S01.E01: The End

[paulvdb]

Quote

Okey dokey...

Premiere date: April 10, 2024

[Anela]

I’ve started this, but I really need sleep.  I got past the wedding, and something that happens afterwards.  

[Cloudly]

Frigging love this show. About to watch ep 2 but here's some thoughts on ep 1. I'm a casual Fallout player (Fallout 3 and New Vegas, when they came out) and I always loved the atmosphere more than anything in the games.

– Chills from the first second. I liked the LA mini prequel, production values were off the charts (throughout the show really) and I felt they accurately portrayed the shock and the devastation of the bombs. HOW did Cooper (the Ghoul) survive though?! Looking forward to more of his backstory. He's the #1 character for me by far so far, and probably will remain so. 

– So many beautiful sound effects borrowed from the games. The stimpak, the Geiger counter... probably a lot more Easter eggs I didn't catch.

– Vault 33 felt much more livable than vaults in the games. Beautiful, really. I did not get the raiders' motivation. Resources are scarce, radiation is devastating – here's an apparently self-sustaining vault with clean water, etc – why not just take it over? Even if you didn't want to live there forever, there IS a door after all. It would be a great place to camp out, at least. I'm not buying that the coastline wouldn't have changed more in 200 years or that there would be as much left of the Santa Monica pier, seems a dumb place to build a vault tbh. So the raiders only wanted to take Hank with them? Why?? Why did they make him choose between some vault dwellers and his daughter, and then he sorta didn't and they sorta didn't care? Why blow up the inter-vault door? 

– Maximus. I checked out the actor, he's 34. I think he looks about that as well. If he was taken on by the BoS as a young kid, that's a looooong time to be a squire in training, no?! He should have been in his teens, I think. That didn't ring true for me, although I like the actor. Loved Dane as well, they had a great self-assurance about them. What a bummer with the razor. Wonder if we'll see Dane again.

– After the beautiful end credits there was another mini trailer for the series with a lot of new scenes. It looks so good! 

– The Ghoul (as his new identity) – what an entrance as a character!! Wonder why someone would keep him buried and "cut off parts"? Mysterious. Fully expected him to eat that chicken after he was done with the gang that came to dig him up. 

[mrspidey]

Loved it. I felt right at home. Yep, that's Fallout alright.

Love how they gave us Lucy's character sheet in her introduction scene. So Repair, Unarmed Combat  and Small Guns are her main skills.

The way she handled Chet when she left suggests she also has the Black Widow perk.

 

Edited April 11 by mrspidey

[AnimeMania]

I hate when characters get shot or stabbed and they just carry on like nothing happened. I think it is supposed to tell me something about their character, but I never seem to get it. I wish TV and movies just stopped doing it, it wouldn't have changed anything if the knife missed her and stuck into the wall.

I am surprised that the Brotherhood of Steel had such rickety buildings. I was thinking that they might have been an offshoot of the Military and would have preserved the knowledge and tech of the previous civilization, making structures that were built to last centuries. And here they are playing basketball, "throwing bricks", at least nobody was "stupid" enough to be under the basket trying to get a rebound. 

That was a really long episode.

[Anela]

I’m going to start playing new Vegas, if my computer can handle it. I liked this.  
I love Walton goggins, and that the ghoul left the chicken alone. 
I’ve been waiting for a show to grab me like this.  I haven’t watched shogun yet, because I wanted to see the whole thing, not wait.  
 

 

[Arynm]

5 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I hate when characters get shot or stabbed and they just carry on like nothing happened. I think it is supposed to tell me something about their character, but I never seem to get it. I wish TV and movies just stopped doing it, it wouldn't have changed anything if the knife missed her and stuck into the wall.

In this case, I think it was supposed to be like the video game. She used the stim pack and she was fine just like gameplay would be. The trope is terrible I agree, but in this case, I thought it worked.

Loved the look of the show and Goggins was of course the stand out. Can't wait to see where this goes.

[thuganomics85]

As a fan of the games, I was looking forward to this and I'm glad the pilot delivered at least.  Between this and The Last of Us, maybe they are finally figuring out how to adapt video games into a live action form (definitely think series is a better choice than films, because you really can't cover most everything in just two hours or so.)

The look and feel of the Vault was top notch and looked like it came straight from the games.  Curious to see if the Wasteland will be able to standout amongst other post-apocalyptic worlds in media.  The opening scenes looked really great as well.

I like the idea of them using Lucy/the Vault, Norm/The Brotherhood of Steel, and The Ghoul as ways to eventually connect everything with what is going on with the Enclave and the likely reason the Overseer was taken.

Definitely spared no expense with the violence and gore.  And while they started things out a bit seriously, you can already see some of the zany and out there humor that has populated the series.

Casting was good.  I mainly know Ella Purnell for her voice work as Jinx in Arcane, so it's great seeing her in live action form and I thought she made Lucy a likable and relatable enough of a protagonist.  Kyle MacLachlan is always a welcomed sight and the actor playing Maximus was solid as well.  Great supporting cast too with Sarita Choudhury, Michael Cristofer, and Matt Berry voicing Mr. Handy might be the best casting decision ever.

