TotallynotJessica comments on Bethesda could have made a Fallout movie or TV show a decade ago, but "credit to Todd Howard," they refused Hollywood's offers until they found "the right partner"

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 9 months ago (7 children)

To me it seemed like the showrunners were far better aquatinted with the games than most writers are with their source material. A lot of things get changed in writers rooms for practical reasons, like moving Shady Sands next to the Boneyard so the protagonists don't have to travel over a hundred miles over mountains to visit it, or changing Novac to fit with the filming location and action sequence. For the most part, these retcons don't absolutely break the stories of the past, while providing enough benefit to the current story to be worth it.

This isn't to say that everything works, but what doesn't work for me has less to do with lore and more to do elements just not working. My biggest problems with this season stem from the writing not being as tight as the first. I'm also worried that Nolan and Joy will make the mistakes they made in Westworld where they didn't have a narratively compelling long term plan.

At the same time, none of what they've done with the factions surprise or disappoint me. The Brotherhood are jackasses who only had benevolent leadership in 3, the Legion were doomed without Caesar, and House was an eccentric weirdo who thought he was more important and capable than he really was.

Most controversially, the direction of the NCR makes way more sense than some fans want to admit. The NCR has reflected American liberal democracy in every game in which it prominently features. In Fallout 2, it's a promising force with cracks in its ideals, mirroring the perception Americans had in the late 90s. In New Vegas it's stuck in an imperial quagmire while wealth inequality weakens the country from the inside, mirroring the war in Afghanistan and the neoliberal post recession "recovery." Finally in 2024, on the eve of America's collapse at the hands of oligarchs, liberals who refused to change, and fascists who took advantage, the NCR has collapsed at the hands of Vault-Tec, the NCR's established problems, and the Legion and Brotherhood (who fuck it all up because they're fascists).

Honestly, them going in this direction is more compelling, better commentary on our current politics, and more in line with the best that Fallout has to offer. I think a lot of people were too attached to their favorite factions to see the bigger picture, and the writers not doing the same has made the show better.

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[–] VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

I really appreciate the throroughness of your comment! It feels like so many of the conversations I have with this show are killed by my long-windedness. I'm glad to see somebody responding with their in-depth thoughts.

I feel like there was a bit of miscommunication, though. I don't hate the direction these factions have gone, I think the steps they've taken to get where they are don't feel realistic to the world. I'm going to go through and respond to the different parts of what you're saying. Please don't take this as nitpicking, you've just said a lot of things that I could clarify my thoughts on.

moving Shady Sands next to the Boneyard so the protagonists don't have to travel over a hundred miles over mountains to visit it.

They could have just had it be The Boneyard if they wanted to do LA. If the goal is to have the show appeal to old and new fans, then just acknowledging it as The Boneyard changes nothing. The old fans know Shady Sands is far away, and the new fans won't recognize either name.

So, would it have been too far to walk to the actual location of Shady Sands? Yes. Did the ruins they come across need to be Shady Sands for the purpose of the story? My opinion is no. I'm not going to use this comment to write fanfic, but I do have a couple ideas on how to communicate the destruction Shady Sands without moving it so the protagonists could find the "Welcome To" sign.

changing Novac to fit with the filming location and action sequence.

This is the type of stuff I'm talking about. That exact scene could have been done outside Novac (sans pool) to no confusion. Would have been a little reference to One For My Baby, too. The differences in filming location would also be negated because they wouldn't be showing the different layout and pool from the outside.

My biggest problems with this season stem from the writing not being as tight as the first.

Not my biggest problem, because I clearly have issues with S1's writing, but I gotta say I appreciated how everything tied together in S1. This season so far feels like a bunch of random events that they might try to spin into a plot by the end.

The Brotherhood are jackasses who only had benevolent leadership in 3

Yes. They're jackasses whose ideology led to them being all but destroyed in that region. Which is why it's weird for me to see them as the biggest military force in this show.

the Legion were doomed without Caesar

This is my biggest problem in S2. Why are they still around? They were thrown into a civil war after the death of Caesar (who clearly died a while ago in the show). This is the same Legion that beats each other to death when leadership calls for it. It does not make sense to have the warlike faction become a bunch of wimps after their leader dies. Macaulay Culkin just killed a woman in front of us, why is he whining about getting shot at?

Legion used to run in with spears against guns, now they're at war with themselves and somehow their attitude on violence and allegiance has changed, as only one side wants to know what Caesar said, and nobody has overtaken the other.

Also, I get sometimes things have to be moved closer for the purposes of a show, but warring enemy camps that literally touch each other is a bit fantastical in a series where real military tactics very much matter to its history.

