Fallout, it seems that things are turning around for video game adaptions. Fallout manages to take the silly, gruesome, complex and chaotic world of the Fallout games and turn it into a compelling tv show. Not a small feat. If anything, the amount of switching in tone this show has it could've gone so much worse.
But it's delicate balance of funny, silly, awkward and gruesome is what makes this one of the more unique shows in a while.
As a big Fallout fan, especially New Vegas. I had set a low bar for this, how are they going to pull off such a massive world, and such a weird one too. Having Jonathan Nolan behind it gave me some hope. And Goggins helps, as always. But still, I gave it a low chance of succes. Behold my surprise when I binged it in a couple days. This is a genuinely good show. But it took some adjusting.
Primarily it leans into the silly *much* more, and it's foundation, art direction and tone of voice lies in the Fallout 4 game mainly. Which it a bit more silly than Fallout 3 or NV who in general are a bit more serious, gritty, and more depressing (as worlds).
Directing is great so far. I have some bad memories of Westworld action scenes, especially in later seasons, Nolan is not good at that because it was always a hilarious bullet fest that stood in awkward contrast to the rest of the show. But in Fallout, first off, the firefights and action scenes are perfectly good, and the bit of silliness that they have works because of the universe it is set in.
And that takes me to the bit that I needed to adjust to. This is by all aspect, a video game tv show, and it plays by video game RULES. As in it has a lot more comically unrealistic scenes. Whilst both being exceptionally gruesome and gore-y. Therefore it might just be the best video game tv show adaption ever. Because it's not trying to be real life, it's not trying to ground it in our realities. It 's creating a fictious world, and fictious rules to align perfectly with the fictitious rules of games and gaming in general. This is what I needed to accept and once I did I was really enjoying it.
Music, pretty perfect, the expected scores. Effective when used for sure. The oldies music really lands the show and puts it right inside the Fallout universe. I could sing all of them by heart. The fact it's the actual music you also hear in the games is icing on the cake.
The story is a great way to show the diverse and huge world of Fallout, and we've yet touched the surface. So much to explore and this gave a taste of each. It could go on for a good while.
Lore-wise minor changes here and there and mostly some creative choices in certain attitudes and portrayals, but it all made sense to me. None of it stuck out to me as betraying the games in terms of how things work. The BoS are a bit less cool than they should, and more incompetent here, but it's only a division of it. Not the entire thing, so it's easy to look past.
Also gore, man, they went all in. And I love them for it. Fallout games are gore-y and they don't stray one bit from that. That's what this show is, it's honest to the game, to an extend I've never seen before.
The pacing, it moves along fast, and characters do too, (fast travel..). What I didn't love as much was the coincidental nature of it all, it made the world feel very small and compact when everyone seems to meet up around some random corner every odd episode. If anything, that's my complaint so far, is that the world feels somewhat small. And everything around tends to feel like set dressing very quickly.
That being said, for now, Season 1. They really delivered a good time, and I can't wait for S2.
But it's delicate balance of funny, silly, awkward and gruesome is what makes this one of the more unique shows in a while.
As a big Fallout fan, especially New Vegas. I had set a low bar for this, how are they going to pull off such a massive world, and such a weird one too. Having Jonathan Nolan behind it gave me some hope. And Goggins helps, as always. But still, I gave it a low chance of succes. Behold my surprise when I binged it in a couple days. This is a genuinely good show. But it took some adjusting.
Primarily it leans into the silly *much* more, and it's foundation, art direction and tone of voice lies in the Fallout 4 game mainly. Which it a bit more silly than Fallout 3 or NV who in general are a bit more serious, gritty, and more depressing (as worlds).
Directing is great so far. I have some bad memories of Westworld action scenes, especially in later seasons, Nolan is not good at that because it was always a hilarious bullet fest that stood in awkward contrast to the rest of the show. But in Fallout, first off, the firefights and action scenes are perfectly good, and the bit of silliness that they have works because of the universe it is set in.
And that takes me to the bit that I needed to adjust to. This is by all aspect, a video game tv show, and it plays by video game RULES. As in it has a lot more comically unrealistic scenes. Whilst both being exceptionally gruesome and gore-y. Therefore it might just be the best video game tv show adaption ever. Because it's not trying to be real life, it's not trying to ground it in our realities. It 's creating a fictious world, and fictious rules to align perfectly with the fictitious rules of games and gaming in general. This is what I needed to accept and once I did I was really enjoying it.
Music, pretty perfect, the expected scores. Effective when used for sure. The oldies music really lands the show and puts it right inside the Fallout universe. I could sing all of them by heart. The fact it's the actual music you also hear in the games is icing on the cake.
The story is a great way to show the diverse and huge world of Fallout, and we've yet touched the surface. So much to explore and this gave a taste of each. It could go on for a good while.
Lore-wise minor changes here and there and mostly some creative choices in certain attitudes and portrayals, but it all made sense to me. None of it stuck out to me as betraying the games in terms of how things work. The BoS are a bit less cool than they should, and more incompetent here, but it's only a division of it. Not the entire thing, so it's easy to look past.
Also gore, man, they went all in. And I love them for it. Fallout games are gore-y and they don't stray one bit from that. That's what this show is, it's honest to the game, to an extend I've never seen before.
The pacing, it moves along fast, and characters do too, (fast travel..). What I didn't love as much was the coincidental nature of it all, it made the world feel very small and compact when everyone seems to meet up around some random corner every odd episode. If anything, that's my complaint so far, is that the world feels somewhat small. And everything around tends to feel like set dressing very quickly.
That being said, for now, Season 1. They really delivered a good time, and I can't wait for S2.