War never changes: A Fallout fan’s spoiler-laden review of the new TV series

The show preserved the themes, archetypes, chronology, and more for the games.

See full article...

 

[brentbent]

Agreed. His character gets the best writing and damn if he doesn't kill it in every scene.



I agree somewhat with this too. The violence is a little over-the-top sometimes, and while that's very much in-style with the games, I feel like it's a little too much for the show.

All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed it and love seeing all the references to the game depicted in the wasteland.

I too get squeamish at some of the violence in shows but I use this new tech called eyelids that I have somehow learned to close and open at will. Came in handy both times they showed a mangled foot.

 

[sonicmerlin]

My only regret is that I binged it over 2 evenings instead of savoring it more slowly.

 

[issor]

Not sure about how squire thaddeus becomes a ghoul. Felt a little tacked on.

I thought it was good writing. Much better than resolving that conflict with a standard showdown, or what we thought happened (Thaddeus killed by a trap).

It also really highlighted how quickly alignment with factions can change due to circumstance.

 

[benwaggoner]

I think it was the potion the sham doctor/chicken lover guy gave Thaddeus. The quick healing was the result of making him a ghoul. (I am not deep in ghoul lore so I could be wrong.)

I don't recall the ghouls having that sort of rapid regeneration in any of the games, though. They age really slowly, which would make sense to come from some degree of regeneration. But did we ever see ghouls regenerating from very serious injuries in second like this?

 

[benwaggoner]

I just rewatched that scene, and he does not. He defends taking Lucy back to the Vault, and Vault-Tec's motives, but he doesn't admit to destroying Shady Sands. And logically, it doesn't really make sense, as in the lore strategic nuclear weapons capable of destroying cities are huge things, and it doesn't make sense that a Vault or its Overseer would have access to one or the means to deliver it.

Nor would a nuke leave a perfectly spherical crater like that with building still standing around it, at all. Certainly not if detonated at the surface. Perhaps something like that if it was detonated far underground or something.

 

[benwaggoner]

I think there are good guys in Fallout, but they get drowned out the larger an organization gets.

The Minutemen in Fallout 4 were pretty darn "good" and weren't all murdery toward any other big class of nonaggressor groups. Kinda derpy and not clued into stuff either, but helping them rarely left a bad taste in one's mouth.

The all-fiddle radio station's enormous irritation was a nice shoutout to Minutemen Radio.

 

[Nexus]

Dialogue from Fallout 4

The Sole Survivor: "What's your story, Hancock?"

John Hancock: "My favorite subject. I came into this town about... a decade ago? Had a smooth set of skin back then. While I was busy making myself a pillar of this community, I would go on these... like ... wild tears... I was young... Any chems I could find, the more exotic, the better. Finally found this experimental radiation drug. Only one of its kind left, and only one hit. Oh man, the high was so worth it. Yeah, I'm living with the side effects, but hey, what's not to love about immortality?"

The Sole Survivor: "You're immortal?"

John Hancock: "Well... not exactly. Ghouls just age really, really slow. Something about the rads, maybe? Who knows..."

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/John_Hancock#cite_note-:0-7

"HIS NAMES HEREBERT!"

 

[benwaggoner]

Along those lines, can someone explain how the scientist that invented cold fusion is still alive 200 years later without being a ghoul?

Edit: and how in 200 year she couldn't repeat what she'd already done before?

There are notable declines in infrastructure and access to rare materials after an apocalypse.

I presume she'd been in cryo for the bulk of the intervening time as well. Although there are some non-ghoul life-extension technologies, at least for Kellogg in Fallout 4.

 

[panton41]

I don't recall the ghouls having that sort of rapid regeneration in any of the games, though. They age really slowly, which would make sense to come from some degree of regeneration. But did we ever see ghouls regenerating from very serious injuries in second like this?

I've not watched the show, but the Fallout TTRPG has Ghoul players and they heal fairly quickly from radiation. IIRC, there's even Perks to improve it.

 

[Emon]

Like, have you ever met someone that's into "Geek stuff" before? Discussing and arguing about lore and canon is a major pastime. Let people have their fun. No reason to tell people to get a life.