House was an eccentric weirdo who thought he was more important and capable than he really was.

House could be dead or alive, that doesn't matter. His whole plan for Vegas dominance in New Vegas was really just a gamble. Don't think I just want everything to be as it was in my precious game. I just want the followup story to be consistent with what we've been shown so far.

Most controversially, the direction of the NCR makes way more sense than some fans want to admit.

I have not seen many people saying that the NCR should be thriving, just people saying it doesn't make sense to nuke one city and they're gone. Myself being one of those people.

You're right. The NCR is liberal American democracy. Which is why I think that it was a foolish idea to have them all but destroyed, instead of showing their slow fall due to internal issues. Now, all this is communicated in the lore, but what does the show communicate?

That Shady Sands was nuked into oblivion because Hank didn't want his wife leaving. That removes a lot of the potential political commentary. The NCR could have failed for several reasons, but the prominent 2 that stick out as already established in the lore are: inflation and imperialism. They had a failing currency and were engaging in too many wars. Sound familiar?

But they weren't taken down by their ideology, they weren't taken down by a competing ideology, they were taken down after only one of their cities was destroyed by a guy with a personal vendetta. American democracy will not be destroyed by a personal grudge, and I don't see how it's strengthening the commentary to bypass the many factors at play leading to the downfall of NCR society.

I'm not attached to the factions. I'm attached to the history. If we want to talk about being attached to factions, why is the BoS shoehorned into this plot? Why do they need Vault-Tec and the BoS to tell a story in the wasteland?

Or, hell, just a thought, maybe the rise of the Brotherhood from recluses into a fascist empire (as they seem to now be) could have been what destroyed the NCR. That's not bad commentary, but as it stands I think the commentary is a bit muddled.

To me, all of the possible relevant commentary happened offscreen while the NCR's liberal democracy was dying, and instead of showing the death of that democracy, they just come in after the fact and have Cooper go like, "NCR? Might wanna drop the 'New'."

Kinda feels like all the education about WWII. Where instead of studying the societal factors behind something like the Nazi Party coming to power, we just say, "they got voted in and it was really bad after that."

Anyway, with that rant concluded, I must say I agree that people need liberty when making adaptations because you can't transfer everything to screen 1:1. I just think there are a lot of moments where, instead of retconning, the writing could have done the work for them. They put a lot of effort into showing the connection between the Pre-War and 200 years later, why couldn't they have shown a bit more of the connection between 15 years ago and today?

I'm sure I'm coming across as a bit pedantic, but please understand that I would actually love to have a valid reason for all my complaints being unfounded, so I could just sit and enjoy this show. I just haven't gotten there yet.

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[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 point 9 months ago (5 children)

At the crux of why there is more connection to prewar than postwar is just how much the show needs to introduce to a new audience. It's not easy to build up a setting in such a short amount of time without compromising the characters' stories. The audience might know 1950s America, the cold war, and nuclear armageddon as familiar shorthand, but they do not know a constitutional Republic with a 2 headed bear on its flag or how advanced robots powered by nuclear technology work together with it. That shit takes time to set up, and that lore can never be the backbone of a show; any show.

Lore cannot be dumped upon the audience because it isn't what people engage with stories for. The lore needs actual characters who you actually care about to get you invested in lore in the first place. Stories that don't put characters first not only don't sell as well, but also aren't very good. Games can cheat a bit by having you be the narrative thrust and everyone else be minor characters, but any non interactive medium does not have that luxury.

What I mean:

The story of the NCR or the Legion or House is not built on how interesting their factions were in the game, but how interesting the stories you experience because of them were. A young woman you save who then goes on to build a nation. A charismatic Howard Hughes type and the people trying to make it out on top in his orbit. A psycho wearing an animal head and the man who conquered dozens of tribes into a brutal empire despite not being the smartest or most traditionally charismatic. Hell, the reason the Brotherhood is so much less interesting is how often it doesn't have as compelling characters.

All this is to say that it's a miracle the lore comes out as well as it does. Most of the places where it was compromised was so it wouldn't take up more time in the relatively short 8 episode runtime. Directly showing Shady Sands destroyed conveys the fall of the NCR far more quickly and more effectively than anything else. Having a deeper reference to One For My Baby than Cooper misremembering Carla's name and how long ago she was there wouldn't have been worth it for people who didn't play New Vegas. Them not making these changes would've hurt the story they were telling, and that is never a good idea.

