Cain appreciated the performances and storytelling, but singled out how the show nailed the Fallout “vibe” as its biggest achievement. “I was just looking at all the props,” he said of one scene. “I realized after a few minutes went by that I had not followed the dialogue at all, because I was so engrossed by it visually.”
On a more sour note, Cain took time to address the way fans of the series can behave poorly online, particularly regarding any perceived rivalry between Fallout entries developed by Bethesda (3, 4, and 76), and those from Interplay, Black Isle, and Obsidian (1, 2, and New Vegas). Cain spoke positively of Todd Howard, and said that “Some of the stuff you [series fans] say online is so off.” See also: the debate about whether the show somehow overrode or ignored the events of those non-Bethesda games, which has since been denied by a senior developer at the studio.
I think people are taking the wrong takeaway from this. It is okay to dislike the show, it’s okay to criticize it. There is a difference between not liking a final production and declaring that the people who made it are terrible.
This might seem like an obvious distinction, but I’ve ridden this ride before. Different factions of fans declaring themselves more “loyal” or “correct”- some of them hating everything new and getting nasty about the new creators, and other factions blindly loving all the new things. Each faction declaring the other as fake fans and trying to banish them. It is perfectly fine to not like some things, to express it, and to discuss it back and forth. The smug dismissal that fans have of other fans who have a polar opinion of specific productions in a franchise is exhausting.
Tim Cain seems from his channel and his many talks like somebody who tries to think in this multifaceted way. Unfortunately many people clip his words and run off on tangents against his bigger ideas.
Finished the first season and it was really good. There’s very, very little to complain about. If dingdongs manufacture some stupid nonsense about it being “woke” or w/e to get it canceled it would be pretty tragic.
They erased the NCR from existence and had contrived plot and cringe dialogue.
The diversity was a strength, though I’m not sure why the Pre-War United States was depicted as being highly jingoistic yet not racially segregated - which the United States was until 1964
I think anything associated with Amazon puts a lot of people on the defense right out the gate, myself included. I would’ve loved to see a different studio handling this adaption tbh
Rings of Power and Wheel of Time were crushing in their ability to deliver disappointment.
Wheel of time was so close too. If they just didn’t fuck with the script so much
All they had to do was NOT try to throw a new twist every other episode, and it would have been amazing.
As a person on the internet, I hate how people on the internet are so hateful.
Yeah people on the Internet are too quick to anger, so I’m told.
I’ll kill you for that remark.
Internet here.
Yo mamma.
That is all.
Anyone saying the show recons 1, 2 and NV from the lore must not know a damn thing about 1, 2, and NV not to notice all the things referencing events and places from those games.
I don’t see many people saying that. I see more people expressing disappointment in the apparently underwhelming and abrupt demise of the NCR, which for all practical purposes resets the west coast to a lawless Fallout 1 type state.
I’m not sure where I stand on that, because I could see the unraveling of the NCR as being interesting if expanded upon, but the point is that it is a reasonable opinion to hold. This Tim Cain video isn’t saying people shouldn’t criticize things or that they are unreasonable for not enjoying things. He’s saying that regardless of the merits of a production, you shouldn’t level personal attacks and moral judgements on creators just because you don’t personally like what they made.
That is a fair point and one I share; though I admit my bias. The NCR was always my favorite of the factions (excluding myself through Yes Man in NV) and it just seemed kinda fucked up with what they did to them. Not so much that they basically deleted them, but that they did it off-screen. I hope that future seasons explore that instead of using it as an excuse to not feature the NCR ever again.
I only watched the first episode and skimmed through most of it as it was kinda boring.
Does it get better?
What kind of shows are you able to watch when you already need to skim the first episode setting the mood/vibe of the show? TikTok?
Shows that are captivating and offer a glimpse of the long term mystery?
Now the first episode of the Expanse had the same flow; introduce the different character groups, world build, and set events into motion.
It ended with multiple different character arcs in motion - an investigation, political drama, lost in space. Fallout had 3 people set off to start their arc maybe next episode? Vault girl leaves, Brotherhood guy leaves, Ghoul leaves.
The Expanse pulled it off fucking fantastically whereas Fallout just felt flat to me.
Yeah I’m not feeling great about the show. Sure it’s pretty, but it’s so slow.
Maybe that’s a deliberate choice, but as the first episode is, I give it a 7/10.
Not great, not good, but okay.
https://www.ratingraph.com/tv-shows/fallout-ratings-116450/
People like the later episodes more
Can I just say thank you for being the only person to actually answer my question. If that’s the case I might try to power through a few more.
One more question though, it goes from 8.5 to 8.9; is that a big increase?
It sounds like very little but for all I know 99% of shows could be rated from 7-9, where it would be more impactful.
That site visualizes the per-episode reviews from IMDb so its only as good as its dataset.
I find it most useful when choosing between shows, if I know that a series falls of a cliff if the later seasons I might choose something more consistent instead.
My advice would be to search a couple of other series you know and see what their numbers look like. That should give you a benchmark.
