this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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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.