Author Topic: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime  (Read 471 times)

Ben

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"Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« on: March 13, 2024, 09:39:49 AM »
Amazon Prime is doing a Fallout series starting next month. While it could be good, from the teaser, I can't figure out if it's serious or a comedy. It also bodes to potentially being drowned in wokeness. I'll give it a go when it premieres, but if there's even one work thing in the first episode, I'm out. I just don't have the time or desire to sit through that crap anymore.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12637874/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_5_nm_3_q_fallo
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Brad Johnson

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2024, 09:43:28 AM »
Saw the commercial. Never played the game, but the commercial seems to indicate it being decently entertaining. I'm with you on the WQ (wokeness quotient). I'm done with that mess.

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dogmush

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2024, 11:00:27 AM »
I like the Fallout games, but I'm not a lore junkie, so I won't be picking this apart with weaponized autisim.

They get a free two or three episodes out of me just from Walton Goggins.  I love that guy's acting.  after that it better have a decent story and some decently written charectors.

RocketMan

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2024, 01:21:57 PM »
They get a free two or three episodes out of me just from Walton Goggins.  I love that guy's acting.  after that it better have a decent story and some decently written charectors.

Same here.  I really like Goggins' acting.
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dogmush

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2024, 08:11:36 AM »
Bringing this back up because the series dropped and I watched the first wo episodes last night.  My thoughts:

Coming from the games:  I played Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4.  Multiple run throughs of 4.  There is definitely some lore that they got wrong, as the folks online were saying about the previews.  The biggest seems to be that the NCR is nowhere to be found so far.  I didn't really love New Vegas anyways, so it doesn't bother me that much.  They ripped Megaton off kinda wholesale from Fallout 3, and the Prydwen from fallout 4 (which was supposed to be a one of a kind airship if I remember the game correctly).  But for all the lore tweaking I think they got the feel right.  The vibe is certainly there, and is helped by the music which is a mix of the music from the games, and some real life old timey music.  (Heard some vintage Man in Black in there)  So if you like the feel and aesthetic of the games I would say don't worry too much about every detail lineing up and just enjoy this entry in the game.  There were also some Bethesda gamer fan service Easter eggs which I enjoyed.

Acting: Acting was passable to good.  The two "main" characters are OK.  Ella Purnell pulls off the earnest rube passibly.  I thought she was better in Arcane, but there's room for development here.  I don't know much about Aaron Moten, and his charector is giving me strong "Finn from force awakens" vibes.  That's not neccessarilly a bad thing as Finn had a lot of potential in Force Awakens and was done wrong in the follow on movies.  Hopefully Fallout let's this character grow.  There's some supporting cast that are solid professionals and turn in good performances (Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Rappaport, and Michael Emmerson). Walton Goggins, as predicted, is a gem.  Every scene with The Ghoul in it is fun too watch, and he brings all of his charisma to the part.

Two episodes in I can't say much for the Story or writing yet.  The story is still forming up.  Episode one was all back story and the inciting event, and episode two was a lot of setting the world and expectations.  The barebones of the story is a basic young person on quest to dangerous world to save someone with a side of overarching Mystery they will Discover along the way.  How well they pull it off remains to be seen.  I was happy to see that they let their "Strong Female Character" tm get her ass kicked when the story needed it, cast diversity works within the world they are creating, and they have not beat the story into subservience to "The Message" as Critical Drinker would say.  I'm sure if you went looking for woke points you could find some, but you don't have to look, and they don't slap you in the face.

So far, it's fun to watch, doesn't piss me off as an average level of nerdy fan of the games, and pulls off the Fallout vibe well IMO.  I will watch more episodes.

