this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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The shopkeepers "Fuck vault dwellers" speech has my hopes up that this show won't be lib trash, but I dislike that the main girl is really Libby about Vault-Tec "Um actually you're technically stealing Vault-Tec property which is wrong" also lol at her still having perfect eyeliner after being in the wasteland for days.

And not liking how one of the "good guys" is a Brotherhood of Steel type, I really hope they don't make the Brotherhood a "good" faction because they kinda aren't.

I'm assuming it's a character arc thing and things become less lib later, here's hoping. Because this show is freaking awesome in every other aspect. They really nailed the tone and setting. The sets and props are so cool as well.

I'm assuming The Ghoul isn't as mean as he first appears because he didn't hurt that chicken, and he fixed up the dog.

sigh I miss @UlyssesT@hexbear.net, he would have had so much to say about this show.

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[–] Deadend@hexbear.net 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The show will deliver.

The girl grew up in a vault under propaganda.

The brotherhood is not the fallout 3/4 branch.

Lucy wants to make the world better. Truly deeply, but has no understanding of the world or what better means.

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago

Good, that's what I was hoping (that it's going to do some growth and these characters are going to have to examine the propaganda they've been raised on)

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The brotherhood actually are partly the east coast branch. The airship is the one from 4.

[–] ComradeEchidna@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago

Fallout 4 says that Maxson reunited both east and west faction (no comment on semi-canon Midwest group from Tactics) to create the new fascist BoS in that game. Which is what is in the show.

[–] Deadend@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh dang. I didn’t realize.

I assumed they were West Coast because they were fucking losers and not the Bestest Good Guys from Fallout 3?

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

The ones in 4 had a much more old-school BoS ideology. The old elder died, his heir disappeared (presumed dead?), and the next guy changed them back, reintegrated the outcasts, and rejoined the main faction over the radio. Imo it's kind of a lazy retcon. But yeah anyway IIRC the airship that shows up in the show is the same one that they had on the east coast in 4 (the Prydwen).

This also establishes that the BoS ending in 4 is canon because IIRC it gets blowed up in every other ending.

[–] Dolores@hexbear.net 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

i read the vault people more as smiling hitlerjugend than libs, all that talk about breeding & coming colonization of the surface

[–] peppersky@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

yeah except in typical corporate brained bethesda manner they made the vault dwellers completely multi-ethnic, losing any resonance the whole thing might have to anything actually happening in the real world. Same thing as in Starfield where you have a faction of cowboy-larping-muh-taxes-libertarian-dudebros who are just as ethnically diverse as the san-francisco-liberal faction on the other side of the galaxy.

[–] RION@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

losing any resonance the whole thing might have to anything actually happening in the real world

just because it doesn't replicate the exact racial dynamics of historical and contemporary colonization doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to say about it

that's like saying district 9 doesn't have anything to say about apartheid because it's being used against aliens

[–] peppersky@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

True enough, it's just impossible to tell where corporate diversity casting ends and actual artistic intent starts. It's very strange to do the whole 1950s nostalgia thing "just without the racism" and then let the black woman do the "we need to secure a future for our children" speech and then also have that same black woman start a conspiracy to end the world for that specific purpose.

It's a very very strange show. There are parts which are supposed to feel resonant that just aren't (the whole vault tec conspiracy or the cold fusion/unlimited green energy stuff) and things that feel like the writers are telling on themselves (no idea if the "breeding the perfect middle manager" bit is hard-hitting satire or just executive brained).

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think comparing it to District 9's message about apartheid, where the aliens are legally-defined second-class citizens and are (IIRC) only ever referred to with a fictional racial slur, just makes Fallout seem even more shallow. At most, it's a wealthy/poor analogy, saying "the wealthy feel abstractly bad about the poor but are too comfortable in their gated communities to do anything meaningful", but imo even that is being generous given very similar dynamics are shown in the inhabited vaults from F3 onwards.

[–] RION@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

I think it's more about American exceptionalism. The vault dwellers are so sure they're the only ones who can rebuild society, only for us to find out that 1) the "impure" surface dwellers already did it, and 2) vault tec is responsible for destroying that new society (or at least a critical part of it). You can tie that very clearly to colonialist justifications that destroying indigenous societies was good because they were "backward" unlike the supposedly enlightened west, and more recently neocolonial policies that continue to destroy the global south so it can be remade into a new frontier for capital

[–] Red_Eclipse@hexbear.net 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lucy gets better at the end. Or at least starts to lol.

