I played Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune for the first time during a slumber party at my best friend’s house, in 2007, when we were both 13. As I watched him battle his way through various levels and munched on cold Little Caesars breadsticks, I remarked that rugged treasure hunter Nathan Drake, the game’s titular main character, was fucking hot. Now, Uncharted is on the receiving end of a big-budget studio adaptation, and while I am a grown-ass adult, apparently Nathan Drake is not.
On Twitter, actor person Tom Holland uploaded the first official photograph of himself in Sony’s Pictures Uncharted adaptation.
Mostly, I am laughing! Not at Holland, necessarily, but the predicament Sony Pictures has put him in. Here is what Nathan Drake looked like in his most recent appearance, 2016's Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
My attraction to Nathan Drake, terrible father, bad boyfriend, and hunky protagonist in mostly O.K. AAA video games, has noticeably lessened over the years. (Age helps!) Still, when I last replayed 2016's Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, what stuck out to me most—beyond the dazzlingly expensive set-pieces—was that CGI improvements over the series’ run had turned Nathan Drake, a fictional amalgamation of computer code and polygons, into a veritable “daddy.” Being a 38-year-old man helped: He was rugged, slightly dirty, and had his beard flecked with bits of gray.
Had he existed in the real world, I probably would have let him talk my ear off in an over-crowded bar about how his first wife just didn’t understand his newfound pottery habit, and how he only got to see his daughter on the weekends. I’d maybe have sex with him—twice, three times?—and then never call him again, because I’m sexy and mysterious.
Poor Tom Holland, a 24-year-old who I’m sure is many 13-year-old girls’ ideal man. He just cannot keep up!
To say I am saddened by the image, or Holland’s casting, would imply that I am still that teenager with a sweaty attraction to a fictional video game character. I am not. (Although... Hades’ Zagreus can call me literally any time.) Instead, I am full of loathing for Hollywood studio big wigs, as Drake is yet another victim of the industry-wide edict that popular film adaptations—I’m staring right at you, Dune—must only be populated by twinky Timothee Chalamet types.
Rest in pieces, Daddy Drake. Me and my horny little thoughts will remember you fondly.