Another problem that isn't actually a big problem

is people wondering how the former NCR areas are in such bad shape. I think people missed just how empty and desolate most of the NCR was, even at the best state they were directly shown. 700,000 people in the Area of California is not that densely populated, as California right now is huge and surprisingly rural in many areas. The distances you travel in Fallout 2, as someone who grew up in California, are no joke. Not seeing as many signs of it being rebuilt in the show makes sense if most people lived in smaller population centers for safety and many of them fell along with Shady Sands.

A similar problem comes from New Vegas, with the state it was shown in game being deceptive. House built up the facade of the Strip like a decade before the start of the game, with the perception of rebuilt civilization existing so House to demonstrate power he doesn't have. New Vegas also led fans to believe things were more rebuilt than they were, but even in lore it was deceptive. Factoring in the way space gets warped in the 3D games, the west coast was far closer to post apocalypse than post-post apocalypse.

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[–] VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 point 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Lore cannot be dumped upon the audience because it isn't what people engage with stories for.

I am not suggesting lore dumping, I'm suggesting keeping the the backdrop consistent with what was established so far. The show is clearly fine with the audience having questions, but none of the questions seem to point to having answers that tie into the history of the region. The history that the showrunners have written, perhaps.

Fallout is interesting for a visual medium because of how much exploration there is. No need to exposit or loredump, the characters can slowly find out the regional story as they go along. Which they do, but again - I think the end of the NCR is a bit less of a foreshadowed ending to a failing state and more "they were a big settlement and got nuked outta nowhere." Which, as you said, is kinda due to the nature of it being a show. But if you have to write off a major player in the region out mostly offscreen just to make the region fit, why not just pick a new region?

Having a deeper reference to One For My Baby than Cooper misremembering Carla's name and how long ago she was there wouldn't have been worth it for people who didn't play New Vegas.

I'm not suggesting a deeper reference or fanservice, I'm suggesting moving the shot outside the motel, which would remove the inconsistencies with location. And also, by having it outside the motel, the shot itself would reference the quest more. But that was not the goal of my suggestion.

Not seeing as many signs of it being rebuilt in the show makes sense if most people lived in smaller population centers for safety and many of them fell along with Shady Sands.

This is what I'm talking about. I would have liked to see evidence of these smaller population centers. In S1, we see barren desert, a few weirdos, a junktown, and nuked Shady Sands. Where are the farms, the outposts, the trading routes, or the tertiary settlements that would have naturally come from proximity to civilization? Only Shady Sands got nuked, where's all the other evidence for civilization? That's what I mean about no evidence of NCR. It's not that I wanted to see the faction I know, I just think there should be more evidence they existed in that region.

All that said, you've made quite a few points to the credit of the showrunners. They definitely don't have an easy job. You're absolutely right about the NCR territory being so massive that they could really show anything. But I still walk away thinking they maybe should have tread on new ground with this one.

Like, if they have to change so much to make it fit with their vision of the show, why not scale the show down and set it in an untouched region? The BoS factions in season 2 are already making me curious about the other parts of America, and they could show those areas with no fear of having to immediately adapt game lore.

I think it could have gained a lot from being centered just around The Ghoul and Lucy, honestly. When I sit and think about it, what turns me off of the show is that I feel it covers so much ground in a very surface-level way that raises more questions that it answers. Which is a problem that wouldn't be as prevalent if they had introduced the world concepts a little more slowly. And again, if they're fine with raising questions, why not do so in a way that showcases what happened in the region rather than easing the audience in with familiar albeit less related concepts?

On your note about how they can only do so much in 8 episodes, maybe they should have tried to work with less? Vaults, the wasteland, and ghouls for a bit, then maybe we run into the BoS. Pre-War flashbacks could have been introduced in Season 2 to flesh out Cooper more, since normally the Pre-War isn't heavily tied to the current wasteland in Fallout.

Idk, just my opinion. I'm not going to be hateful about it. But I do think that reactions such as mine could be avoided by not setting the show in previously trodden ground and using the plot to slowly build the idea of the region before the protagonists go there. And I think that's the crux of what I'm saying. You can do Fallout anywhere in America. Setting it in NCR territory shortly after New Vegas carries certain expectations with it, and I think the story they want to tell could flourish on its own and eventually play into the grander world were it set in an area with less obligation to convey history.

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[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

This is what I'm talking about. I would have liked to see evidence of these smaller population centers. In S1, we see barren desert, a few weirdos, a junktown, and nuked Shady Sands. Where are the farms, the outposts, the trading routes, or the tertiary settlements that would have naturally come from proximity to civilization? Only Shady Sands got nuked, where's all the other evidence for civilization? That's what I mean about no evidence of NCR. It's not that I wanted to see the faction I know, I just think there should be more evidence they existed in that region.

