knowledge learned from Jurassic Park), and finally went to the space museum to give the final gift.
In the series, Ellie stared at a group of fireflies at the end of the day, which obviously implies that she remembered something about the Fireflies. In the game, this hint is more straightforward. She directly encountered a dead Firefly in the science museum, and the person wrote a big "Liars" on the wall before dying.
4.The series elaborates on the contradictions in life between Ellie and Joel
In the game, Ellie and Joel never lived together (in the opening of the game, little Ellie already lived in the garage, and later when Ellie packed up the relics, it can be found that there is only one bedroom in Joel's house). But the series is changed to that the two originally lived in the same house (maybe this makes them more like father and daughter?), and then Ellie couldn't stand Joel's discipline and chose to move to the garage by herself.
5.The series completely originalizes the story of Eugene's death
In the comparison of the first episode, I mentioned that Eugene in the game died a natural death, not killed by Joel. The sixth episode finally explains the whole story, and Ellie's anger and suspicion towards Joel deepened because of this incident.
6.The series modifies the process of Ellie discovering the truth about the Firefly hospital
In the series, Ellie guesses that Joel may have deceived her by analyzing the suspicious points in Joel's narrative, and learns the truth from Joel on the night of the dance.
In the game, Ellie ran away from home to the Firefly hospital in Salt Lake City. She learned what Joel did in the hospital that day by listening to the recordings left by the survivors, and then confronted Joel who came to find her home.
7.At the end of this episode, the conversation between Joel and Ellie is a crucial scene in the game. The series has made some modifications on the basis of restoration.
First of all, this plot in the game occurs in the last scene, that is, after everything settles down, Ellie begins to recall her last days with Joel, explaining what the thing that has been hidden in Ellie's heart is (that is, regret), leaving a sighing ending for the whole work. However, the series chooses to directly release this plot in the plot of Ellie's chapter.
The details of the dialogue between the two are also different. First, as mentioned in the sixth point, because the two had already confronted each other at the hospital gate in the game, Joel and Ellie did not talk much about what happened in the hospital, and their emotions were relatively restrained (no tears, no "I love you"). The main emphasis is that Ellie is ready to forgive Joel, but unfortunately, such a tragedy happened the next day, which became an ultimate heart disease for Ellie.
In addition, the screenwriter finally answered a question that has been debated for years through Joel's words: If the Fireflies had killed Ellie, could they have made an antidote?
To be honest, there has never been a clear answer to this question in the game, and the pros and cons have long been talking about their own opinions (I see that the group is still arguing about this matter now). This time, the series has made a final conclusion, giving the conclusion that "Joel subjectively believed that the Fireflies could create a vaccine, but he still chose to kill them" (the screenwriter of this episode is the game screenwriter).
