Fallout TV series

[druss]

Trailer has just dropped for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8qRasXF2pY&t=153

Looks quite promising even if the trailer would have benefited from more Goggins.

Unlike The Last of Us there is no backbone of a story to base the show on but you can basically tell any story in a post-apocalyptic world which will either benefit the show or lead to disaster if the writing is poor.

If I were to make a prediction it would be that the first series will be decent (like Westworld) and then it gradually falls to shit (like Westworld).

Aesthetically it looks great though.

[surreal]

I think this looks bang on, and I trust Jonathan Nolan.  Todd Howard has said it is canon within the lore so I'd hope no random diversions, but with Fallout it does leave a lot of options.  I'm hoping we get a lot of "sidequests" in there, but the tone of the script will be key.  Hoping for something as good as The Last of Us really, there's no reason they can't do that.
I'm already comforted that they've shown a bit of gore and humour (Chris Parnell is always welcome).

[Dex Sawash]

No lens flare, shambles

[Mobius]

I really love the look of this, feels as though they have captured the vibe/aesthetic of Fallout, and some really likeable actors as well which always helps.

Maybe this will encourage a Fallout New Vegas remake!

[Josef K]

Good to see Kyle MacLachlan in the role of 'much-loved actor who 100% gets killed off in the first episode'.

[Famous Mortimer]

canon

Is there enough story in the series to call anything "canon"? That and "fandom" are words I'd like to see scrubbed.

Saying that, this looks decent.

[Lemming]

Is there enough story in the series to call anything "canon"?

If you mean the games: there is a canon, but it's been very fluid and murky ever since Fo2. Each of the games feel like completely different worlds at times - Fallout 1 is a wonderful and tightly-made game with a very clear vision and mood, but Fallout 2 is a weird surreal parody full of pop culture jokes and stupid shit, Fallout 3 is some kind of 1950s B-movie pastiche thing with a lot of broad wackiness, New Vegas is very good and makes a fair attempt to tie all the previous games together with varying success, and Fo4 is just odd, feels like a reboot or reimagining more than anything else.

The games are best each taken in isolation IMO since the amount of contradictions between them just leads to headaches for anyone trying to fit them all together, and the same will probably be true of the TV series.

It looks like they're going overwhelmingly with the Fo4 incarnation of the setting so they've got quite a lot of room to do whatever. When the series was announced I had hoped they'd lean a bit into Fo1 since it's got such a striking and grimy aesthetic, and since the plot of the game would translate perfectly into TV, but I suppose it makes sense that Bethesda want to focus in on their current vision for the series.

[druss]

The games are best each taken in isolation IMO since the amount of contradictions between them just leads to headaches for anyone trying to fit them all together, and the same will probably be true of the TV series.

Bang on, particularly the part in bold. If you go into Fallout 4 expecting a New Vegas type game then it would be an utterly crushing disappointment, but the core gameplay loop in Fallout 4 is my favourite of any of the games, particularly hardcore mode (or whatever it was called).

Also wish they'd leaned more into Fallout 1 for the show though.

[Mister Six]

Felt absolutely nothing watching that trailer beyond "Oh, it's Kyle McLachlan/Walton Goggins/Chris Parnell/the bloke from Severance." Just burned out to fuck on pop-culture adaptations and IP extensions, I suppose. If this had come out in the early Netflix period I'd be creaming myself.

[druss]

Not that Prime are much better but I'd much rather them than Netflix, even early Netflix. HBO would have been the ideal of course.

[Mister Six]

I'm thinking more about the time period - 2012 was when Netflix started doing original shows, and something like this would have been a novelty then. Less so after The Last of Us, Arcane, Castlevania, and the Sonic/Mario/whatever movies, plus cinema and TV as a whole increasingly turning to straight adaptationa or, worse, continuations/expansions of existing stories.

[surreal]

Is there enough story in the series to call anything "canon"? That and "fandom" are words I'd like to see scrubbed.

Saying that, this looks decent.

There's a timeline where you can see how it deviates from our history:
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

[evilcommiedictator]

Someone pointed out to me that everything looks too shiny, and I can't unsee it. You've putting ramshackle shit together, why is it all clean? Nice clean plane fuselage and encampment.
It looks like they're using The Mando techniques, so at least we can have nice gorgeous long shots

[druss]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-mugKDQDlg&pp=ygUPRkFMTE9VVCBUUkFJTEVS

They had me at Walton Goggins.

[elliszeroed]

Does the trailer end with a big explosion/ gun fight and then someone saying "I'm okay!" ?

