T w e n t y S i d e d
Update, concerning the major topic of comments: We’ve done this before; see the discussion of the first season of the Fallout TV series HERE.
Originally Scheduled Post:
Last week I was finally getting over the sinus infection. Allergy problems caused another bad day, but I was finally truly getting better.
Then I got a cold. Not a little sniffly one, either; one of the bad ones. Although, a few days ago I felt it start like a switch was flipped, and last night I suddenly felt the switch flip again and I started feeling better. Unfortunately I’m draining so bad I can’t stop blowing my nose or sneezing. Either of which is making a horrible mess.
This has certainly been the season for it.
Planning on watching Fallout Season 2 pretty soon. I’ve only seen one reaction pop up on YouTube (I didn’t watch it), but the creator was someone I don’t generally follow because they advocate New Vegas as the *only* really good Fallout, followed by 1 and 2 and generally disregarding everything (else) produced by Bethesda as Bethesda “doesn’t get* Fallout. An opinion I don’t agree with, I’ve shared before.
Hope everyone has a good week. I’ll be taking my parents to doctors’ appointments this week as long as I really am getting over this cold.
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Not that I get it matters to anyone anymore at this stage, I suppose, but it’s certainly been said before that Bethesda NEVER understood Fallout; in fact the guy felt so strongly about it he even made a video as well.
Sounds like you might not have been following that guy, either.
Even Tim Cain agrees that Bethesda is diluting Fallout and he’s one of the people who created the franchise! I’d post a video link but the spam filter here has deleted my comments before. Just search “tim cain making and maintaining an ip” on YouTube. In the dilution section he literally quotes stuff Shamus said in his video.
He also did a great series called the Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3 on this site, going into detail about the plot of that game. It’s good!
But just because Shamus thought it doesn’t mean it’s objectively true. I’ll happily dunk on the Fallout TV show – have been doing – and would broadly agree with what (I think) Shamus believed*, but it’s still just my opinion.
Or Shamus’. Other opinions exist and aren’t necessarily wrong.
*It’s not that I think Bethesda never got Fallout, it’s that Bethesda’s Fallout is worse than other takes on the franchise. I’ve got a similar opinion on modern Star Trek.
That’s an opinion I can respect. I was actually going to say the same thing about Shamus. He had an opinion. I disagreed with him about Bethesda and Fallout, but that doesn’t mean I think he’s awful or stupid. He was a brilliant writer who I always enjoyed reading even when I disagreed.
I’ve added some links, and I’ll be commenting. I am, of course, *well* aware that my opinion on Fallout is different from Shamus’ overall writings. I was part of the community here, then. As detailed in a comment, Shamus had his opinions on Fallout; I have mine. I also have no problem with someone not liking the Fallout TV series because it’s a nostalgia program that just shows off locations from the game. I have no idea if that’s true, I haven’t watched Season 2. That was the essence of the blurb in the video description for the video I didn’t watch. And was then followed by, Bethesda doesn’t get Fallout, they should have just made a New Vegas TV show that would’ve been better. Which is A) the exact same arguments I kept hearing before watching Season 1, and that turned out to be great; and B) is literally making the assumption that New Vegas is so good all the TV producers had to do was use a story from New Vegas instead of the pursuit of Lucy’s father as the basis for Season 2 and it would have been fine. Which is both a bad assumption and a desire for wish fulfillment rather than criticism.
And *that’s* why I ignored that video.
I’m pretty sure that just “doing a New Vegas TV show” would not have worked out. Video games do not translate to film or TV at all well.
About the only thing you can do is to take the background lore and build your own plot around it. This can lead to good stuff (Arcane, Fallout Season 1), or not so good stuff (too many to count). But trying to play out the plot of a video game as a TV series is pretty much doomed to failure. Even bringing in existing characters is risky, unless you change them pretty extensively as was done for Arcane.
Which may be your purpose. I’m pretty sure Uwe Boll’s movies were made because the generous subsidies given out at the time basically meant he could do them for free (as long as he stuck to budget), and box office was pure profit. Making a movie that was good would have also been a bonus, and might have raised expectations.
Yeah, and to be honest let’s not pretend New Vegas is some flawless gem of unassailable purity. I do think it is better written, more thought through, more fun in terms of player agency and somewhat less focused on set pieces but it does suffer from a number of the same issues that FO3 had. Also was possibly less stable at the time of relesase than FO3 was at the time of release (presently I feel like NV is getting more community support which may keep it in better shape running on modern rig and OS but it’s been rather a long while since I’ve tried playing either). And yes, Obsidian were working within the BethesdaFallout so an argument can be made that they’re doing their best with tropes that are already baked into the setting but The Kings were Obsidian, the Boomers were Obsidian…
Also I feel we need to accept that Bethesda Fallout is what Fallout is now. FO3 came out over 15 years ago, it’s another 10 years for the first two games, that’s an entire generation, maybe two, of gamers for many of whom this intepretation of the setting is the default one. Heck, Fallout London is a monstrous community project and it is exactly like Bethesda Fallouts in terms of how it handles the setting. Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion, such as not liking the modern FO iterations and I personally agree with Shamus that they are not good in keeping the tone and themes of the old games but I think it is unreasonable to think they every will, and maybe even that it was viable for them to do so in the first place considering the video game market realities.