Fallout (2024) on Amazon Prime

[Lurkndog]

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This is a maxi-series based on the Bethesda video game series.

I'm not sure if it is a direct adaptation of an actual storyline, I haven't played the games. But they do seem to capture the spirit of the game pretty well.

So far I'm enjoying it.

200 years after a nuclear war that seems to have taken place in the 1950's, circumstances force Lucy Maclane (Ella Purnell) to emerge from fallout shelter Vault 33, where she has lived her entire life in a pseudo-1950s environment, and try to survive in the weird wasteland outside the Vault.

The cast also features Walt Goggins as a mutant cowboy, Kyle MacLachlan as Lucy's father, and Aaron Moten as a struggling recruit in the powered armor brigades of the Brotherhood of Steel.

The tone of the show walks a line between dark humor and farce, which works pretty well with the material. Lucy is a likeable protagonist: gorgeous, naive, in over her head, and yet, pleasingly competent.

I say check it out.

[Dogfish]

Watched it, loved it.

The story is different to but tied to the stories of the games, so I suspect there is some crossover and it is essentially canon.

I think they nailed the tone of it too, which isn't easy. Lot of gore, lot of really crude jokes, but also plenty of heart.

Cast is great. Especially liked Matt Berry as both Codsworth and the voice actor who voiced Codsworth.

[joejanus]

Too much gore and wanton cruelty for me. I only made it through half of the first installment. To me, reminiscent of The Boys in its glorying in cruelty and splatter punk. The Boys had an interesting premise that kept me watching for the first season despite its absurd violence and the depravity of its characters. Maybe I just never got video games. I keep seeing the previews for the new season of Halo, and all I see is special effects, no story, no characters of interest, just "Hulk is the strongest there is!" The only spoken words in the preview might as well be a dozen words from a locker room half-time speech. Might as well just give them all a shot of adrenaline and leave it at that. Not my idea of interesting story telling.

Back in the day when HBO and other premium channels had to justify paying more in addition to your absurd cable bill, they insisted on throwing in all the sex and violence you couldn't see on non-pay channels to justify why the customer was paying extra. I prefer not to watch such stuff. Years ago, Harlan Ellison (who was no stranger to making his audience uncomfortable), told of being tricked into giving a lecture to prisoners in a penitentiary. They were not his normal audience, and his typical lecture wasn't working. They had no idea who he was. When he told them he wrote for TV and movies, they immediately bombarded him with questions about their favorite movie scenes.

"Did you write that scene where they gouged that guy's eye out?"
"Or the one where they sawed somebody's leg off?"
"What about the one where they stabbed the guy through the heart with rebar?"

Despite his bonafides with such horror stories as I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, that was too much for him. So, I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I guess I'm in good company.

[Femina]

Too much gore and wanton cruelty for me. I only made it through half of the first installment. To me, reminiscent of The Boys in its glorying in cruelty and splatter punk. The Boys had an interesting premise that kept me watching for the first season despite its absurd violence and the depravity of its characters. Maybe I just never got video games. I keep seeing the previews for the new season of Halo, and all I see is special effects, no story, no characters of interest, just "Hulk is the strongest there is!" The only spoken words in the preview might as well be a dozen words from a locker room half-time speech. Might as well just give them all a shot of adrenaline and leave it at that. Not my idea of interesting story telling.

Back in the day when HBO and other premium channels had to justify paying more in addition to your absurd cable bill, they insisted on throwing in all the sex and violence you couldn't see on non-pay channels to justify why the customer was paying extra. I prefer not to watch such stuff. Years ago, Harlan Ellison (who was no stranger to making his audience uncomfortable), told of being tricked into giving a lecture to prisoners in a penitentiary. They were not his normal audience, and his typical lecture wasn't working. They had no idea who he was. When he told them he wrote for TV and movies, they immediately bombarded him with questions about their favorite movie scenes.

"Did you write that scene where they gouged that guy's eye out?"
"Or the one where they sawed somebody's leg off?"
"What about the one where they stabbed the guy through the heart with rebar?"

Despite his bonafides with such horror stories as I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, that was too much for him. So, I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but I guess I'm in good company.

You should probably give it a second chance just going by the things you took issue with here because, if it's a 'like the boys' complaint I can promise you it's NOT that.
There is SOME gore, and occasional in your face gore, but it's not on the level of 'The Boys' there's basically NONE of the pointless 'gross out' sexual stuff. It's NOWHERE NEAR the level of pointless splatterpunk you see on the Boys. Fallout has a lead woman from a vault wherein 'babymaking' is a civilized responsibility so she is particularly sexually 'liberated' in her opinions on Sex...... but she isn't actually HAVING loads of sex in the show, or making crude sex jokes, nor is anyone on the surface who typically have far worse problems than if they'll have sex tonight. It has a particular tone wherein it can turn on a dime from near slapstick silliness to deadpan serious and vice versa... with an emphasis normally on how stupid the people who caused the apocalypse to come about must have been, and the random 'oddness' of people who live in a largely noncivilized society...

