Fallout (Woulda Coulda Shoulda?) 

Norm's story/sub plot definitely felt more interesting. I don't know if it's because I binged it or not but I had a real issue with main characters tripping over each other in their travels, it felt a little too convenient. I loved seeing the internal workings of power armor put on screen even if the threat they posed fluctuated for story reasons it was still reasonably well done. Maximus was really hit or miss, I understand him having conflicting emotions with everything in his past and what was currently happening but he just didn't seem like he was in the brotherhood that long with the way he acted, some times the actor had some great facial range, other times it's as if he had nothing to work with in the script. Casting was pretty good, I would love to see more Mr.Handys voiced by Matt Berry in season 2. I did find it funny that Cooper, played by Walton Goggins, in his ghoul makeup was a dead ringer for Jeffrey Donovan from Burn Notice.

Fallout: London is releasing on the 23rd this month!

That Fallout 4.5 quip was so on point for Bethesda. I'm sure they're cooking up something.

One little thing. FALLOUT wasn't shot with tv zoom lenses, but actually on film with high-end anamorphic glass.

I agree with almost everything except the pain thing, its just the games when you accidentally run over a mine and cripple your legs but still manage to walk for miles to find a doctors bag, same with losing limbs etc

I know this sounds maybe a little naive, but I think Writing comedy is incredibly difficult, way harder to do than drama. An audience embracing the drama of a show like this is always going to be more successful than the comedy of it all. Comedy, writing jokes and gags can often fall flat if they're shoehorned in, I feel like adding the truly funny bits and gags would be more sucessful than just peppering the show.

I think an anthology series would fit better. Half hour stories of wacky situations in thr wasteland. One's a comedy, one's a crime mystery.

I appreciated the fact that they kept the video game logic intact and didn’t attempt to ground Fallout in reality. Characters in a Fallout game and/or TV show should be able to take bullets and use a stimpak to heal up. They should be able to limp on an obliterated foot and use a mysterious FEV/radiation/ghoulification serum to heal and regenerate said foot. Fuck reality, this is Fallout.

"I play Fallout for its gameplay first, then its setting." This man is clearly a deeply disturbed individual who must be stopped.

One point about the wonky gags that can't transfer at all from computer game to TV show is that the games often let you choose how, if at all, you want to interact with the more goofy stuff. A big chunk of that is tied to the character you play, the dialogue choices you make and the dedicated "weird wasteland" perk

This feels like a temple to the iconography of the games. Unfortunately, that iconography's not actually very important (one of the key things Fallout 4 misunderstood), plus it translates terribly to live action. It just looks goofy and plasticky, like a theme park exhibit.

It wasn't as bad as I feared it would be, BUT, seeing that it's based on FO4's aesthetics, and generally Bethesda's lore, it has its limitations.

"I SAW T-60 POWER ARMOR AND I CLAPPED!"

I don't know. Most TV-shows nowadays are bland and if they're not bland they will become bland (or even bad) as the show progress.

I played Fallout 3 and and Fallout New Vegas and an a little bit of first Fallout. As of episode 6, I'm surprised how much was able to be translated to TV. Maximus was the only performance I didn't like. He seemed too random. The young lady felt like how a newbie to a Fallout game would play things. Loved the Ghoul totally and completely. He had mastery of his world.

1:05 The vaults don't house the ancestors of the richest, they're the descendants. Their ancestors were the richest and luckiest that got to go into the vaults. It's a funny mixup I see people making. Ancestors are always in the past, descendants are always in the present or future.

I dread the involvement of Jonathan Nolan, and Lisa Joy is lurking in the background. They always start out strong, and later derails everything utterly and completely into incomprehensible chaos. Hopefully, they won't touch too much of the writing...

Bethesda's Fallout is not post apocalyptic. It is just apocalyptic. They have zero interest in the actual themes of the fallout games. Just the aesthetics. This is why New Vegas will always be the best one. The people felt like they were truly alive, had actual ideas and philosophies that made sense in context.

Tonally self-destructive is how it came off to me.

Now is the time to play Fallout: Nevada guys. If you liked this plot, it has similar vibes, especcially in the end.

I would say it seemed most influenced by the Bethesda games rather than the original 2 Interplay games. More specifically Fallout 4. The Bethesda games are great but they have always been 'someone else's interpretation' of the original source material to me. Bethesda massively overplayed the 1950s theme IMO. There was all of a sudden this Jazz music, military music, brass instrumentation everywhere. The world of the original 2 games was much more alien and strange. Checkout how different the F2 soundtrack is ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Rl59KOraG3c.htmlsi=gBsN6asqxpUutxbx. Considering the TV show is therefore an interpretation of another interpretation, it did have some issues for me (that I already find with the 3D games) but overall I think the team did an amazing job recreating the Bethesda-style fallout. I did really enjoy the show and I hope they are successful and make more.