K Frame

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2024, 08:36:16 AM »
I have only the vaguest knowledge of the game, so were I to watch this I'd be going in completely cold and with no preconceptions.
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Ben

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #6 on: April 12, 2024, 08:48:11 AM »
Thanks for the review Dogmush. It sounds like it is not overly woke. These days, "sticking to the lore/book/whatever" is about 10% of my critique, and "wokeness per minute" is about 90%. I will no longer sit through anything that forces activism down my throat. It sounds like this is at the very least "turn my brain off" entertainment. so I will be checking it out.
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K Frame

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2024, 09:09:24 AM »
So....

Gay cross-dressing midget elves of color wielding pride flags aren't your thing?

« Last Edit: April 12, 2024, 02:25:47 PM by K Frame »
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Ben

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2024, 09:18:26 AM »
So....

Gay cross midget elves of color wielding pride flags aren't your thing?

Exactly why I never watched Amazon's Rings of Power.  =)
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K Frame

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #9 on: April 12, 2024, 09:21:22 AM »
Exactly why I never watched Amazon's Rings of Power.  =)

Fascist hate monger!
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MillCreek

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #10 on: April 12, 2024, 12:51:11 PM »
As someone who is completely unfamiliar with the Fallout universe, but enjoys science fiction, should I give it a go?  Or do you have to be into Fallout to understand and enjoy it?
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dogmush

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #11 on: April 12, 2024, 01:23:19 PM »
I would say you could give it a shot.

Basic premise of Fallout Universe:  It's an alternate universe where the aesthetics of the 50's stayed, and Nuclear Power progressed to the point that it was safe and small enough for there to be Nuclear cars, robots and power armor run by nuclear batteries, and other stuff.  Think advanced tech with an art deco feel.  in 2077 this alternate Earth engaged in Nuclear War that wiped out almost all the people.  Rich folks bought places in underground vaults run by Vault-Tec that were designed to be livable and sustainable forever.


It's now 200(ish) years after the war, and some Vault Dwellers have left their vaults to make their way in the surface world that is overrun with Mutated Dangerous Animals, lawlessness from humans whose ancestor survived the war, and mutated humans (Ghouls and Super-Mutants).  There are also competing factions of (mostly) Humans that try to more or less govern parts of the world.  The Games and TV show take place in that backdrop.

If that sounds interesting to you, give it a shot.  I don't think you HAVE to know anything more than that to grok what's happening.

MillCreek

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #12 on: April 12, 2024, 03:10:33 PM »
^^^Two thumbs up, Dogmush!  Based on your description, it sounds interesting and I will give it a go.
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Cliffh

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #13 on: April 12, 2024, 09:39:31 PM »
Thanks for this thread & reviews!  I'm about 10 minutes into the first episode & it's looking OK so far.

K Frame

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #14 on: April 13, 2024, 07:55:06 AM »
OK, sounds like it could be interesting, at least for a few episodes.

Hopefully it doesn't devolve into the same lazy assed writing and repetitive plot lines that finally made me give up on The Walking Dead.
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Regolith

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #15 on: April 13, 2024, 03:01:35 PM »
Rich folks bought places in underground vaults run by Vault-Tec that were designed to be livable and sustainable forever.

Just a side note, it wasn't only rich people who made it into the vaults. Every vault was designed to be a social experiment of some sort, usually something unethical as hell. Things like putting a bunch of former junkies going through rehab into one vault, waiting until they were basically clean, then introducing a bunch of drugs to see what happens, or having a vault that's supposed to mash together the very poor with the very rich to see what happens, etc.  As such you have a mix of the sort of people that are in each vault, based on whatever experiment was being run.

The only vaults that did well and lasted are the ones where the Overseers decided not to go through with the experiment. The rest usually ended poorly.
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dogmush

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #16 on: April 13, 2024, 04:50:50 PM »
^^^

Yeah, I considered adding some more info on vault-tec in the cliffs notes, but decided that was a rabbit hole that I didn't need to travel to set up the universe.