Most importantly though is the 'wanton cruelty' aspect. I can see why you'd spot some, especially in episode 1, and think 'oh so that's what this is going to be' but That isn't actually Fallout. Fallout isn't actually about miring in the misery of the human condition the way shows like Boys do. There ARE heroes in Fallout, there are villains... and the narrative normally pushes less toward examining the apocalypse in the venue of lamenting the past and miring in what we've lost, more toward the individual characters finding purpose and choosing to make what they have better, and to help OTHERS make what they have better. The only relatively 'inherent' pessimistic certainty in the Fallout series is the ever presence of War, and it's tendency to cycle around eventually regardless of how hard we try to fight it..... but that's typically less a narrative focus than it is a 'world building' reality. When a Fallout story starts you can just sort of assume that it the people in it have all experienced or observed some kind of war and that it informs their worldview.

But I think if you give the show a second chance you'll find it's a lot less pessimistic than you imagine it would be. The main characters catch phrase of 'Okey-doky!' in the face of adversary is sort of a prime example of the themes in fallout of picking up your bootstraps and tackling what's ahead of you, and choosing to help people EVEN who might turn around and hurt you, rather than wallowing in the misery. It's a narrative derived from a videogame series afterall, and most videogames are about 'solving' puzzles and conquering the game than they are about being sad and stuff xD.

You might still not like it... but I think you should give it a few episodes. You might change your mind.

[shevek]

A Twitter account called "GamecharactersAI", which re-sexifies female video game characters which have been affected by the "California man-jaw industrial complex" (Vee's term), fixed the ass on Lucy to look much hotter.

Does she look good in the jumpsuit consistently throughout the series? If so, I might give this a watch tonight, since all the other series I watching has concluded their various seasons.

fallout resexed.jpg (32.91 KiB) Viewed 706 times

Update: Definitely checking it out. Critical Drinker says he had more fun watching it than The Last of Us. That's pretty good praise. Plus the actress is consistently worth watching, it seems.

[Mr. X]

I've played through the game 3 times. Definitely not the original plot. Plus gulpers weren't on the original map, only far harbor.

[Lurkndog]

Does she look good in the jumpsuit consistently throughout the series? If so, I might give this a watch tonight, since all the other series I watching has concluded their various seasons.

It's not a skintight superhero costume, but yeah she looks good in it.

Hopefully this is a breakout role for Ella Purnell.

[sneakly]

I started it. reading the review that is was unsettlingly gory, I watched and thought it was almost comical. I have been bingeing Vikings on Netflix. this is a Saturday morning cartoon by comparison.

[Femina]

There's even a pretty good amount of peril here around the middle, in which Lucy is in a series of er... 'binds'

[Dogfish]

I started it. reading the review that is was unsettlingly gory, I watched and thought it was almost comical. I have been bingeing Vikings on Netflix. this is a Saturday morning cartoon by comparison.

That's Fallout gore for you. You shoots somebody in the leg and their leg will explode, or fly off. And the show kind of leans into that.

[Dogfish]

A Twitter account called "GamecharactersAI", which re-sexifies female video game characters which have been affected by the "California man-jaw industrial complex" (Vee's term), fixed the ass on Lucy to look much hotter.

Does she look good in the jumpsuit consistently throughout the series? If so, I might give this a watch tonight, since all the other series I watching has concluded their various seasons.

Given the context that image was the most superfluous and embarrassing bit of AI fuckery I've seen in years.

Ella Purnell is stunning. Her sex scene in the first episode is hot as fuck. But she's just generally hot anyway. When she gets a bit of armour and kind of becomes the archetypal 'got some weapons and some gear' tier adventurer she rocks that look. She does a brilliant job playing the sort of heroic vault dweller that most players would try to be when they play the game.

I think it is hilarious that the show was pre-emptively dunked on by the usual suspects, but they're all having to backtrack super-fast because it's obviously very good and popular.

[shevek]

Ella Purnell is stunning.

I think it is hilarious that the show was pre-emptively dunked on by the usual suspects, but they're all having to backtrack super-fast because it's obviously very good and popular.

If anyone dunked on it, I didn't notice, because I wasn't looking to watch Fallout, knowing only a little bit about the video game.
What I saw, apparently, were all of the 'backtrack' videos that said it was surprisingly good.

However, what these videos didn't emphasize was the heavy amount of 'diversity casting' in this series. I have no idea how much of this mirrors the video games, because (as I've said) I don't play video games. I'm not going to list the instances, but there is quite a lot.

Onward to the sex and peril. As other posters have pointed out, there is quite a lot. I've watched only the first six episodes, and Lucy is in the thick of it. Here's the list for Episodes 1-6:

Spoiler

- Her sex scene with Monty.
- While in her underwear, she slips on her jumpsuit. It's not spandex-level tight, but it's tight enough to be shapely.
Reminds me a bit of the battle suits from Battlestar Galactica.
- She is tied up and water tortured by Ghoul.
- She is almost swallowed by the Gulper.
- She is lassoed and dragged around by the Ghoul.
- She is drugged by the robot.
- She is strapped to a table and almost cut in half by a buzzsaw.
- She is sometimes on the losing end of some dangerous physical fighting.
- Maximus remarks that her pussy smells good, and she proposes that they have sex (he's a virgin, and finds it off-putting). She looks very fuckable sitting on that bench in her tight suit in the quarantine cell, gazing at him with her huge innocent-looking eyes.
- Birdie's jumpsuited Vault 4 thugs restrain her as she is struggling to break free.