There was aspects I liked but the treatment of a certain faction really irked me at episode 5 onwards.

Long story short, they didn’t take the tone too seriously and that was the key to their success. It’s silly, the physics are all over the place, the sexual content is awkward, it’s gory, the good guys do bad stuff and the bad guys do good stuff….just like the games.

I want a one to one adaption of the first game, including the first half of episode one being the protagonist stabbing rats in a cave.

this is why i follow you. you bring up a perspective on something i didn't notice right away or couldnt put into words. same opinions on the series and i loved it.

Fallout 3 is weirdly underrated nowadays. People who have never played it jumped on the bandwagon of hating it.

Georg, Georg never changes.

I do agree on your point of the wackiness versus seriousness one thing that I was surprised one piece got right and it's adaptation was that you made these crazy looking characters work with the issue of the fishman's slavery and all that stuff. I think there was another person that watched it in my group on Discord that was complaining about like the random Gore which I do understand. Random nudity in episode 6 but I just kind of laughed at it

I'M a huge Fallout Fan since the first Game back when i was a wee Lad. And i think this Show is very good compared to what i expected. But that might be because the past 10 years ive had a ton of letdowns regarding new tv shows. But id def recommend the Fallout Tv Show

I watched your review before I finished the show and I totally disagreed with you and your review honestly made me kinda upset. After finishing the show. It definitely started out very strong. Towards the end I was kind of surprised how fan servicey it became. I felt like the alluding to fallout NV was kinda forced. Really excited for season 2 but I'm kind of Embarrassed the writers and producers felt they had to force that story line in. Also looking at the NCR flag in that vault and playing the entire theme was a bit much.

Bethesda is racist towards Obsidian.

Having only seen the first episode I have some mixed but overall positive feelings towards it.

The only question I have...is the lady who wanted the cold fusion so bad....how did she survive 200 years? It's a mystery to me. I might have missed it since I was high sometimes. But that's the only thing I didn't get. Everything else was pretty spot on and enjoyable.

The show was amazing. Kept me completely entertained throughout all 8 episodes.

I really wanted to like this adaptation, but the writing and tone were just so inconsistent. I didn't like most of the people we were supposed to care about, and it had the most contrived and hackneyed "romance" ever. I mean were we supposed to care what happens to Maxiumus? I sure didn't. I hated that character. The characters in general don't act with much logic, and for people having lived in this reality their whole lives are somehow ignorant to how it operates. For instance, how does Maximus not know squat about the armor, when that's all he ever wanted, and the chubby guy knew everything about it, despite being coded as inept? It just opened a lot questions and not the good kind. This show just wanted to eat its cake and have it too. The effects were neat though, and Wally Goggins gives an amazing performance (as usual).

I dunno, I can’t stand the costume design, it looks like good cosplay, but it’s not realistic you know? Overly faithful to the 5 & 76 art style witch I think is the weakest in the series.

I would really enjoy a salsbury steak or crab cake right now.

With so many possibilities in different games, how can anyone complain about the accuracy of the plot?

I don't hate the new Fallout games, but I like the first one the most, and to me the show was too colorful and there was something off about the presentation. I didn't like all the sand, it gets everywhere, and I miss the more rocky desert terrain from the old games. I wasn't paying full attention all the time, but I didn't see any brahmin either. I wish I could adjust the quality on the video stream. That plus toning down the saturation on my tv would have helped a lot I think.

The tonal dissonance is the very thing that defines the general vibe of the games. It was impossible for any faithful adaptation to avoid it, especially since every piece of popular media seems to dwell in it. To me, at least, this feels like a more forgivable sin in the cases of a Fallout series, but really wish it wasn't so common to the point it looks mandatory for any new or adapted franchise.

Destroying the NCR is by far the biggest middle finger Bethesda could give to the western trilogy, they hate that they can't write a good game and have 1, 2, and NV with amazing legacies compared to their garbage.

I've played all the games and this series is as entertaining as any other TV or film because if you look deeper into every film or TV show it's really all just a western with a twist in time , I consider this an enjoyable new DLC

The tone is a big part of Fallout for me so getting the tone wrong is a much bigger problem for me, in fact it's pretty much a deal breaker.

yay i love grorge !

“How do we sell more fallout shelters?” “LETS DESTROY HUMANITY!” “Ok that works.” At least the Joker would transform innocent victims into madmen like himself to use as henchmen, but let them live.

*spoilers* Am I the only one who had issues with the finale and the 'big reveal'? (and also with a small irritating line from Cooper about finding his family. Where did that come from? Isn't his daughter dead and this wife an evil b...) Moldaver suddenly changes from the leader of crazy (cannibalistic?) raiders into a rebellion leader and potential lover of Lucy's mom? How did Hank drop a nuke on Shady Sands? The vaults aren't armed like that, are they? How could Lucy completely forget her time in Shady Sands? The line "I thought the vault's big light was the real sun" doesn’t really explain her strange memory lapse. Perhaps binge-watching the show in one sitting wasn't a good idea. I might have missed something...