In the games, as you explore the vaults, you find some truly heinous stuff planned by Vault-tec. 

dogmush

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #17 on: April 16, 2024, 11:14:55 AM »
Bumping this back to the top.  I just finished Episode 8, and am really enjoying it so far.  Lucy's charector is progressing belivably.  FWIW, Mrs. Mush is watching it with me, never having played Fallout, and not a huge fan of gory violence and is following along fine and enjoying it.  I think Amazon got this one right, and can only hope the team making it continue down this path.  It's pretty enjoyable.

Side note: I saw an interview with Ella Purnell, and she mentioned that the production tried to do a lot of practical effects.  Specifically, they found some places in Africa that were tore up and covered in sand to be the wasteland, instead of CGIing shitty towns, and they built a 7.5' tall suit of power armor that an actor is in running, fighting, and interacting.  I think that's a good call, the practical effects look good.  Especially as some of the CGI they did use isn't amazing, the more practical the better IMO

Here's an interview with some of the cast and crew talking about the making of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmFuRJCvq2k 
Walton Goggins talks about being the guy at the table making sure the story works outside just the gamers that know the backstory, and Graham Wagner, the showrunner, talks about not trying to stuff everything in, but just doing what they did as well as they could.  That's an attidtude that I think is really good.  Also, in stark contrast to The Witcher, It's mentioned that the whole crew "had the gamer's backs" and are treating the source material with respect.

Critical Drinker agrees with me (mostly):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiuuglRCchQ

K Frame

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #18 on: April 26, 2024, 08:57:59 AM »
OK, so I finally got around to watching the first three episodes of Fallout yesterday.

Holy creeping crap is it weird!

But really, really enjoyable so far.

As I noted below, I never played Fallout, although I may think about getting it for XBox One.

The 1950s atmospheric vibe, especially in the Vaults, though, REALLY reminded me of Bioshock, which is one of my all-time favorite games.

The knights are kind of like Big Daddies (although with a very different purpose), etc.

I'm liking where it's going. It's always fun seeing Walton Goggins.
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cordex

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #19 on: April 26, 2024, 10:30:40 AM »
I finished the available episodes.

I liked it.  At first the characters didn't feel right for Fallout, but the atmosphere was well done and I think the storyline ended up fitting.  Ish.

Definitely suspect we'll see start seeing tweets parroting the "[Communism is] just a dirty word they use to describe people who aren't insane" line, though.

Ben

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #20 on: April 26, 2024, 10:37:38 AM »
I just finished it yesterday. I am in the "never played Fallout" crowd so came into it tabula rasa.

I will say that I almost turned it off after episode 1 because of the tranny. I have so absolutely had it with the gender stuff being injected in everything, that I am just scorched Earth whenever I see it in something I might otherwise enjoy. I did, however, trudge past it and watched the rest. It took a few episodes for me to get invested, but I ended up liking it by the end.

I thought the "alternate Earth" 1950s stuff was kinda neat. Also, while I'm normally not a fan of "the bad guy is really the good guy and the good guy is really the bad guy and there's a bunch of grey between good and bad", I thought they did that pretty well with those characters.

It seems they set it up for a season 2, so I will certainly watch that when it drops. Okie dokie then.
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dogmush

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #21 on: April 26, 2024, 11:08:40 AM »
I totally missed the tranny.

K Frame

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #22 on: April 26, 2024, 11:14:02 AM »
I totally missed the tranny.

Character name Dane.

The one who got the razor blade in the boot treatment.
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dogmush

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #23 on: April 26, 2024, 11:23:08 AM »
I just assumed that was a chick.  huh.

ETA: Just googled and discovered the actor and the charector were supposed to be "non-binary".  I've played the games, and despite being a "Brotherhood" the BoS has female knights, and I've run into them on my adventures.  So when I saw that character as an aspirant, I just assumed she was a female, working her way through the BoS.

The actor probably needs to work on projecting non-binary, because she just comes off as a tomboy.

K Frame

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Re: "Fallout" on Amazon Prime
« Reply #24 on: April 26, 2024, 11:29:05 AM »
I wasn't sure so I went the google route for information on the cast.
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