this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
421 points (97.1% liked)
Television
4625 readers
11 users here now
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
see my reply here for further explanation about what I meant: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/11015082
In dramaturgical terms I'd define what you say here as
it's a plot summary or precis.
And then to take a few of your points:
these are character attributes and are not necessarily writer-controlled and could vary wildly between the writers' intent, the directorial notes and the actor portrayal.
debatable about whether this is plot. If we see (or hear about) this happening relative to a turn of a beat or a block of the objective to a character in a beat - then, that's plot otherwise its exposition
If we see the main guy making a move, this is plot, the reason for her rejection is an attribute or expository, but is not specifically dramaturgical
Technically this wouldn't actually be plot without us seeing the opposing firm (presumably by synecdoche of seeing a character from the firm). So if we meet people from the competition firm it's plot, but if we don't then the plot would be more accurately described as "characters X, Y and Z leave the firm" and less accurately that "the competitor steals the characters"
the reason for being this specific is a) artistic - that drama (including comedic drama) relies on character relationships and dialogue and b) the process of turning writing to performance to product is a large and refined one that requires adherence to these principles to function
While I can surely appreciate a technical breakdown, that was still a lot of hot air. That doesn't change the fact that, whatever your want to technically call what happened in Fallout, it was not interesting. It was flashy, it was pretty, but it was not interesting. Thus bland, like rice without seasoning. It's there, it fills a stomach, it has nutrients. But ultimately it is boring and inconsequential.
I think you and I watched different shows. It was very interesting to find out what's going on with these vaults. With this ghoul. With this squire low level grunt in the brotherhood. They all had interssting stories and character traits that played out nicely together into the larger picture/story.
We definitely watched different shows. Matter of taste I suppose. But none of those things were actually interesting. They were set up as mysterious, but were actually telegraphed and predictable. The characters really displayed no depth at all, nothing that happened to them or that they did changed them in any significant way. And the whole thing has massive plot holes and ends in a event that only video game fans would care about but overall, instead of a resolution, leads to a cliffhanger.
Bro what are you even talking about. Lucy and Maximus had their entire world-views turned upside down, completely changing allegiances by the end of the season. Cooper/the ghoul probably had the least development but he did go from bounty hunting for the love of it to trying to find his family again.
I'd swear you never even watched the show, you're just throwing out mindless criticisms with no bearing on the actual plot.
To me the interesting part is blaming this on plotting, why I'm digging into it is that - as writers/creators/dramaturgs we often coalesce around how it's never what is happening, but how the people dealing with it interact with each other.
What plot events do you feel were missing? We had nukes, monsters, gun fights, h2h combat, robots, all the main characters interact. What plot point, if added, would've saved it for you?
First of all, I don't think it needs saving at all. It is what it is. Most people like it and I think that it barely qualifies for background noise. That is not a bad thing, nor do I think it's a bad show. But everything that has happened in Fallout I have seen it better executed and in more interesting ways elsewhere. It's cliche events, predictable story, characters have no agency and their arcs are flat, and it has a weird almost Disney like censorship over the whole plot. We almost never get to see the truly (few) eventful and important beats. But also even minor things that would be interesting or impactful to watch, they always cut or pan away the camera.
Nothing needs saving, no entertainment needs to be good, but arguably, we want entertainment to be good, therefore it should be good. That is the line of conversation. Of course Maslow's hierarchy of needs exists, but let's take that as read.
I want to dig into the "cliche" and "agency" part: Fallout (the games) are themselves pastiches of south-west Americana - westerns and cowboy dramas with a retro scifi flare (like how most cyberpunk dramas are pastiches of film noir). With that premise in mind, of course you need A Man With No Name as anti-hero.
It's also an homage to a video game - a genre defined by everything being a go-fetch quests as a simplified version of Aristotles Poetics.
So I don't think you can adapt fallout and ignore these influences - that's part of the fun. If you don't like westerns and quests you're not only going to hate fallout tv show, but the fallout games too. But also red dead redemption, elder scrolls, mass effect...
We disagee that it was Disney-esque (there were heads exploding in every episode, a guy gets shot in the gooch, children are frequently murdered, there is on-screen sex, rape via deception, slavery, impalement, desecration of corpses, mutilation, maiming and vivisection, cannibalism, frequent visible kill shots to the head, nudity and tier-1 swearing).
What are the important beats we don't see? >!the explosion of the city caused by the important guy, causing a main character to hate him!< - we certainly see the aftermath and consequences frequently and a significant part of the final episode discusses it. I can't think of anything else.
I've never rolled my eyes so hard at a comment, and I've been on the Internet for decades. We are talking past each other. You obviously don't care what I said. Unfortunately I have no more time to entertain your ego, so I'll give it to you. You won the Internet debate, hurray!
I just find it interesting, I'm sorry you don't. there's no need to be rude.
No man, the topic is interesting but you made it annoying and rude yourself. By ignoring everything I said by over explaining how my opinion is wrong(!?). I'm more than happy to converse about Fallout, and all the good and bad it has to offer, just not with you.
I didn't say it was wrong, I said we disagreed.
I also responded directly to everything you said and then asked you follow up questions for clarification?
definitions 2 and 3 both work here.