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So, overall, Lucy is anything but a Mary Sue. She's an extremely naive individual who eventually expresses quite a capacity for violence and bravery.
This is kind of a trope in itself, and I'm sure there are tons of examples, but the first thing I thought of was Starfire, who is naive to the ways of Earthlings but eventually learns their ways and is quite sexy about learning them. In the same way, the sheltered vaultie Lucy gradually adopts the ways of the almost amoralistic surface dwellers while still trying to maintain her instilled civilized values.

OK......................................................

So, as I'm finishing Episode 6, I'm noticing what might be some blatant Current Year Politics.
The biggest one is the Overseer of Vault 4 making a speech about smelly refugees and immigrants and their weird ways and foods.
It's like he's parodying a progressive's view of a Republican. Is that something that actually existed in the video games?
Without getting too controversial, maybe someone can enlighten me with just a simple yes or no.

[Mr. X]

The game had varied options with companions which, you could follow some of their personal quests then have sex with them regardless of gender. If you finish a companion thread they give you a permanent perk like the robot butler boosts your hacking skills.

[shevek]

OK, I have many problems with both the premise and many individual quibbles with this series that have overwhelmed my enjoyment of such things as simply seeing Lucy's character in action and her story arc.

Here are some of them:

Spoiler

Overarching premise: I found it HARD to believe that one company would create a tight-knit cabal to destroy the entire world just to make it in their image. To control the world, sure - I mean, they're doing that right now. But it doesn't make sense to destroy the world.

It doesn't seem like something capitalists would do. It seems a lot more like something communists or religious fanatics would do (kind of like Iran is doing right now) to bring some kind of 'cleansing fire'. Capitalists tend to innovate and create, not destroy.

This makes me think that Fallout (at least as a TV series, maybe also the video game) is also an indictment of capitalism as the most evil and destructive force the world has ever known. That simply does not remotely jibe with reality. Every other system has proven to be much worse!

Here are some problems I have with individual quirks of the final episode:

- Why didn't Norm almost immediately kick and destroy the overseer of Vault 31, who would basically have been powerless to stop him?
How the fuck does a "brain in a jar" (the Vault 31 overseer) work, anyway? If that kind of tech exists, why isn't everyone just a brain in a jar?

- Where is everyone getting their power, their fuel and their tech?
Moldover had enough power to run complex machinery and computers.
Brotherhood of Steel had enough materials, fuel and tech to build a flying fortress, dozens of copters, and hundreds of mech suits.
If this place is a Wasteland without resources, how did these factions even build up in the first place?
How did Shady Sands restart, where'd they get the resources and the power?
How are these Vaults surviving for hundreds of years - just on a magical 'fusion core' alone?

- What the fuck is COLD FUSION? It's not technically viable, so it's just "magic", a MacGuffin that all the characters seek without knowing it.

- Why in this imaginary world are the 1950s a paradise without racism?

- What is the potion that the Doctor gives Thaddeus? If it heals everyone instantly, why doesn't everyone take it? How was it developed? Is it the substance keeping all of the "Bud's Buds" alive? How do people (like Hank McLean) wind up living 200 years without being Ghouls?

- How does Lucy have a "navigation system" in her Pip-Boy in a post-apocalyptic world where there are no GPS satellites?

- The transman actor who plays Dane looks TERRIBLE. It is totally obvious that "Xelia", the actor, is female, from the fake little drawn mustache to the soft facial features to the shape of the lips. Who are they kidding?

- Once the cold fusion activates, how do the lights start going on all across Los Angeles. I don't recall Griffith Observatory being a power station.
Are all the power lines still connected after 200+ years anyway? Highly doubtful. This is more "magic".

I dunno. To me, this is looking more and more like a raw anti-capitalist screed. Am I really that interested in what happens when Ghoul and Lucy follow Hank and his armor to "New Vegas" (and not knowing anything about the video game, I had to look that up because they don't tell you).

This started out interesting, and wound up becoming kind of infuriating. Like for the same reason that I couldn't watch the 'Silo' series to the end.

[Dogfish]

Some of the answers to those questions are in the lore of the games and so on...

Spoiler

Vault-Tec are creepy weirdos. They are capitalists, but they are also institutionally pyschopathic. You see this with the games, every Vault is some sort of social experiment.

As for whether capitalism would do such a thing, see: global warming. Petrochemical companies identified it in the 1970s and spent billions ensuring it would be allowed to continue to protect profits even as it threatens human extinction.

See also the tobacco industry. Product identified as killing its users, do they stop making it? No. They fight tooth and nail in the legal system to maintain the status quo despite being the ones most aware that their product is killing people in horrifying ways.