I know Maximus is stuck in an evil cult but he's cute crush

[–] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago

He also displays sociopathic tendencies

[–] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 26 points 1 year ago

I was really happy with how the show turned out and the direction it took. I felt it really delivered, so don't be too worried. I had some similar concerns especially regarding the Brotherhood of Steel before watching, but the show gets that they're not good guys.

I thought theyvreally nailed it as an adaptation of the setting. My favorite thing about Fallout is that its not speculative fiction. Its not about a possible future, its about what people in the height of the Atomic Age thought the future would be. There's this massive contridiction in that period where on the one hand you have the height of Americana - that trademark psychotic optimism - and on the other hand the fear of nuclear annihilation. Fallout explores that contridiction - or rather resolves it by recognizing that the US is fascist. The show, i felt, got that and delievered.

[–] RION@hexbear.net 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's a character arc thing. honestly i think there's some great character work throughout the season

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

Oh thank god.

You never know these days whether an adaptation of satire understands the satire or is playing it straight

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 25 points 1 year ago

The Vault storyline is the best imo.

[–] TC_209@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

I've watched the whole show and I think Lucy's character works. She's ignorant and she gets a few big doses of reality along the way -- a good vault dweller in the tradition of the Vault Dweller from Fallout 1 or the Lone Wanderer from Fallout 3.

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I hated the first few episodes, started to like it in the second half, and then hated the last episode. Imo most of the interesting stuff happens either in flashbacks or is implied off-screen. She becomes a bit more of a realist but still stays a "good" person.

As an aside I find the weird way it engages in fanservice intriguing. Like, yeah, look at all the power armor and vertibirds, or some guy has a 10mm pistol, oooh stimpaks. But it doesn't go full out. Ghoul man has a weird subsonic revolver thing that's not in any games that I remember. The Boneyard, The Hub, Vault City? Never heard of 'em.

[–] peppersky@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

The Boneyard, The Hub, Vault City? Never heard of 'em.

Neither have the writers of this show. You'd be kidding yourself if you thought they used anything pre-Fallout 3 for reference for this show.

[–] ComradeEchidna@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The game takes place only around LA. The Shady Sands depicted should have been the Boneyard (the only way it makes sense if they moved the government from the location from 2 and took the name with it). The hub was more north but should be mentioned as it was still big. Vault city is much further away. It’s even above San Francisco (another settlement) in latitude which is 600km from LA by road.

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Imo they really just didn't care about scale or where things were at all. There's a lot of wandering around but not a lot of things because they'd rather not worry about it.

spoilerAlso Kyle Mclachlan makes it to New Vegas in 30 seconds (sort of).

[–] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago

She goes through a lot in eight episodes and has abandoned her Vault-Tec brand naivete by the end for very good reasons

[–] peppersky@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you look at the show on its own it's totally fine entertainment (way better than anything westworld certainly), but as an adaptation of a videogame series called Fallout it takes out everything that might make an adaptation of that series interesting while also making the source material much less interesting and resonant in the process. I might do a longer write-down at some point if I feel like it, but it's 100 percent "Bethesda™s Fallout: Skyrim with Guns Edition" taking over the series and its lore. There is some stuff that is good and works (the brotherhood guy is exactly the type of facist dudebro the brotherhood would create) but also so much of it just feels like corporate-brained nonsense.

[–] Nacarbac@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago

the brotherhood guy is exactly the type of facist dudebro the brotherhood would create

True, but that just makes him a weirder choice, because he brings essentially nothing to the story - his character development has been mostly him falling for Lucy, therefore coincidentally doing Good Thing, and looking glum when asked "what if the Brotherhood... is the Brother-no-good?" because his character is written as ignorant and uncommunicative, leaving him incapable of expressing reasons or arguments for his actions (outside of the excellent acting - his expressions as he relishes his newfound power were perfect).

...wait, he's just the first ten minutes of Finn from Star Wars dragged out over a season.

[–] EllenKelly@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My head canon is that anything todd howard touches is not canon, and because feminism ruined gaming i literally can't enjoy anything without seething over the treatment of women within the text.

have fun :)

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

I-was-saying I like feminism

[–] ashinadash@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

My head canon is that anything todd howard touches is not canon,

This but unironically!

[–] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

the main girl is really Libby about Vault-Tec "Um actually you're technically stealing Vault-Tec property which is wrong"

Haven't watched the show and probably won't, but pretty realistic that the "Umm, you're costing the company money by pirating" dorks would persist even through an apocalypse.

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago

I'm watching it today this is what I saw popped up that convinced me it has some substance to try jt.

https://youtu.be/g1kfg1Ha5Rs?si=BVgja8liUI07I3pw