I'm not talking about being passionate and having geek fun. I'm talking about the people who literally get ANGRY that a tv series isn't exactly what they envisioned. They're the kind of gatekeeping twats they keep people OUT of hobbies.

I'm talking about it the people that only want people to have geek fun THEIR way. If someone else likes it a different way, REEEEEE

It's a serious problem for people getting into new hobbies or fiction. They're told the thing they like and fell in love with isn't good enough or "legit" enough. They want to talk about what they liked and get sealioned by someone who insists they're "right" because "you just don't understand the lore." And there won't even be an objective right or wrong anyway but they act like there is. If you're saying "that's a logical fallacy I win," you were never interested in a real discussion.

Let's put it another way. Was it reasonable for Star Wars fans in 1999 that hated Episode 1 to say that "George Lucas raped my childhood," or perhaps should they have grown the fuck up a bit?

 

[thelee]

I don't recall the ghouls having that sort of rapid regeneration in any of the games, though. They age really slowly, which would make sense to come from some degree of regeneration. But did we ever see ghouls regenerating from very serious injuries in second like this?

the speed is definitely new-ish to the show, but not totally w/out precedent.

in the 3D fallouts there are "glowing ones" that can release a wave of radiation that heals themselves and heals or revives other nearby feral ghouls. radiation and radiation damage iirc also actually heals ghouls. fallout new vegas had a perk that let you heal rapidly from radation, not ghoul-themed but not outside precedent that there's something that causes rapid regeneration. (i haven't touched fallout 76 so can't attest to what goes on there)

edit: in new vegas lonesome road, there are "marked men" (non-feral ghoul enemies that are tough) that heal in radiation as well. so for both feral and non-feral ghouls, rapid regeneration is not w/out precedent, but the show does it outside the context of radiation triggering it.

 

[jhollinger]

Never played or knew much about the game, but I loved every minute of this series. I hope Walton Goggins gets a good payday from it!


View: https://youtu.be/w6W9qoIN-QU?si=WIfVDXfx0KLtZzob

 

[deltaproximus]

I don't recall the ghouls having that sort of rapid regeneration in any of the games, though. They age really slowly, which would make sense to come from some degree of regeneration. But did we ever see ghouls regenerating from very serious injuries in second like this?

Thaddeus also gained the rad regeneration perk upon being ghoulified, is my take on that.

 

[traumadog]

The only thing I can think of is that she was in a cryosleep pod. The only factions I can think of that would have had access to those were The Enclave, and Vault-Tec, which are two sides of the same coin...

There’s a billboard right at the beginning of the end credits of Episode 8: “The TOPS Hotel & Casino CryoSuites”.

So they clearly hint at the technology being elsewhere too.

 

[traumadog]

There's still time, since we only have a wide-angle view of New Vegas.

The end credits show a bombed-out Vegas, with a downed NCR (edit) vertibird, so something did happen to the strip after F:NV.

 

[Boskone]

The Minutemen in Fallout 4 were pretty darn "good" and weren't all murdery toward any other big class of nonaggressor groups. Kinda derpy and not clued into stuff either, but helping them rarely left a bad taste in one's mouth.

The all-fiddle radio station's enormous irritation was a nice shoutout to Minutemen Radio.

Except the group in the floating harbor thing that turned raider? Or sold out the rest to the Gunners? Or the general that panicked and hid himself in The Fort's armory?

 

[Boskone]

The end credits show a bombed-out Vegas, with a downed NCR certified, so something did happen to the strip after F:NV.

Sure, but Prim wasn't on the Strip.

 

[burtonsimmons]

My absolute favorite line was when Lucy assumed the Brotherhood of Steel was "the good guys" and Maximus's response was, "it's a complicated organization".

 

[Soothsayer786]

I think one of my favorite parts was how the citizens of Vault 4 turned out. You fully expected them to be doing some evil shit but they turn out to be just really nice mutants. Like I'm glad they included some genuinely good, uh, people... in there somewhere.

 

[Peevester]

Are the Minute Men not meant to be the good guys in FO4? Do they turn evil?

We don't have any way of knowing. That's all happening, or happened, on the other side of the continent from the series.

