Fallout

[Reg]

The entire first season of Fallout has been released on Amazon Prime. I just finished the first episode and it was so much fun I expect I'm going to be binging the whole thing over the next day or two.

It's the story of a Vault Dweller leaving Vault 33 to look for her kidnapped father and it's set in the Los Angeles Wastelands. It also introduces a brotherhood of Steel Squire and a ghoul. I expect they'll meet up sometime soon.

[Samwise]

I never even got into the Fallout games, but the trailer had me at Walton Goggins.

[Threash]

God, the stim packs, the bobble heads, the fucking posters, the junk gun... this has to be the most faithful adaptation of anything ever. Great cast too.

[Surlyboi]

I never even got into the Fallout games, but the trailer had me at Walton Goggins.

I have played, but even if I hadn't, Goggins would make it a must watch. Add MacLachlan, Purnell and Emerson and I'm totally in.

[Tale]

Strongly agree with everything said above. Most of f13 discord apparently isn't liking it this much, but I think it's really good.

[Riggswolfe]

Strongly agree with everything said above. Most of f13 discord apparently isn't liking it this much, but I think it's really good.

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that F13 people are picking something apart. It's a fun show with a few great quotes scattered here and there.

[Velorath]

My opinion is admittedly based on only the first episode. I thought it was a little disjointed and dragged in parts. My gf who knows nothing about the games was lost at times because the show doesn't do a lot of setup. We both just sort of lost interest towards the end of the episode.

[Setanta]

I've never finished a Fallout game, but thoroughly enjoyed this series. Not quite as much as I enjoyed The Gentlemen and am enjoying Shogun (even if it's not true to the novel/1980 series), but this is pretty damn good in terms of a game turned live action. I'm definitely up for Season 2.

[Riggswolfe]

My opinion is admittedly based on only the first episode. I thought it was a little disjointed and dragged in parts. My gf who knows nothing about the games was lost at times because the show doesn't do a lot of setup. We both just sort of lost interest towards the end of the episode.

I don't see how you can be lost in the show. I mean, sure, you might not know who the factions are by the end of the first episode but you have a general idea at least. And it's not hard to figure out that it's post apocalypse. The nukes dropping sort of give that away.

The first episode is a bit odd as it introduces all three series leads and sort of bounces back and forth between them. So I can see where you'd find it disjointed.

[Riggswolfe]

I want to see if anyone else agrees with this prediction I have for season 2. I'll spoiler it because it is based partially on events in the final episode.

[eldaec]

I can understand someone being lost.

You have to accept that characters are just exploring because that's the only thing they can do and not worry about it. It's normal video game behaviour to just explore wherever the game lets you explore and assume things will happen.

The show kind of assumes you will accept that the characters don't need any further motivation to move forward.

It's good as far as I've got though. I did not have high expectations.

Only criticism I'd have is that it works less well whenever it makes the mistake of explaining something or increasing the stakes beyond the survival of the people in front of us.

At its best when it is a super episodic narrow focus on main characters trying to solve the encounter they have in front of them using their own specific skill set and personality.

[Samwise]

I knew pretty much nothing about Fallout beyond "you buy things with bottlecaps, and people have PDAs called Pip-Boys".  My wife didn't even know it was a video game.  We haven't had any problems.  Show's pretty fun.

It did have a bit of "too many POV characters" syndrome in the first episode, but the show did a good job showing us what the deal was without exposition.  You get how the Vaults work (there are a lot of them, they're mostly sealed off even from each other, and they're multi-generational), you get that there's a lot going on topside with different factions and towns and lots of mutant weirdos, and you get that our three POV characters are all gonna wind up chasing the same MacGuffin and will wind up in the same place before long.

Three episodes in and it feels like it's humming along pretty well.

[Velorath]

My opinion is admittedly based on only the first episode. I thought it was a little disjointed and dragged in parts. My gf who knows nothing about the games was lost at times because the show doesn't do a lot of setup. We both just sort of lost interest towards the end of the episode.

I don't see how you can be lost in the show. I mean, sure, you might not know who the factions are by the end of the first episode but you have a general idea at least. And it's not hard to figure out that it's post apocalypse. The nukes dropping sort of give that away.

The first episode is a bit odd as it introduces all three series leads and sort of bounces back and forth between them. So I can see where you'd find it disjointed.

