POPOKALIPSIS with a smile: Reviews for the series Fallout
More and more often the opinion is that a new era of adaptation of video games has begun in Hollywood-more successful compared to the past, when the “abode of evil” and “Silent Hill” could be some “Hitman” and “Max Payne”.
Over the past couple of years alone, we have received Sonic in the Cinema, Mortal Combat, cartoon about Mario and Five Nights with Freddy. And although unsuccessful examples can still be found (“hunter for monsters”, “the monastery of evil: Rakkun City”), among more successful twin, they have to be sought with a screen magnifying glass. Television also played a large role in this positive reversal, where hits like Arkene, Castlevania and, of course, The Last of USA appeared.
And now the list of successes can be expanded, because the recent Fallout series from Amazon definitely gets into it.
Shelter designers
The novelty, whose action unfolds in the universe of the games of the same name, tells the story of several heroes in the world of retro -futuristic post -apocalypse. There is a naive resident of 33 shelter named Lucy (Ella Pernell), who is forced to leave the safe walls of the house due to tragic events. At the same time, a gloomy cowboy-gul (Walton Goggins) wanders around the destroyed world, who pursues the led to him one goal and is tormented by flashbacks from the distant past. The third protagonist was the young student of the fraternity Maximus (Aaron Moten), whose meeting in childhood with one of the knights became fateful for him. Over time, the fourth branch about Lucy’s brother, norm (Moyzes Arias), who begins to suspect that shelter leaders hide something dangerous, appear in the plot.
There are quite a few characters and lines in history, but such a structure is unlikely to greatly surprise those spectators who know the names of the authors of the novelty.
The development of the adaptation of Fallout became known back in 2020, when the Bethesda studio announced partnership with the creators of the Wild West World in the person of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. The first was known to the cinema fans earlier, thanks to working with his brother Christopher on the "Dark Knight" and "Interstellar". In addition, the executive producer of Bethesda Todd Howard himself also performed one of the producers of the future show.
For people outside the game sphere, a fresh series is usually represented as a novelty from the creators of the Wild West World, and there is a little cunning – Nolan was engaged in the development of the show and acted as a director of some episodes, he was not responsible for the script. Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Duoret were engaged in the plot of Fallout, and for the first it is a debut work among the adaptations of games (in the past he was responsible for the “silicone valley”).
But Robertson-Duoret already wrote a script for the restart of Lara Croft with Alisia Vikander. The villain there, by the way, was played by Walton Goggins, who in the fresh series Amazon explores the wasteland in the role of a ghoul. However, Nolan was still an important player in production-not only because of his name, but also the approach to the concept of the series. In his interview before the premiere, Todd Howard mentioned that previous proposals for the film adaptation of Fallout did not particularly attract him – however, with Nolan, they immediately found a common language.
Amazon Fallout is not a direct adaptation of any part of the legendary franchise. This is a completely new story in the same world. This is better a solution from the authors' team, because they avoided a number of problems that usually arise in other adaptations.
In addition, the creators in their hands did not have the same convenient and cinema base, which was possessed by the authors of the series on The Last of Us. The departure from the direct adaptation of games unleashed Fallout's scriptwriters, allowing you to bring new plots to the world familiar to fans.
About a marvelous old world
The world of wasteland became another main character in the new series – and the point is not even that Amazon did not stir up on the budget, which is estimated at about 150 million per season. In the frame, not only the scale of the scale is visible, as well as the excellent work of the surveying artists who perfectly conveyed the style of the universe.
In the Fallout setting, the naivety of the past and the nightmares of the present are bizarrely intertwined and create a unique atmosphere. Due to the Apocalypse, the development of this alternative universe stuck somewhere in the 50s of the XX century, but people have already managed to introduce all kinds of futuristic technologies like robot assistants into their lives.
And in the series, with the help of the main characters, the viewer will see completely different corners of this universe. Starting with a detailed recreated interior of shelters (Pip-Boy on the spot!) and ending with abandoned gas stations, hospitals, and even Hollywood Boulevard, which had gone under the water. There is even a small settlement that resembles Megaton from Fallout 3 with its aesthetics.
On the way through the wasteland, protagonists will meet various creatures with madmen of all stripes. Franchise fans will quickly recognize the monstrous swallow with the fingers inside the mouth and the mutated bear of Yao-Gay. But the most terrible beast in the post -apocalypse is a person. Therefore, a whispering passerby with a strange suitcase can cause irreparable damage.
The spirit of the world Fallout is transmitted here not only visually, but also tonal. The viewer will meet both all kinds of sarcastic jokes and exaggerated cruelty. The best points are shown through Lucy. The girl does not seem to get out of her shock: either shootings, then mudtants' cockroaches, or even completely distraught ghouls.