 

[PaulWTAMU]

My only regret is that I binged it over 2 evenings instead of savoring it more slowly.

I'm watching it after work at 4am when the kids and wife are asleep. Started Wednesday. But GODDAMN I'm enjoying

 

[Timmy O'Toole82]

This series was amazing and I cannot wait for season 2, 3, 4, 5... The tales in the wasteland could be endless.

 

[Peevester]

If I have one complaint, it's that I wish they had released an episode per week, because it was absolutely impossible to ignore the siren call for just one more episode, and then it was all over. It would have been fun to have been discussing it week after week, too.

It seems like we suddenly figured out how to make faithful video game adaptations in the last few years, and you love to see it.

 

[OldFart69]

I'm confused about 'Dad'. By the end of the series I thought those pods in the Roomba vault were clone pods, not cryo pods, because I thought it was implied that Dad came back, aged out, and disappeared, then reappeared, with a new family.

What was the real story?

 

[thelee]

My absolute favorite line was when Lucy assumed the Brotherhood of Steel was "the good guys" and Maximus's response was, "it's a complicated organization".

It wasn’t even Maximus, it was Thaddeus which IMO makes it funnier.

Both my spouse and I (both big fallout fans) literally cackled out loud at that line

 

[Boskone]

I'm confused about 'Dad'. By the end of the series I thought those pods in the Roomba vault were clone pods, not cryo pods, because I thought it was implied that Dad came back, aged out, and disappeared, then reappeared, with a new family.

What was the real story?

Spoiler

Hank--Kyle MacLachlan--was a young exec with Vault Tec pre-war, went into Vault 31 for cryosleep, and was later sent to Vault 33 as a genetic exchange and started a family (Lucy and Norm, plus the largely-unseen mother who's name I forget), in reality a part of 31's program to maintain control of 32 and 33. At some point the mother figured out based on some anomalous data in the vault that there were survivors on the surface, took the kids, and went to Shady Sands. Hank chased 'em, some stuff we haven't explicitly seen happened, Hank (apparently) took the kids and ran while causing Shady Sands to get nuked, then went back to the vault and somehow covered the whole thing up.

 

[OlfactoriusRex]

“You can hardly open a social media app without seeing content about it,”

I’m sure I’ve hated other sentences more, but none come to mind.

 

[Spalls]

My only 'lore' issue with the show - and it's not really a problem with the lore itself, but how the TV show presented it - is how there is no mention that the conflict was between the US and China. Between the 1950s aesthetic and the talk of 'commies' and 'reds', it would be easy for non-fans to assume the bad guys were the Russian. People who played the game, of course, would know the truth, but it seems odd to not have any direct mention of China. I can't imagine why Amazon played so coy with this.

 

[thurberactual]

I can't imagine why Amazon played so coy with this.

Oh yeah, total mystery. An enormous marketplace of mystery.

 

[WereCatf]

Oh yeah, total mystery. An enormous marketplace of mystery.

Almost as if there was a...hundreds of miles long great wall between us and the explanation to the mystery, eh?

 

[arc-tu-rus]

Most fun I've had watching a TV show in a long time.

With respect to who dropped the first bomb, I don't think Vault-Tec actually did, though they were certainly willing to do so (confirmed by Hank actually nuking Shady Sands). The reason I think this is because Barb didn't ensure her daughter would be safely in or near a vault before the nuclear exchange started.

I don't think the TV show is implying that Vault-Tec dropped the first bomb. The show only says that Vault-Tec was willing to do it if needed. Vault-Tec started building Vaults in the 2050s, when Project Safehouse was initiated in response to the conflict between Europe and the Middle East. At this time, there was still some remote hope that after more than one century of cold war the situation could improve. In this case, Vault-Tec (and all other major corporations who have been profiting from all the military conflicts) would be tempted to make sure the wars never ended.