See also Purdue Pharma. Making plenty of money selling OxyContin, but realise if they fudge the numbers on the times between doses they can make it extremely addictive. So they do that, make even more money, trigger a nationwide drug epidemic that causes untold misery to millions.

Capitalism doesn't see people. It doesn't even necessarily just see profit anymore, because a lot of industries have moved beyond intra-industry competition into cartel situations. It just does what it wants.

Norm didn't kill the brain in a jar because it was no threat. He's a funny looking guy but he's not going to kill something for no reason.

Being a brain in a jar is the very final tier of the stuff Robco, the robot manufacturer, was getting into before the world ended. It's a bad time for the brain, they tend to go crazy and murderous. You run into a fair few brains in jars style robots in the games, often with much more dangerous bodies.

The world is a retrofuturistic atompunk one, it looks like the 1950s, but the actual nuclear war takes place in 2077. Most things, even cars, are atomic powered (in the games they explode in a big way). The fusion core on the power armour can power a lot of things, yes, even a vault.

The Brotherhood don't build much of their stuff, it's usually salvage. There are facilities to make stuff in the post apocalypse, Enclave has some, but these don't manufacture the good stuff at full tilt. Hand made versus automation. They have multiple bases, not just the one in the desert. The Enclave and their capabilities are only shown briefly.

The Vaults generally don't survive. But those that do will also have atomic generators. In the games the vast majority of vaults you find will be dungeon crawl type explorations to find out what the hell kind of twisted oddness Vault-Tec was running in there. There are a few that survive, usually by opening their doors.

The cold fusion stuff is presumably just a step above the nuclear fusion already in the setting.

Yeah there's no racism and not much practical sexism either in the Fallout world. That kind of degenerate thinking just isn't found there.

I'm not sure about Thaddeus. It's possible it's something new. That said the medical tech in Fallout is extremely good. Radiation poisoning, stab wounds, easily treated in that setting. There are a few things we haven't seen yet that it could turn out to be.

Bud's Buds are in cryogenic sleep. Hence they are not ghouls. I'm not sure how Ghouls work. They have fiddled with the lore a bit for the show, because usually they were just irradiated mutated people who lived for centuries and then at some point lost their minds and turned feral.

There's no reason why GPS satellites would stop working just because the world underneath them was flattened. Atomic power would keep them functioning.

Griffith is the headquarters for the NCR, so presumably it was rigged up to produce some power. With the cold fusion running it could produce All The Power. If that city was repopulated then it's reasonable to suspect that some power lines (maybe not the original ones) might have been hooked up. In the game Fallout 4 there is a whole aspect of the game dedicated to building settlements and part of that is wiring them up to various generators. If that whole city was populated with Fallout 4 style shanties or similar, then that sort of 'power on' moment makes sense. Although given how dark the city was at first I expect a lot of it was meant to look cool.

[shevek]

Some of the answers to those questions are in the lore of the games and so on...

Spoiler

Vault-Tec are creepy weirdos. They are capitalists, but they are also institutionally pyschopathic. You see this with the games, every Vault is some sort of social experiment.

As for whether capitalism would do such a thing, see: global warming. Petrochemical companies identified it in the 1970s and spent billions ensuring it would be allowed to continue to protect profits even as it threatens human extinction.

See also the tobacco industry. Product identified as killing its users, do they stop making it? No. They fight tooth and nail in the legal system to maintain the status quo despite being the ones most aware that their product is killing people in horrifying ways.

See also Purdue Pharma. Making plenty of money selling OxyContin, but realise if they fudge the numbers on the times between doses they can make it extremely addictive. So they do that, make even more money, trigger a nationwide drug epidemic that causes untold misery to millions.

Capitalism doesn't see people. It doesn't even necessarily just see profit anymore, because a lot of industries have moved beyond intra-industry competition into cartel situations. It just does what it wants.

Norm didn't kill the brain in a jar because it was no threat. He's a funny looking guy but he's not going to kill something for no reason.

Being a brain in a jar is the very final tier of the stuff Robco, the robot manufacturer, was getting into before the world ended. It's a bad time for the brain, they tend to go crazy and murderous. You run into a fair few brains in jars style robots in the games, often with much more dangerous bodies.

The world is a retrofuturistic atompunk one, it looks like the 1950s, but the actual nuclear war takes place in 2077. Most things, even cars, are atomic powered (in the games they explode in a big way). The fusion core on the power armour can power a lot of things, yes, even a vault.

The Brotherhood don't build much of their stuff, it's usually salvage. There are facilities to make stuff in the post apocalypse, Enclave has some, but these don't manufacture the good stuff at full tilt. Hand made versus automation. They have multiple bases, not just the one in the desert. The Enclave and their capabilities are only shown briefly.

The Vaults generally don't survive. But those that do will also have atomic generators. In the games the vast majority of vaults you find will be dungeon crawl type explorations to find out what the hell kind of twisted oddness Vault-Tec was running in there. There are a few that survive, usually by opening their doors.

The cold fusion stuff is presumably just a step above the nuclear fusion already in the setting.

