A better day after

March 8, 2024 6:59 PM

You're an actual Vault Dweller! A new Fallout tv series trailer has dropped.
posted by doctornemo (18 comments total)

Dale Dickey perfectly fits my image of a Fallout NPC.
posted by drewbage1847 at 7:04 PM on March 8

"Can the daystar dawn of love,
Where the flag of war unfurled
Floats with crimson stain above
The fabric of a ruined world?
Never but to vengeance driven
When the patriot’s spirit shriven
Seeks in death its native Heaven!
There, to desolation hurled,
Widowed love may watch thy bier,
Balm thee with its dying tear."

-Percy bysshe Shelley.
posted by clavdivs at 7:40 PM on March 8 [2 favorites]

I really wish it was an adaptation of the grim first game instead of a riff on the Bethesda-era irreverence and nonsensical worldbuilding, but oh well.
posted by rhymedirective at 5:51 AM on March 9 [3 favorites]

I'll give the show a chance but will move back to New Vegas fast if it isn't a good fit for me.
posted by dragonplayer at 7:50 AM on March 9 [3 favorites]

Apparently Mr. Handy is voiced by Matt Berry, so I can only hope that the entire show is about Mr. Handy. And if this series disappoints, we all can return to the true narrative Fallout saga, the story of The Final Pam.
posted by FatherDagon at 7:57 AM on March 9 [3 favorites]

I'll give the show a chance but will move back to New Vegas fast if it isn't a good fit for me

At the very least it looks like we may get a canon ending to New Vegas — it's set 15 years after New Vegas and both the BOS and NCR are still around.

Casting Spoilers

An actor is credited for Robert House on IMDB but I'd wager it's a prewar appearance.

posted by nathan_teske at 8:04 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

Apparently Mr. Handy is voiced by Matt Berry

Well there's me going from "meh, who cares?" to "Well obviously I need to watch this."
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:10 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

I'd likely watch the series if it included an Easter egg for LittlePip.
posted by SPrintF at 11:12 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Looks like Fallout 4, the show, but instead taking place in the western setting of Fallout 1/2/New Vegas. Fallout New Vegas is still the best Fallout game, and also my favourite game of all time; Fallout 4 was nowhere near as good (Bethesda sucks terribly at writing.) I'll give the show a shot but I'm not particularly hopeful that it'll be good, and I'll plan to have an extensively modded New Vegas ready to go as a backup.
posted by neon909 at 10:52 AM on March 10

rhymedirective Fallout 1 had a lot of weird and goofy elements. I'll concede the first game didn't lean as hard into them as it could have, but they were there. It does look like they're going with the later period more leaning into it stuff though, and I can't say I blame them too much.

Not only is the irreverent apocalypse with a wink and a grin the expectation that most people will have, based on the player base size of the latter games vs those who have played Fallout 1, but it helps it stand out.

We've had gritty grimdark post apocalypse shows. Lots of them. Adding the Brotherhood of Steel and Vaultdwellers to that approach doesn't stand out. But a slightly goofy, acknowledging the silliness of the whole concept while still playing it straight enough for real drama, approach is different from a lot of what's out there.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

But then, I was cautiously optimistic about the live action ATLA and we got a mediocre at best result, so I'm not a great prognosticator on adaptational TV show goodness.
posted by sotonohito at 2:23 PM on March 10

Fallout 1 had a lot of weird and goofy elements. I'll concede the first game didn't lean as hard into them as it could have, but they were there.

Plus they already dialed-up the weird and wacky with Fallout 2.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:32 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]

I think it looks really good: Walton Goggins looks to be perfectly cast.

My thoughts on Fallout and silliness: Fallout 4 is the only entry that tries to be sad. For most of the series, yes the world ended in nuclear fire, but that was a long time ago and it sure seems like it wasn’t that great a world to begin with. 1,2,3, and NV are all forward looking, building something new. The main villain is literally the past, in forms like the Enclave.

4 is just so poorly written that being a pre-War character doesn’t matter at all. It looks like Walton Ghoulgins was a Vault-Tec exec or salesman before the war, and of course he’s still alive after. He is such a good actor, and it looks like we will get at least some of both timelines, so the contrast between the old ending and the new beginning might just make for a great show.

Westworld made me roll my eyes a lot, but it was well shot.
posted by BeeDo at 8:55 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]

I'll hold judgement until I see how it compares to the great Nuka Break shorts.
posted by Marticus at 7:31 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

PleaseDon'tSuckPleaseDon'tSuck. I would like this to be fun and good, but will wait to see the actual show because there have been some fine trailers for mediocre shows.

Pretty much every show Nolan does ends up being about fighting (or fighting between) superpowerful AIs, so I expect we'll end up dealing with the Enclave.
posted by rmd1023 at 11:03 AM on March 18

Huh. Either Ars needs to buff their lore skill, or maybe I do? "Each iteration of the game takes place somewhere across a post-apocalyptic US metro area and features a Vault Dweller" I haven't actually played Fallout 2, but I think the player character is a descendant of the Fallout vault dweller. And I don't think there's anything in-game saying that the Courier in Fallout: New Vegas is from a vault.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:33 AM on March 19

Fallout 4 is the only entry that tries to be sad. For most of the series, yes the world ended in nuclear fire, but that was a long time ago and it sure seems like it wasn’t that great a world to begin with. 1,2,3, and NV are all forward looking, building something new. The main villain is literally the past, in forms like the Enclave.

I'd have to disagree with your characterization of FO4 as not forward-looking. The overarching structure isn't that much different from the 1, 2, or 3 — character emerges, disrupts status quo, makes life better. The Commonwealth isn't forward thinking because the Institute's done its best to keep it in a dark age for 200+ years by being your basic trope-y, fascist-coded mad scientists. Depending on the ending the sole survivor either ends the Institute or subverts its mission for a more benevolent purpose. Either way the Commonwealth needed a hero like the sole survivor to force the conditions needed to start looking forward.

NV is a bit of an outlier. The only true villain from the past is House and arguably he's less of a villain and more of a benevolent dictator/wannabe philosopher king in the making. The other endings are contemporary factions fighting over who gets to control the resources of New Vegas and the Mojave.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:56 AM on March 19

rmd1023 — you're right. The protagonist from FO2 ("The Chosen One") is the grandchild of the protagonist from FO1 and isn't a vault dweller. The Courier from New Vegas could be a Vault Dweller… nothing says they can't be, their backstory is pretty open.

And we don't talk about Fallout Tactics or Fallout BOS.
posted by nathan_teske at 9:09 AM on March 19

First scene posted by Amazon. Lucy is definitely a naive dork with a low charisma score for failing her speech check!
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:29 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]