But my favorite?  Definitely Walton Goggins as The Ghoul.  For me, he might be one of the best actors out there and I can't wait to see what he will do with this character.  Already like seeing how different he was pre-Ghoul and now.  The Justified fan in me also got a kick out of seeing Mykelti Williamson as Honcho: the guy trying to recruit the Ghoul (and failing miserably.)

A lot of good Easter Eggs and I'm sure we'll get more, but the only request I have is that they better have a cameo from Ron Perlman, lamenting his iconic line, "War.  War never changes." before the end of this series!

[Tachi Rocinante]

Lucy MacLean?  Really? I know it's spelled different but come on.  (Lucy is John McClane's daughter in the Die Hard movies.)

Never played the games, but the first episode was decent enough. 

Did Maximus put the razor blade in his friend's boot, or not?

Edited April 12 by Tachi Rocinante

[tennisgurl]

I am only a casual gamer, I have played a few Fallout games every once in awhile at friends houses and such, but most of what I know is through pop culture osmosis, but I really like this so far. It seems to be really nailing that retro futuristic mix of survivor horror and dark comedy that makes the franchise so much fun, and according to the preview its just going to get better. 

The Vault is my favorite location so far, it looks exactly like the games but it feels a lot more lived in and somehow even more quirky as we get to know the people there more. The running joke about "cousin stuff" is so gross but in a way that's weirdly hilarious. It seems like the raiders might have more of an agenda than just stealing from the people in the Vault and kidnapping their leader, the main lady knowing Lucy's mom makes it seem like there is a lot more going on. 

For people who worship machines, the Brotherhood of Steel are pretty low tech in their training, I guess all of their budget went to their mech suites and cool airplanes and blimps. 

I like all of the characters so far but the standout is, of course, Walton Goggins as The Ghoul, a mutant who is still alive somehow after witnessing the nuclear explosion that started all of this and has gone from cowboy movie star to cowboy wasteland bounty hunter, a character that Walton Goggins was clearly born to play. 

You can really see all of that Amazon money, they are clearly hoping to finally get that super huge critically acclaimed hit that they have always wanted (especially after Rings of Power was considered on the meh side) and based on this episode, they might finally have it.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Never played the game, but I really liked the opening sequence with Goggins and his little girl, very impactful.

[shrewd.buddha]

I also know nothing about the game.  But the first episode was compelling: somewhat serious, somewhat campy, some gallows humor, some genuine emotions, impressive sets and good acting. 

Not sure how the different storylines are going to intersect, but it didn't feel like an impenetrable puzzle and made me want to watch more. (It almost felt as if one storyline was in a different time period but maybe that is because so many shows are doing that these days)

Not sure how to interpret AmazonPrime dropping the full season at once (like the old days). I took that as a sign of low confidence so I was braced for mediocrity .. but was happily surprised with this beginning.

[Jack Shaftoe]

On 4/12/2024 at 4:34 AM, Arynm said:

In this case, I think it was supposed to be like the video game. She used the stim pack and she was fine just like gameplay would be. The trope is terrible I agree, but in this case, I thought it worked.

Exactly. At first I thought it was silly, then I saw the stimpack use scene and laughed my ass off. Refuge in audacity, just like in the games.

I liked the first episode a lot. My main criticism would be the overuse of musical montages and, as mentioned above, Maximus seems too old to be a squire in training but maybe this will be explained later. And the power armors seemed to way literally tons the way everything shook when a knight passed by but I guess rule of cool must prevail sometimes.

[PurpleTentacle]

I really liked this episode. It bodes well for the series.

Those were some rather tiny nukes. Were they never further developed from the first prototypes in this world? Well at least those would spew out more radiation, so it kinda tracks.

[peridot]

I never played the game, but I'm liked the pilot.  The beginning scene was good, it's funny/sad how quickly the man turned on his friend who tried to get into his shelter.

Since the point of Lucy's wedding was for procreation, I wonder if she's pregnant now?  I'm not sure of the tone of the show, so I wasn't sure if her pregnant friend would be murdered or not.

Maximus had to have put the razor in the boot.  It seems like his friend knew it too, with the way they were looking at him.

I'm looking forward to learning more about this world.

[Affogato]

Hasn’t that ‘some enchanted evening’ shtick been used somewhere else? Slow motion, mass death?

Lucy looks a lot like her Dad, it helps with the connection. 

[pasdetrois]

On 4/11/2024 at 7:56 PM, Anela said:

I’ve been waiting for a show to grab me like this.

I've never heard of Fallout, I'm not a gamer (unless we're talking my gardening game), and I usually do not enjoy fantasy type shows. But this show is holding my interest. Love the sprinkling of oddball characters, and seeing Leslie Uggams. She had a variety TV show long ago. The pre-blast scenes were very well done.