Yeah there's no racism and not much practical sexism either in the Fallout world. That kind of degenerate thinking just isn't found there.

I'm not sure about Thaddeus. It's possible it's something new. That said the medical tech in Fallout is extremely good. Radiation poisoning, stab wounds, easily treated in that setting. There are a few things we haven't seen yet that it could turn out to be.

Bud's Buds are in cryogenic sleep. Hence they are not ghouls. I'm not sure how Ghouls work. They have fiddled with the lore a bit for the show, because usually they were just irradiated mutated people who lived for centuries and then at some point lost their minds and turned feral.

There's no reason why GPS satellites would stop working just because the world underneath them was flattened. Atomic power would keep them functioning.

Griffith is the headquarters for the NCR, so presumably it was rigged up to produce some power. With the cold fusion running it could produce All The Power. If that city was repopulated then it's reasonable to suspect that some power lines (maybe not the original ones) might have been hooked up. In the game Fallout 4 there is a whole aspect of the game dedicated to building settlements and part of that is wiring them up to various generators. If that whole city was populated with Fallout 4 style shanties or similar, then that sort of 'power on' moment makes sense. Although given how dark the city was at first I expect a lot of it was meant to look cool.

Thanks for all of the detailed answers. That was really helpful given that I know very little about the game other than its mere existence.

One thing I wanted to respond to outside of the spoiler zone is the obsession in this game with the most extreme form of psychopathic capitalism. Yes, there's no question that profit-motives can be highly destructive. You mentioned Oxycontin, tobacco, and global warming (which, by the way, does not 'threaten human extinction' any more than the Ice Age did, I think we're a bit more resilient and innovative than that) but you could go on and on and talk about Three Mile Island, DDT, thalidomide and many more. All very true.

You say in the spoiler zone that "Capitalism does not see people". Actually, that's not true. Free-market capitalism 'sees people' better than any other workable system because it allows people to act as individuals and make their own choices. Combined with a Judeo-Christian underpinning which balances the tendencies of the individual and the community with societal values, it works fairly well. Systems like Communism or Fascism or Theocracy don't do that - instead they 'see' a Collective or a State or a Deity. There is either Too Much God or No God at All (the State is God, instead). In fact, the cult of the Flame Mother approached dangerously close to that kind of fanaticism - an entranced mob chanting about Spilling Blood, which seemed kind of similar to me to the cult of Mother Mayhem and Brother Blood from the Titans.

Also, regarding GPS and using the Pip-Boys for geolocation, there is no evidence in this show (at least not yet) that there are any satellites in this show, or any space technology or travel whatsoever. Perhaps this is because given that they are stuck in a 1950 retrofuturistic mode, nobody had a space program quite yet. So that's why I'm wondering how they use the wrist devices to find their way around outside the Vaults.

Anyway, I can't say that this wasn't a good time. It was just a bit heavy-handed. But if you say that's how the game is, then that's just how it goes.

[Lurkndog]

There's no reason why GPS satellites would stop working just because the world underneath them was flattened. Atomic power would keep them functioning.

Untrue. Satellites need regular course corrections to stay in their proper orbits. Planets aren't perfectly spherical, even gravity is slightly uneven. It is an imperfect world.

Without corrections to its orbit, a satellite will fall into a different orbit, and, worse yet, lose its proper orientation to the planet, so that its sensor readings are off, and its communication dishes are no longer pointed in the right direction.

The end of life for a satellite usually comes when it is close to running out of maneuvering fuel for its thrusters. They use the last fuel to deorbit the satellite in a controlled fashion.

[Dogfish]

There's no reason why GPS satellites would stop working just because the world underneath them was flattened. Atomic power would keep them functioning.

Untrue. Satellites need regular course corrections to stay in their proper orbits. Planets aren't perfectly spherical, even gravity is slightly uneven. It is an imperfect world.

Without corrections to its orbit, a satellite will fall into a different orbit, and, worse yet, lose its proper orientation to the planet, so that its sensor readings are off, and its communication dishes are no longer pointed in the right direction.

The end of life for a satellite usually comes when it is close to running out of maneuvering fuel for its thrusters. They use the last fuel to deorbit the satellite in a controlled fashion.

That's true for real life, but Fallout is a retrofuturistic setting. You've got robots like the Mr Handy (Snip-Snip in the show) who can sustain life and behave fairly normally for centuries after a nuclear apocalypse, so it tracks that satellites and other automated systems might also be able to survive alone. Maybe they are AI powered and a little crazy, but they could still be viable. Especially if they are nuclear powered like everything else in the setting.

[Mr. X]

Its a sci fi. Roll with it.

And Lucy would make a good Batgirl

[Lurkndog]

There's no reason why GPS satellites would stop working just because the world underneath them was flattened. Atomic power would keep them functioning.

Untrue. Satellites need regular course corrections to stay in their proper orbits. Planets aren't perfectly spherical, even gravity is slightly uneven. It is an imperfect world.

Without corrections to its orbit, a satellite will fall into a different orbit, and, worse yet, lose its proper orientation to the planet, so that its sensor readings are off, and its communication dishes are no longer pointed in the right direction.

