HBO's The Last of Us was hiding a Lord of the Rings crossover

HBO’s The Last of Us was hiding a surprising Lord of the Rings crossover. Who would have thought?

The practical effects of The Last of Us were truly a joy to behold, especially during an era in which CGI effects are so dominating. What’s more, fans even described the practical effects as being a ‘masterpiece’ and we’re inclined to agree. As reported by ComicBook, those responsible for the practical effects of the HBO series were a specialist company known as Wētā FX. This company has worked on the likes of The Lord of the Rings franchise and Avatar: The Way of Water. Moreover, one of its co-founders is none other than the writer, producer and director of The Lord of the Rings movies, Peter Jackson.

Take a look at this incredible Lord of the Rings Mordor-inspired LEGO set.

One of the talented Wētā FX artists, Gino Acevedo, who helped to sculpt Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, lent his talents to The Last of Us. Acevedo is said to have been heavily involved in creating the sex icon that is the Bloater (yes, he's supposedly a sex icon) as well as the creepy Clicker girl, both of which featured in episode five, titled ‘Endure and Survive'.

The creation of the prosthetic Bloater suit was not simply a version of what featured in the Naughty Dog video game. It also combined unused concept art, Wētā FX supervisor Simon Jung told ComicBook. When talking about Gino Acevedo, Wētā FX animation supervisor Dennis Yoo said, “It was pretty awesome having him on board knowing that Craig Mazin was such a fan of Lord of the Rings, when he heard that he was pretty blown away as well.”

Talking about the aforementioned Clicker girl, Jung added, “Speaking of nightmares, that's still haunting. It took a very long time to sell [..] the fact that this is a child, or used to be a child 20 years ago before she fully matured into that Clicker status, because the proportions of her were really hard to sell because you don't have the eyes or you don't have a nose. You don't have really a forehead or anything that you immediately would recognise visually as the proportions of a child - where everything is kind of a little bit out of scale.”

The Last of Us is available on HBO Max in the US and Sky Atlantic / NOW TV in the UK.