Given the entire first season takes place around Los Angeles, probably not there. California supports such a large population in real life thanks to water from the Colorado River, the use of which has turned lush valleys into toxic dustbowls and destroyed rich wetlands. Combined with being badly nuked, the whole region probably wasn't the most habitable thanks to it now having irradiated toxic dust storms.

This is even shown in the show with the Shady Sands residents efficiently tapping into the same water resources as vault 33, the act of which was what inspired Lucy's mom to leave in the first place. The area also wasn't shown in Fallout 2, was overrun with super mutants in 1, and was likely underdeveloped compared the settlements in the San Joaquin Valley. My guess is there is more civilization near San Francisco and Sacramento, as that area is an irl breadbasket with its own independent water supply. This is notable because the showrunners were specifically told to avoid San Francisco by Bethesda. Having Shady Sands near Fresno like in the games would make it harder for them to adhere to that mandate.

As far as them possibly choosing another area as the setting, my guess is they simply wanted to tell the story of the fall of irl America, and therefore the fall of the NCR. Rather than building whole new factions that would always be compared unfavourably to those on the west coast, or be stuck dealing with recent lore on the east coast, why not follow the decline of the NCR shown in New Vegas to its logical conclusion? Like I said before, I think this direction is fitting and that the show would have a harder time if it tried to do something else. It would have a harder time keeping the identity of Fallout without the commentary on America.

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[–] VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I love your take on the region! You clearly know your stuff!

I will say, I don't think Fallout has to focus on anything Pre-War to keep its identity. A lot of the Pre-War elements in the older games are important because of what they mean to the wasteland now, not the world of the past. But there's plenty of interesting stuff to be explored in the Pre-War world, I just hope we see some more of the actual war and less Vault-Tec politics.

As for the NCR, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree - for now. I've no intention to debate you on your knowledge of geography. I think your reasoning for the geographical depiction is well-thought out.

But that said, I feel like you're misinterpreting my problem with the show, which is that I feel it's not following the NCR to its natural conclusion. The NCR has concluded by the time we see it in the show - Hank nukes them in a flashback. What we see in Season 2 are a few remnants. The best we get showing the NCR's decline is the loredump scene in the schoolhouse.

The show is popular and will no doubt keep going, so there's time to touch on the NCR more, but my point is that it's not really showing the decline of the NCR, it's showing the decline of Pre-War America and having characters pay lip-service to the NCR. If the NCR is still out there, and they can tie their story to the Pre-War plot, I will happily eat crow. But as it stands, the NCR in the show is just a small prop in the inner shenanigans of Vault-Tec. Destroyed by Vault-Tec, with its remnants led by a Pre-War scientist.

I just think there are ways to write an allegory for the Pre-War situation without carrying actors directly from the Pre-War... that was a problem I had with Fallout 4 as well. Sure, Ghouls exist... but as we see with Cooper Howard, they're changed by the wasteland. A lot of the Pre-War characters in the show feel like not much changed in 200 years.

They also do a lot of talking on Communism and whatnot in the Pre-War scenes. I feel like if they acknowledged the fact that it's a resource war a little more, it'd be a lot easier to allegorize using the lack of resources in the wasteland. But I do think that's not a misinterpretation on their part, and more of an interesting take on how Pre-War America would have spun the war for the public.

Anyway, I like your optimistic take on how they could develop the region! You raised a lot of good points that have definitely helped me see your perspective. It's super refreshing to talk to you!

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[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

Thanks. I just grew up in SoCal and am generally curious about the environment and history.

I also understand a lot about how television is written and the pressures the industry puts on storytelling. This is why I can confidently say that Fallout does the best job it can realistically do with the lore. Featuring factions, locations, and lore this accurate to the games is an absolute achievement that required the creators to know and care about the source material.

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[–] VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Well, I'll certainly keep in mind to be more gracious to the showrunners.

Most of my complaints do, indeed, not consider the corporate aspect that's most likely telling the showrunners what they can and cannot depict. And that's a little unfair. Still, I do wish some things were done differently that I'm not sure will be wrapped up by the end.

The dream Fallout show, to me, would be a Mad Max-style show with a lot of original aspects that starts tying into the wasteland at large as it goes on.

But, I guess Fallout was never gonna be some arthouse project with unlimited freedom; you're right that they have to cater to the expectations of multiple audiences. Maybe I shouldn't have gone in with preconcieved notions. But I feel like I got those notions from the classic series, and it has morphed drastically since. But enough about how I don't really enjoy the show, we all know that. It's all my opinion, anyway.

Thanks for workin it out with an old pedant like me. You prove yourself to be a consistent element of grace on the Fediverse.

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