The end of life for a satellite usually comes when it is close to running out of maneuvering fuel for its thrusters. They use the last fuel to deorbit the satellite in a controlled fashion.

That's true for real life, but Fallout is a retrofuturistic setting. You've got robots like the Mr Handy (Snip-Snip in the show) who can sustain life and behave fairly normally for centuries after a nuclear apocalypse, so it tracks that satellites and other automated systems might also be able to survive alone. Maybe they are AI powered and a little crazy, but they could still be viable. Especially if they are nuclear powered like everything else in the setting.

Fair enough.

Though, the tech on the show is kind of wonky.

I forget, can you send email/texts on the Pip-boy?

[Femina]

So, as I'm finishing Episode 6, I'm noticing what might be some blatant Current Year Politics.
The biggest one is the Overseer of Vault 4 making a speech about smelly refugees and immigrants and their weird ways and foods.
It's like he's parodying a progressive's view of a Republican. Is that something that actually existed in the video games?
Without getting too controversial, maybe someone can enlighten me with just a simple yes or no.

The Fallout universe is made by a videogame company, and contrary to what a few gamers like to believe, MOST videogame companies are populated by artists, and most artists are on the mid to deep left end of what you folks would call the 'wokes' the games are just usually very metaphorical and satirical about their politics... sometimes to the point the deep right can't even detect it for some crazy reason (Just look at the hooplah around Helldivers 2 and all the crazies who not only can't see the obvious satire, but have come about to trying to argue that satire doesn't even exist or whatever)(As another side note, this failure to even be capable of detecting satire, and other imperative narrative and artistic mechanics is part of why there aren't that many prolific right wing art houses and game companies to begin with, so here's hoping that if this whole Gamer Gate 2 situation shakes out to a more equitable political divide in game makers, the right leaning developers at least understand Satire and other BASIC narrative concepts so that the games they put out aren't soulless husks of potential that nobody wants to touch like ALL the recent Ubisoft offerings.)

Fallout is a story about the apocalypse... about a human created apocalypse at that... and the populace in the story are extremely factional... So it makes plenty of sense for humanities political divides both analogous to our divides today, as well as entirely fictional divides, to be ever present in the narrative.

[bushwackerbob]

If I know going in that a show or film has a liberal world view, in most cases, that won't deter me from watching the show if I find it has a good premise and piques my curiosity. I watched the ultra liberal West Wing series from beginning to end, and I enjoyed the show immensely, one of my favorite shows of the aughts. If the politics is infused in such an inartful and clumsy manner, maybe I might pass on it in that case. I haven't seen Fallout yet, but I am looking forward to watching it. It sounds interesting and fascinating to me.

[Dogfish]

There's no reason why GPS satellites would stop working just because the world underneath them was flattened. Atomic power would keep them functioning.

Untrue. Satellites need regular course corrections to stay in their proper orbits. Planets aren't perfectly spherical, even gravity is slightly uneven. It is an imperfect world.

Without corrections to its orbit, a satellite will fall into a different orbit, and, worse yet, lose its proper orientation to the planet, so that its sensor readings are off, and its communication dishes are no longer pointed in the right direction.

The end of life for a satellite usually comes when it is close to running out of maneuvering fuel for its thrusters. They use the last fuel to deorbit the satellite in a controlled fashion.

That's true for real life, but Fallout is a retrofuturistic setting. You've got robots like the Mr Handy (Snip-Snip in the show) who can sustain life and behave fairly normally for centuries after a nuclear apocalypse, so it tracks that satellites and other automated systems might also be able to survive alone. Maybe they are AI powered and a little crazy, but they could still be viable. Especially if they are nuclear powered like everything else in the setting.

Fair enough.

Though, the tech on the show is kind of wonky.

I forget, can you send email/texts on the Pip-boy?

No, it can read messages, it can pick up radio, but I'm not sure how well it transmits wirelessly. In keeping with the anachronisms of the setting, you'd be way better off with a smartphone.

[Mr. X]

If I know going in that a show or film has a liberal world view, in most cases, that won't deter me from watching the show if I find it has a good premise and piques my curiosity. I watched the ultra liberal West Wing series from beginning to end, and I enjoyed the show immensely, one of my favorite shows of the aughts. If the politics is infused in such an inartful and clumsy manner, maybe I might pass on it in that case. I haven't seen Fallout yet, but I am looking forward to watching it. It sounds interesting and fascinating to me.

Its got some silly stuff like a black girl not allowed to eat some birthday cake at a white family birthday. And a white family not allowing a black family to go into their bomb shelter. Though it is depicting 1950s/60s I would imagine they wouldn't let anyone in the bomb shelter due to limited food.

[Femina]

There's no reason why GPS satellites would stop working just because the world underneath them was flattened. Atomic power would keep them functioning.

Untrue. Satellites need regular course corrections to stay in their proper orbits. Planets aren't perfectly spherical, even gravity is slightly uneven. It is an imperfect world.