The post-apocalypse part isn't the confusing bit, and I think you're looking at it from the perspective of someone who is at least familiar with the games. Imagine you have no idea what Fallout is. After the intro apocalypse stuff, you get the vault which degenerates into violence fairly quickly while viewers are still getting into the concept. That sequences ends somewhat confusingly because you get the introduction of a mysterious villain, who tells Kyle MacLachlan to choose "her or them" (them being some of the other vault dwellers). He chooses to save his daughter, but then the villain gives the other vault people a chance to run anyway so the choice didn't really make any sense. That's all in the first half hour or so of the show (6 minute intro, 15 minutes in the vault until things go bad, and about 10 minutes of action), so it's covering a lot of ground quickly and not giving anything time to breathe. It then cuts to the Brotherhood of Steel, which again, if you aren't familiar with the games at all is a very poor introduction as to what their deal is. Doesn't help that the Brotherhood stuff seems to have the weakest acting. We go back and forth between that and the aftermath at the vault a couple times for the second half hour of the show, and then we get the ghoul stuff tacked on in the last five minutes.

The episode feels like they're rushing through it. They could have spent a full episode in the vault so there's actually some weight when the attack happens. As it stands the only characters I can name from the first episode are Lucy and Maximus and it has to use their names as title cards for their sections for me to even really get that. Again, first episode impressions, but even as a fan of the games, this didn't draw me into wanting to watch more. It's an absolute mess in terms of directing, pacing, editing, writing, and with some characters, acting. You can introduce multiple leads and bounce back and forth between them without it being this jointed. Fuck, how many characters did Game of Thrones introduce in the first episode? Jonathan Nolan directed the first episode of Westworld also which, even for being a mystery box show, was way more cohesive in how it introduced characters and concepts.

[Samwise]

Finished the season in two nights, because we have no self restraint.  The story surpassed my expectations and I like the setup for season 2.

[eldaec]

I'm liking this less as it goes on.

Feels like ep 1 and 2 did everything the show has to offer.

At the moment I don't have faith it's going to pay off on the plot being set up with the head and with vault 31.

I quite like the characters. I especially like how fucked up Maximus is. But so far I don't think they worked out what they want to do with them well enough.

[Tale]

I finished it last night and liked it the whole way through. Very enjoyable TV, improbably faithful to the games.

[Khaldun]

My spouse who has played none of the games and knows almost nothing about them liked the first two episodes a lot.

[eldaec]

Finished it, it perked up again a bit at the end.

Though I'm not a huge fan of the over epic reveal in context of vault tec lore. And vault 31 made zero sense to me.

I'm struggling to imagine this getting past season 2. Looks too expensive for what it is. I don't think I'd care about it at all if not for the fallout game connection. And I think if season 2 is just the 4 main people coming to terms with the situation, that's a decent enough place to stop.

Also, I really liked what they did with Maximus (apart from arbitrarily knocking him unconscious at a key moment for a shitty plot-by-misunderstanding setup).

[Riggswolfe]

The Vault Tec reveal, if it's the one I'm thinking of, has been a fan theory for decades. And Vault 31 made perfect sense? At least if you think like Vault Tec. It was really one of those "wow, of course Vault Tec would do that!" moments for me.

[Threash]

Also Vault Tec said they would do it if necessary, that's not to say that they definitely did. I would have imagined Barb being so high up the chain would make sure her kid was safe before dropping the bombs.

[Samwise]

My interpretation was that they'd more likely be instigating shit behind the scenes (a la Cambridge Analytica) rather than being the ones to actually drop the bombs, in which case they wouldn't necessarily be able to control the exact timing, but the Shady Sands thing certainly shows that they would have had the capability to act more directly if the indirect approach was taking too long.  Seems deliberately ambiguous, but I don't think it matters that much; their overall agenda is more important than the specific sequence of historical events that got everyone where they are.

[Reg]

The series' success has given the Fallout games a tremendous boost in popularity. New and freshly resurrected how-to guides are popping up everywhere in my YouTube timeline.

[Threash]

New Vegas actually hit its peak after the show, not when it launched.

[Samwise]

Yeah, I picked up the original on Steam for a couple bucks since the show got me curious about the setting.

[eldaec]

The Vault Tec reveal, if it's the one I'm thinking of, has been a fan theory for decades. And Vault 31 made perfect sense? At least if you think like Vault Tec. It was really one of those "wow, of course Vault Tec would do that!" moments for me.

It's fine as a fan theory. It makes sense. It just doesn't seem like the sort of thing protagonists or the viewer should ever actually know.

As well as the bomb thing, I'd much prefer buds buds being something created by scientists in an early vault 31 generation who then manipulate 32 and 33.

The world before should remain strange and unknowable. I much prefer the pov in fallout remaining limited. I don't like knowing the idiots who created it all.

[Khaldun]

Have you played the games? I mean, shit, by Fallout 4 + Fallout 76, if you're into lore, you know a HUGE amount about the pre-Fallout world, including a substantial amount about the war itself as well as Vault-Tec. They're not remotely mysterious in a general sense.

[Reg]

Hey Velorath. Did you ever watch the second episode?

[Velorath]

Not yet. We started watching through Lower Decks and haven't had time for much else lately.

[Reg]

Lower Decks is great. The season coming up is its last though.