I want to watch it, but I'm really.. I don't trust modern writers to write characters with the proper vibe of the 50's gone wrong. I know that is kind of stupid, because even in game that doesn't really hold up most of the time, but I've really lost just about any goodwill I have in modern writers.

It looks awful georg

That shot where the suit of armor gets hooked by a lasso is incredible, a small city of cinematographers and cgi specialists worked on it.

Remember back in the day when any movie under the sun would get a game adaptation? We're kind of in the reverse of that now, at least the TV shows are better quality but they're still generally inferior ways to enjoy the same stories.

Thanks. From what you've told me watching the series has become optional for me, as opposed to being 'must-see'.

I knew it was going to be different but I like it for what it is.

I'm a bit put off by the amount of lens flare and how photogenic everyone is. I feel like it's fair to say that the games aren't exactly great from a visual standpoint, but I believe the idea that the uncanny looking goggle eyed freaks from the games are living in the post apocalypse much more than the jarringly beautiful people who are featured in the show. The protagonist is meant to have lived in a hole with no natural light for her entire life, with the only clothing available being a blue jumpsuit with a number on it, but her hair and makeup are impeccable. Where are they manufacturing cosmetic products? Do they have a stockpile of the stuff large enough to keep people going for two centuries? It's such a weird stylistic choice for a setting that begs for something grungier.

The original Fallout games were very serious with bits of black comedy, right? It's the Bethesda games that are silly.

For me the show feels like each episode is written half as long as the runtime and then stretched out by hanging on every scene as if there is anything of real depth to reflect on, when in fact there isn't. So just get on with it and make it fun.

Just finished the first episode… and I was okay not going straight onto the second… not sure why, it just hasn’t captivated me

I wish it was more fo1 and 2 and less Bethesda. As a kid I would have loved it for sure. As a 40y old man, it is ok.

Pretty much how i feel! Loved it, definitely looking forward to series 2, and it does feel as though they weren't afraid to change things but also wanted it to be a love letter to the series. But yeah, tonally it did often feel off and here's hoping they can tweak that for series 2+. That said i was expecting the tone to feel waayyyy worse given how campy and ridiculous fallout and the video gamey aspects can be, so i'm honestly impressed they got the balance to where it was.

The main thing that settled my worries about the show is how vault 33 feels less like a Bethesda game vault and more like the down under in a boy and his dog which does feel almost intentional

I find it hard to look at the show from the perspective of someone who hasn't played the games as I have. I think you are right I just excepted the goofiness as it being normal but that could be jarring if you haven't played the games. On the whole once you get it I think it's great. I remember watching the movie "Don't look up" and not knowing it was comedy, once I got It I found the movie hilarious(that was about 1/4 way through).

Norm’s storyline was the best part.

The Fallout show, like its tone is a mixed bag. While some parts are thoroughly enjoyable others are puzzling or baffling. A total roller coaster of quality. Luckily it did seem to find its footing a little towards the second half. I think the early episodes were some of the weakest as you could tell they struggled with finding the tonality. It has potential though as I felt like once the show started to find itself the episodes got better. I hope they can build off that for the next season and don’t regress to the flat and frustrating elements of the early episodes.

It would have been so, so easy to turn this into an absolute car crash of a show. The fact it's actually good is a minor miracle.

Georg, the comedy and drama whiplash is quintessentially Fallout. This is a show based on a game that will show you a disintegrating skeleton of a baby still in a stroller and in the same 5 minute span, the player can open up a bathroom stall to two teddy bears 69ing on a toilet or two garden gnomes playing chess

i agree with some of your points, and i found the first episode overly mean spirited, but overall I like it and the ending was satisfying

I would have loved to see the lore explored a bit more and the worldbuilding actually take place - it seems rushed to wrap up a story that is so fundamental, that it seems like not much can be revealed afterwards

Power armor looks like a lightweight cardboard mockup. Ridiculous. The show is lame. No surprise from Amazon and Bethesda.

My issue was the pacing. It feels made for streaming, made to binge and I think it drags a little, especially the surface story.

The "comedy" in the show is very boring. If you can't write comedy then you shouldn't try to shoehorn it into the writing.

The Rapaport scenes were chef's kiss.

This whole video is hogwash, I mean just look at georg, does he really look like someone who ever held an x-station or playbox controller? I think not!

the Maximus character is terrible ruined most scenes he was in. acting was meh and his writing wasnt great.

You should adjust the brightness of your room to match the tone of your thoughts, reviews and or hot takes

Almost there, not enough of the green stuff though.