Without corrections to its orbit, a satellite will fall into a different orbit, and, worse yet, lose its proper orientation to the planet, so that its sensor readings are off, and its communication dishes are no longer pointed in the right direction.

The end of life for a satellite usually comes when it is close to running out of maneuvering fuel for its thrusters. They use the last fuel to deorbit the satellite in a controlled fashion.

That's true for real life, but Fallout is a retrofuturistic setting. You've got robots like the Mr Handy (Snip-Snip in the show) who can sustain life and behave fairly normally for centuries after a nuclear apocalypse, so it tracks that satellites and other automated systems might also be able to survive alone. Maybe they are AI powered and a little crazy, but they could still be viable. Especially if they are nuclear powered like everything else in the setting.

Fair enough.

Though, the tech on the show is kind of wonky.

I forget, can you send email/texts on the Pip-boy?

No, it can read messages, it can pick up radio, but I'm not sure how well it transmits wirelessly. In keeping with the anachronisms of the setting, you'd be way better off with a smartphone.

It just has a radio receiver.... there's some uncertainty I think on if it can TRANSMIT radio like a walkie talky... but yeah otherwise to read messages you have to insert a tape or plug it in to a computer terminal to download it. Even to open Vault doors in the game you have to plug it into the door.

One of the primary differences of Fallout's world and the real world is that the transistor, and thus microprocessors, were only recently invented before the bombs fell. So while they have a lot of advance tech by means of biological research and computing, they don't have a lot of SMALL tech for small devices. The pip boy is 'state of the art' personal computing.

Its got some silly stuff like a black girl not allowed to eat some birthday cake at a white family birthday. And a white family not allowing a black family to go into their bomb shelter. Though it is depicting 1950s/60s I would imagine they wouldn't let anyone in the bomb shelter due to limited food.

I think, in fairness to the setting here, we can sort of surmise that the family being denied entry to the bomb shelter is more about the world falling apart than anything specifically race related. The father who punches the guy was all pals with him before the bomb falls, It was more about 'no you can't come into MY bomb shelter!' than it was about anything race related. Also I think she was uncertain if she was allowed to have cake because she wasn't invited to the party herself, as she was the 'entertainers' daughter who he brought along cause he had no babysitter, and not actually one of the Birthday kid's guests. I legitimately don't think I detected any indicator of racial prejudice in any direction in the pre-war scene.... or ANY scenes for that matter. There's a lot of 'factional' dislike in the apocalypse but little, if any, seem to have to do with race.... at least insofar as skin color, I guess there is some Ghoul prejudice.

Spoiler

Especially as later in the series, the main villain of the pre-war storyarc is a rich, influential, corporate black woman.

[shevek]

So far, I'd have to say that Ella Purnell is looking like a great heroine here.

She expressed an excellent sentiment which some people are comparing to the attitude that Henry Cavill has about the characters he plays.
The whole idea that she got a thrill putting on her costume for the first time is quite encouraging.

Here's a quote from her red carpet interview:

"I wanted to get the absolute most out of this experience, and I think you have to deeply respect the source material. At least for me - and I love to throw myself into all of my research, but this was so fun. There's so much lore, and so much passion behind the games, and so many details. It made it even more exciting when I put the Vault suit or the Pip-Boy on for the first time. That moment was not lost on me - what a big deal that was."

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But then, of course, you'll have articles like this (from the website 'Pride') always trying to insert their agenda. Is Fallout queer? No. It isn't. From what I understand, in the game not only was there no racism, but there was no special status attached (either good or bad) to anyone having sex with anyone else, regardless of gay or straight. It's just not a thing. apparently. There is, however, a very compelling need to procreate in such an apocalyptic setting, and so the 'decadence' of same-sex relationships is probably not something that is particularly praised or emphasized, since it does not produce a viable population increase. Oh well, try again!

fallout is it queer.jpg (33.35 KiB) Viewed 258 times

[Femina]

But then, of course, you'll have articles like this (from the website 'Pride') always trying to insert their agenda. Is Fallout queer? No. It isn't. From what I understand, in the game not only was there no racism, but there was no special status attached (either good or bad) to anyone having sex with anyone else, regardless of gay or straight. It's just not a thing. apparently. There is, however, a very compelling need to procreate in such an apocalyptic setting, and so the 'decadence' of same-sex relationships is probably not something that is particularly praised or emphasized, since it does not produce a viable population increase. Oh well, try again!

fallout is it queer.jpg

Eh? You get this from every end right? I mean before the show came out there was already a healthy quantity of similar articles and videos espousing that "Fallout will be a Woke Apocalypse of a series!" All things considered, I think we can consider the response to this show to be a fairly neutrally appreciable success at this point. Everybody wins.

It's been my experience that the quality of a thing will overcome articles like these of EITHER direction. Fallout is just good. That's all anybody watching it really wants from it. They don't actually NEED it to be anti-woke, they don't actually need it to be a queer tentpole release. Those things will come, in forms both terrible and triumphant... at the end of the day, all people really want is to just sit down, watch the thing, and for it to be worth the time invested to watch it. Is it nice for the queer community when a GREAT thing representing them comes out? Yeah I think it is. Is it nice for the anti-woke brigade when a Great thing comes out that's as devoid of their fears and concerns as possible? Also yes... but the more I see of the response to real quality releases, the more I'm pretty sure that if it is good it will be accepted by all but the most trivial number of extremist skeptics.