[Mister Six]

More moaning; spoilered to avoid ruining anyone's fun

The magic of the original Fallout was that it grabbed handfuls of old sci-fi tropes, bundled them up into a world with a novel mid-century gothic aesthetic and let you run around exploring.

Seeing all that stuff, 6+ games later, transposed back into TV, minus the interactivity and with an additional generic Marvel-inflected gloss (of course the lead is a goody two-shoes possibly queer woman* of indeterminate race; of course the black guy is a boring humourless serious character; of course the only interesting lines come from Walton Goggins as the designated wacky degenerate character) makes it even less appealing.

I dunno, maybe it'll be a fantastic surprise like Dungeons & Dragons. I hope so. Really.





* Although TBF that describes most of my Fallout characters.

[close]

[Lemming]

So it's set in the Fo1 region, with Fo4's aesthetics and incarnation of the BoS and general tone, in the 3/NV time period, and the protagonist seems roughly analogous to Fo1's Vault Dweller. Kind of a hodgepodge and it'll be very strange to see locations and ideas from Fo1 and Fo2 reimagined through the Bethesda lens, especially since they'll be contending with the presence of the NCR which as far as I know is meant to control the whole of California by that point.

The protagonist does seem at risk of being a bit generic too,hopefully the writers might have fun by leaning into the more entertaining ways you could play the Vault Dweller, basically making her into a bit of an arsehole with no patience and no tolerance for people's batshit beliefs, which always led to the most amusing dialogue options and situations in Fo1 (taunting The Lieutenant in Mariposa while being tortured, harassing the Children of the Cathedral recruiters in The Hub, threatening the underground ghouls in Necropolis, and what-not).

I'm still never sure why all these game-to-movie/TV adaptations don't just adapt the source material directly, especially when Fo1 would work so fantastically as a short TV series. Even have a great ready-made protagonist right there in the form of Natalia Dubrovhsky. Fo3 (with a few plothole fixes) would make a great episodic adventure series too if Bethesda wanted to stick with their own version of the setting.

[ProvanFan]

I hope there's a lot of leaning in this show

[Mobius]

this is out now! Or in a few hours or something. They're dropping all the episodes together which is nice.

[druss]

Pretty decent reviews, I'd probably enjoy it even if it was a bit shit so very much looking forward to powering through this.

[Inspector Norse]

Yeah might bung Bezos a fiver for this, looks fun especially as I'm not that bothered how much they stick to/mash up the games' styles and lore, I've only played 3, NV and 4.

If I'm on Prime is the Boys spin-off worth a watch?

[Pete23]

If I'm on Prime is the Boys spin-off worth a watch?

Not as good as The Boys, but was entertaining enough. If you get bored by the teen leads there's enough Boys-style gross out gore / sex / violence to make it worth your while.

[niat]

If I'm on Prime is the Boys spin-off worth a watch?

I'd say it's definitely worth a watch if you enjoyed The Boys. I enjoyed it but it seems they won't be making any more.

[Mobius]

Well the guy from it died.

I just watched the first episode of fallout and loved it. They've captured the world of the game really well imo.

[H-O-W-L]

Watched the first three episodes and it's pretty alright. I had no hopes whatsoever and they've pleasantly surprised me. They have, however, not really captured what I liked about the series. The story they're telling is decently well-told though.

[Des Wigwam]

Well the guy from it died.

I just watched the first episode of fallout and loved it. They've captured the world of the game really well imo.

Would you say this and Halo (is it?) can be watched if you're not all into Space Invaders or whatever they're based on?

These trailers pop up and I think "ooh that looks good ... oh it's computer game thing" and then forget to give them a go.

[H-O-W-L]

Would you say this and Halo (is it?) can be watched if you're not all into Space Invaders or whatever they're based on?

These trailers pop up and I think "ooh that looks good ... oh it's computer game thing" and then forget to give them a go.

Halo is shit and shouldn't be watched under any circumstances.

With this there's no onboarding but you should be able to enjoy it as a story in itself so long as you know the basic details to get involved (1950s-esque retrofuture, war with Communist China, mutation and radiation.)

[Poobum]

Because I've played those games obsessively and extensively, I have no interest in watching those shows. Intruding onto my own curated world. So, probably, yes?

[Des Wigwam]

Thank you. I will forego Police Interceptors tonight and give it a go.

[elliszeroed]

Three episodes in, I'm finding this pretty dull so far. Have no interest in the future of any of the central characters.

It does look nice, and is well acted, but the story doesn't grab me.