I’m seeing a lot of mixed reviews in the comments- but I LOVED this show.

Already forgotten

Pretty amazing all things considered then. I haven't seenit but if we contrast this with _other shows_ like HALO...

I will throw a guess here that you only played the Bethesda Fallouts. Was i correct? Fallout 1 and 2 are both full of humor (2 even more so, but near half of it is explicity non-canon like the easter eggs) but 9 out of 10 darker and incidental humour surrounded by very serious ambience (even in the music). Dramatic moments were downplayed and more infered because of tech- no voice acting for most dialogue, its hard to make elaborate scenes/moments looking so far away and the few npcs with closeup heads cant really interact with other npcs like in a cutscene... my point is fallout 1-2 had their wackiness and insane moments but were more dense and the humor wasnt quite the bethesdas tone. It feels like bethesda applied the type of jokes/humor from the Pip-boy in the menus as the kind of humor for the whole world... only pipboy would ever appear holding or throwing a nuke yet in bethesda land they made a handgun nuke launcher canon... Original Fallout used that kind of humor and drawings like the vault and pip boy to CONTRAST with the bleak world and just some of the npcs were funny crazy wackos while in bethesda theyre like 80% of the population... All that just to say why i didnt feel the same way- if anything i was very glad the show wasnt just wacky comedy - heck i wanted a bit more sobriety btw, a slim hope the show would take some more from the 2 first titles

some aspects had me thinking "damn, this industry REALLY needs to take a break from burning man"

I'm glad to see it wasn't a total flop in your eyes. I'm not surprised the humor was played up. It was very dark and limited in the first 2 games, then the over the top humor was limited to Easter eggs. I suppose they had to lighten it up for a more general audience. I guess the market segment of serious post apocalyptic scenarios is currently taken up by mad max (which could make a good series if they wanted actually).

As someone who has never played the game and knew only a little of the story outlines for the most part I thought the humour worked in the series.

2:46 Look up "anamorphic lens breathing"

I know nothing of the game. As such, the goofy qualities weren't to my tastes. They undermine the world. On a separate note my favourite character was Gary Neville.

Out of curiosity, which Fallout games did you play? Saying (certain installments) stories are half-baked is akin to blasphemy in some circles.

You really don't know fallout then because the original creators wanted to destroy the NCR, have Vault-Tec the bad guys in the end, and Shady Sands moved to LA.

I couldn't stand watching more than 15 minutes. Having seen a few clips from the later episodes, I'm glad I ducked out early. The writing is just too goddamn awful and embarrassing, but I guess that's at least pretty faithful to the Bethesda games.

I'm probably not going to watch the show even though I enjoy the Fallout games. I would enjoy a suddle nod to numerous broken quests throughout the Fallout series. Anyone who plays any of Bethesdas games would have gotten a slight chuckle.

I liked Cooper's story a lot. But I wasn't crazy about anything to do with the BoS. Just felt a tiny bit off.

I hope there is an episode where the hero shovels crap seventeen times in a row and becomes an expert excrement expeditor.

As a Fallout fan (whole series, not just Bethesda releases) on the one side I kinda enjoyed it, but I got the impressions they are trying hard to deconstruct all the west-coast lore created by Interplay and Obsidian (NCR, New Vegas). With the current state of the series I see no reason why the NCR would be destroyed, even if their capital got nuked - I hope they will expand on this seeing that apparently Mojave regions were also affected. Also I do not buy the goofy BoS depiction, it seems many are idiots and cowards, and apparently do not know they have a f*king flashlight on their helmet in case lights go out.

I hated Maximus as he was just a POS, but then he had some character development and started becoming decent, but they retconned some of the crappy things he did up to that point, and it made me hate the way the character was written. Also, Ella just breezing through everything with plot power armor is kind of lame. Was surprised when she actually seemed to go through hardship with a lasting injury, but of course she gets healed almost instantly and goes back to frolicking through the wastes on God mode. The Ghoul really carries the show.

I thought it was great, but then again I like both Fallout 3 and New Vegas so I'm not a "true" fallout fan. My parents who know nothing about Fallout except that I like it thought it was brilliant.

A Police Squad-style spin-off please.

If they really wanted to elevate the source material with humour intact and not forced, Wes Anderson was probably the go-to guy. He even did a dry run for it with Asteroid City

The ending at the observatory with the free energy whatever, was extremely cringe.

This show sure is better than pramount's halo and a more faithful adaptation i thought it was okay nothing to write home about

haven’t played the game or know any lore but i loooved the show. thought it was fun and i am looking forward to a season 2!!

The show was good. It sucks what they did with the NCR and stuff but what should I expect from Bethesda.

Man am I torn on continuing this show

I haven't played Fallout and I watched the first episode of this show and didn't like it at all. I don't think I could possibly be more tired of ultra violent slapstick.