[shevek]

Chato likes it.

[Mr. X]

Is it nice for the anti-woke brigade when a Great thing comes out that's as devoid of their fears and concerns as possible? Also yes... but the more I see of the response to real quality releases, the more I'm pretty sure that if it is good it will be accepted by all but the most trivial number of extremist skeptics.

Maybe if the "woke brigade" did not shit on literally everything over the last 15 years and ruined multiple franchises and the entire Disney empire then people wouldn't be so reactive. And all to promote messages we real liberals already straightened out back in the 70s and 80s.

We also hated God messages in things.
Woke legacy is not going away with "oops, bygones... so sorry" any time soon anymore than termites can say "oops, sorry about your house"

[Femina]

Is it nice for the anti-woke brigade when a Great thing comes out that's as devoid of their fears and concerns as possible? Also yes... but the more I see of the response to real quality releases, the more I'm pretty sure that if it is good it will be accepted by all but the most trivial number of extremist skeptics.

Maybe if the "woke brigade" did not shit on literally everything over the last 15 years and ruined multiple franchises and the entire Disney empire then people wouldn't be so reactive. And all to promote messages we real liberals already straightened out back in the 70s and 80s.

We also hated God messages in things.
Woke legacy is not going away with "oops, bygones... so sorry" any time soon anymore than termites can say "oops, sorry about your house"

I don't know that we DO hate God messages in things on principle. I think we hated 'ham fisted' god messages, which since god messages are ordinarily stuffed in by the hard right wing er... let's call it 'artists shortage' the God things were typically produced and created by folks with very limited artistic talent or ability. There HAVE been some very good and compelling religious films in the course of history though, and I think that as I mentioned above, when it's a good and compelling project I think people tend to lose their 'well fuck this!' mindset about pretty much anything. I feel it's less that we hate being 'preached' at... and more that we hate being preached at derisively. TV and Film are visual mediums, and SO MUCH of the religious stuff pushed for so long was just a preacher in a film TELLING us 'you should pray to god for salvation!' rather than the picture SHOWING us it's earnest belief, and it made the vast majority of religious material in the mid 90's-late 00's feel completely disingenuous and dishonest.

For the record, I think a lot of the 'hard left' 'super woke' stuff suffers from possibly the exact same lack of imagination and artistic ability... I think it's the 'corporate' bleed in corrupting projects of any kind of earnest artistic expression or soul on the left acting as a similar force to the fanaticism of the right.

I DO still personally roll my eyes every time I see an obvious fanatical right winger see a woman or a non white man in a thing and INSTANTANIOUSLY call it woke without any evidence... but it's begun to bother me a lot less as it feels more and more like when they go and actually watch the thing, if the thing is good, even those people mellow out... lots of pretty classically 'woke derided' shit is getting made that even the right seem fine with on release because the thing takes itself more seriously than just a childish idea of what's right or wrong (See: Arcane) in just the same way I think religious films have a bad reputation, but GOOD religious films are still seen as great films examining human spirituality.

It's just the preaching. People only want to be preached at when they actively go to church.

In short: Within the medium of film. If you SHOW them what you mean, rather than 'TELL' them, you're more likely to find people who understand why you feel the way you do even if they don't agree.

[bushwackerbob]

I just want to be entertained when I sit back on my couch and watch my shows. This may sound funny coming from me, but I think some folks over obsess and needlessly worry about politics infused messages in TV shows. If a show doesn't seem like it is something for you, there are plenty of other options out there.

[Femina]

I just want to be entertained when I sit back on my couch and watch my shows. This may sound funny coming from me, but I think some folks over obsess and needlessly worry about politics infused messages in TV shows. If a show doesn't seem like it is something for you, there are plenty of other options out there.

I think there's an irrational fear born of the human condition that 'there won't EVER be another thing for me though if I don't FIGHT for it!'

But I agree with you. I've seen more and more 'woke' derided things being accepted by the usual suspects when it releases and is good... and vice versa. People DO just want to be entertained. IF you can supply your messaging and be entertaining, nobody will mind. The upset only seems to retain traction beyond release when it's got a pushed agenda AND it isn't entertaining.

To get back on the topic entirely now, Frankly, I don't think there's ANY agenda pushing in Fallout whatsoever, all of its politics are essentially 'farcical' and taken to their furthest fantastical extremes, most of the (Very mild) worrying about it I've seen up above is pretty much just, as you say, folks being overly obsessed with the politics of everything. Fallout as a show is incredibly entertaining though, so it's easily pushing through all of that it seems. It's not as good as Westworld's season 1 was by any stretch... but it's better than all of Westworld's later seasons, and with Fallout Nolan isn't likely to encounter the issue he had with Westworld in that the theme park eventually had to fail completely and arise the "what now?" quandary. With Fallout you can pretty much stick with the premise in perpetuity.