According to canon, the world was already heading to a point of no return in the two decades before the Great War of 2077. The UN are disbanded after conflict between Europe and the Middle East in 2050s (which ended up with limited nuclear exchanges). Resource scarcity intensifies and most oil reserves are depleted by 2060. Conflicts escalate very rapidly. China invaded Anchorage in 2066 and the US tries to invade China in 2074. Meanwhile, the US annexed Canada and Mexico. Besides the global conflicts, governments start to collapse, and society unravels. In March 2077 the POTUS moves to an oil rig (this was the start of the Enclave). In the days before the Great War, the US troops initiate an offensive against China. In the games, there are messages that imply that the US reacted to Chinese nuclear missile launches, but it is not entirely clear who actually dropped the first bomb. In any case, there was no need for Vault-Tec to press the trigger.

 

[issor]

I’m sure I’ve hated other sentences more, but none come to mind.

Pretty self selecting marketing, I believe. Like when you do one search and suddenly get bombarded. It doesn’t seem that my wife has seen a single post about it yet, and if she does it is probably because we share an IP.

 

[jaynor_]

I too get squeamish at some of the violence in shows but I use this new tech called eyelids that I have somehow learned to close and open at will. Came in handy both times they showed a mangled foot.

I wrote and erased a similar comment a few times, getting so confused over why people want to complain about gore and demand a show be created to suit their particular tastes, or not be "offensive" to anyone ever, instead of just using their own personal ability to block out things they don't like...

Like you, I strategically employed my eyelids/hand to avoid the couple seconds at a time of things I didn't want to see, and didn't think about it again

 

[Wickwick]

I wrote and erased a similar comment a few times, getting so confused over why people want to complain about gore and demand a show be created to suit their particular tastes, or not be "offensive" to anyone ever, instead of just using their own personal ability to block out things they don't like...

Like you, I strategically employed my eyelids/hand to avoid the couple seconds at a time of things I didn't want to see, and didn't think about it again

If I knew ahead of time when blood was going to splatter and could warn my wife, I would have watched the show with her. However, when exactly is a fight scene going to turn into an exploding head? Hard to guess.

 

[Statistical]

The headline bothered me. After reading the headline, I was about to read the article. Then I read the subhead and realized the article has nothing to do with war. I spent a year in a war. Maybe that makes me too sensitive to casual use of the word.

The line is literally about war. Not war used as a metaphor for something else but war. The fact that war changed nothing in this case a fictional war that ended civilization.

As a former soldier I feel it is a thought provoking line. You fought in a war, 20,000 years ago someone else fought in a war. Not a whole lot has changed. God help us if someone people turn keys in silos that is unlikely to change anything for the better either.

 

[Snarky Robot]

The only criticism I'd have is that there were a lot of contrivances along the way - people ending up crossing paths a little too neatly. The tracker Lucy put in the head and the dog doing effectively the same thing can explain some of it but it did feel like everyone had a quest marker they were following and made the world feel a bit small.

To me, that’s one of the things that pokes fun at the games. “Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time)” (may not be exact quote) crystallizes this perfectly. The games are contrived. They kinda have to be. There are always weird coincidences. The dog always follows a protagonist or important character. Sometime you clip into the ground at an inopportune moment and it screws up a fight when VATS doesn’t work right.

I mean, part of this is fairly standard contrivances to get people together, true. And there’s clearly a McGuffin aspect to this. But…that’s the game. That’s how it’s done. That the show follows the games as kind of a send-up is good.

 

[Snarky Robot]

As an aside, I am fucking THRILLED that people are starting to realize that TV shows, not movies, are the only good way to convey the fullness of a game. You’re not compressing 20-40 hours of gameplay into a tidy 2 hour movie without sacrificing a lot.

See also: Steven King books. Unless it’s a short story, get your ass prepared for a 8-10 episode season if you want to get the story right.

 

[Snarky Robot]

The headline bothered me. After reading the headline, I was about to read the article. Then I read the subhead and realized the article has nothing to do with war. I spent a year in a war. Maybe that makes me too sensitive to casual use of the word.

 

[issor]

While I agree Vault-Tec didn't start the Great War (though they may have been willing), I'm not ready to pin Shady Sands on Hank yet. The only source for that accusation is extremely unreliable.

When asked about where the mom’s pip-boy is, and how Betty can be sure it was buried with the mom, Betty replied “because your father and I buried her ourselves”.

I’m guessing this isn’t something Hank and Betty had to execute themselves by hand, but rather they were able to phone in a favor from powers that be. Of course they had no idea about any survivors.