At the same time, the series does not break the black comedy all eight episodes in a row – there are many strong, serious and well -played dramatic scenes. This is most clearly manifested in the history of Gulya, which before the disaster was the actor Cooper Howard and starred in Westerns. His bloody and cruel storyline echoes the works of Quentin Tarantino, especially with "one day … in Hollywood". Walton Goggins himself starred in Tarantino, so such parallels are probably not random. And his character is already painfully similar to a person without a name in the performance of Clint Eastwood – only in even more bloody performance.
In general, the contrast between the world of the nostalgic past and the nightmare of the present is best transmitted in the Guly line. The creators do not make a special emphasis on this topic, but it is easily read due to the comparison of two branches of the character's life. The narrative begins precisely with the history of Howard, where the scriptwriters are very gloomy and effectively beat the image of the main symbol of all games-Volt-Boy-and this is one of the most powerful scenes in the whole series.
Even stronger on the nostalgic callus is crushed by old music in the style of original games. Although using such compositions, perhaps even slightly overdo it.
Good, bad, nuclear
The fact that in many other shows seems absurd or error into Fallout turns into a charming convention.
The general structure of history is too gamous. Each of the heroes has its own “quest”, where some of the tasks seem to specially make straight nods of the original series. There is a “main task” – another McGaffin, followed by all the fractions at once. The characters themselves in the process of "passage" are constantly distracted by secondary "quests" and meet their NPCs.
And the story itself at first holds all the heroes at a distance from each other, and in the end all fate intertwine, leading us to a common denominator – just like at the end of a good quest line like Fallout: New Vegas Dead Money.
If the series had not been connected with the game universe, then such conventions would have embarrassed much more. And such a presentation was probably chosen intentionally. Even the heroes pay attention to her. The same ghoul will not stand at some point and roars the satellite: "Forever you are distracted by all kinds of crap". The series is present in the series “Search of the Luta”, first -aid kit, guns and the like details.
At the same time, the main story of the series cannot be called unpredictable or confusing. If we compare it with the same “world of the Wild West”, local secrets do not look like an effect as in the mysterious park of Androids.
Nevertheless, Fallout is not a global canvas with coverage as the “Bible” of Chris Abellon, but a relatively local story. Of course, the series is offsetting the issues of local mythology, but it is still too focused on the journey of heroes.
Nevertheless, it’s funny to watch how one of the main topics of the series is just echoing with the “West” – both there, and there is a story about evolution in unusual, even anti -human conditions. If desired, here you can even build analogies between the characters, Lucy – Dolores, Ghoul – a person in black, and so on.
The wasteland changes people. And in order to survive in it, you need to evolve and adapt to the rules of this cruel world. At first it seems that this idea is revealed only through Lucy line, but it manifests itself in other stories. Say, Maximus, who initially considered the Brotherhood almost by the Messiahs, very quickly break pink lenses in power armor.
Of course, there was no binding heel for Fallout towards cannibalism. This topic is in the main one through the rope line – few people know more about the terrible backstage of Hollywood.
All actors play perfectly and help to correctly reveal the themes of the series. And everything is the feeling that the creators were too far from “familiar faces” on the second roles. Zach Cherry from the “Separation”, Matt Berry from “What We are doing in the Shadow” and many others will look at the radioactive light. This causes a strange claustrophobic sensation – the world of wasteland is terribly!
There is a purely technical minus – a choreography of battles in comparison with other projects of stars from the sky is not enough. Когда создатели пытаются показать откровенно комический замес, проблем не возникает, но вот эпика или танца смерти от местных битв ждать точно не стоит.
The most controversial detail of the entire series is the issue of working out the canon, which is now causing active showdowns in networks – the show shows a certain event, which, according to fans, simply contradicts the history of Fallout: New Vegas (it is associated with the settlement of Shady Sands). The situation has come to the point that it had to comment on the design director of Bethesda Emil Paljarulo, who explained the dates of games and the series. True, his answer still convinced all fans of the franchise.
Results
The controversial moments of the series still cannot block a number of its impressive virtues, as well as the already obvious success among spectators and critics. Fallout's ratings are quite high, and look at what is going on with the online games of the series – even Fallout 76 came to life!
Amazon has already extended the show for the second season, so https://sister-site.org/fat-pirate-casino/ there is hope that some Chekhov carabiners will still shoot. Fallout cannot be called the best adaptation of games, but it takes steps in the right direction – both its approach and performance. There are still many other games of the games ahead of the audience (Bioshock, Borderlands), so it remains only to believe that other authors of films and TV shows will try to hold at least a similar quality bar.
The world Fallout is insane and cruel, but I still want to return to this apocalypse again. After all, the series, like games, perfectly conveys the feeling of the famous song of the group R.E.M. – It’s The end of the world as we know it (and i feat fine).