People want the thing to fail because Amazon and Bethesda, the opinion has been this way since the first teaser. Glad Tim likes it and i can’t wait to watch it as well when i can, there’s nothing but hype with their trailer.
Hope it won’t devolve or drag for seasons though.
6 seasons and a movie
Why are people upset about Bethesda? You mean because of the Microsoft acquisition?
Fallout in their hand isn’t up to the standard of hard-core fans, and also due to FO4’s dialog system, and the technical issue with 76.
Horse armour.
And, well, mostly everything else after that.
…Bethesda is a terrible developer and producer with a few good games under its belt that make people really dedicated to it— and I don’t super blame those people. It would be like if half of Zelda games were buggy and unfun and amateur and kinda-ugly trash— and so were most of their other first-party was too— but those three or four great Zeldas and two or three good Marios made people huge fans of the company. Or it would be like, you know, CD Projekt Red making one— maybe two— games so great that people decided all their other games must be great by default even when they’re not (which, well, yeah).
Probably thr fact they’re still releasing things on the same dates engine with the same formulaic stories without any new innovation for decades.
I swear the problem is the Bethesda old guard, its pretty clear they want to make semi-linear or adventure games but are pigeonholing themselves into making making big open world games. Also I suspect they have a too many cooks situation going on, they need to break up their main studio into smaller teams who work on multiple smaller projects at once.
It is not the same engine but a ever evolved one. Saying that it is the same engine would be like saying that UE5 is the same engine as UE1
UE has evolved and changed over time to use new hardware features and adapt to new player needs.
Gamebryo is still the exact same engine that ran Morrowind, just running worse games on faster hardware with more memory. It even still has some of the same bugs, which community patch mods have had to fix for every single game (except Starfield, because that’s become such a clusterfuck of bugs and poor design that even the most dedicated modders have given up).
Just wanted to chime in as well: Thought I’d watch one episode, watched all eight in the end. It was really good.
Bit sad about the NCR though. spoiler
I loved it too! As a fan of a series that was never adapted correctly (dark tower) this show gave me hope. Also loved the actors! How can someone hate on some of those amazing performances
Soon as I saw Walton Goggins on the cast list, I knew it had to be good somewhere. He never disappoints.
I have to admit I was also only looking at the props, because I very much like the visual style. I feel the creators overdid themselves a little, packing (probably too) many references directly in the first episode. Was a little overwhelmed visually and did not follow the story. Will have to rewatch, especially as the start of the episode is not like the games, where you primarily follow one (your) character, and rather not many in parallel.
when i realized that all the hairstyles were fo4 hairstyles 🤯
If you want a show to be more like the game, play the game. If you want it to be more like the book, read the book. Let the show be a show and try to appreciate it as a show.
I haven’t watched the show yet, but I read that it with the NCR
spoiler
it kind of kills them off, and that’s boring and disappointing.
The show is canon, so it’s going to impact future games. So that’s annoying in a way that “just stick to the medium you enjoy” won’t solve.
I thought New Vegas was the most interesting because it was focused on rebuilding, and what comes after.
Also I don’t know how to do the highlight-spoiler instead of the dropdown spoiler :(
I just finished the final episode of the season. I liked it for the most part. The characters- both the actors and the writing kept me engaged. The show felt like it kept moving and didn’t ever plod. Some of the larger lore implications I’m either lukewarm or not thrilled about.
That criticism is okay. It’s strange to see this and other threads full of people trashing fans who didn’t love the show. That kind of personal attack for a differing opinion is managing to completely twist Tim Cain’s comments, and in a way be the kind of person he is cautioning against.
Yup, this is like the Cowboy Bebop live action. Fans wanted something, got something and then bitched that it wasn’t exactly like the anime.
I really liked the live action show. Like with One Piece it actually piqued my interest in the anime.
I loved the anime, but also really enjoyed the live action. I’ve never seen either of the one piece shows but hopefully the live action doesn’t suffer the same fate as the live action cowboy bebop.
hmmm idk, i disliked the live action because of the acting and writing on cowboy bebop. i also don’t think three was any reason to make that live action. it felt like a soulles cash grab.
compare that to say the one piece live action, or the last of us series, or even twisted metal. those were all shows that adapted things well while also changing a lot. it’s fine to adapt things to a be medium and tell your own story, just don’t expect a free pass if that story you tell is worse than the material you were given. like the Witcher, for example. that shouldn’t have even been that hard. it wasn’t actually a video game adaptation. it was supposed to adapt the books. but then they just went and did their own story with the characters that just wasn’t very good… certainly not nearly as good as the source material.
i think that’s what frustrates me sometimes. when an adaptation just doesn’t hold up to the source. the cowboy bebop lie action wasn’t that bad, but the anime was fucking incredible. in a few years everyone will forget they even did a live action of it. it just wasn’t really worth remembering.
Not just the props - everything thing from Sugar Bombs and Nuka Cola to the interiors of the vault, the abandoned houses and even a certain drive-in theatre - but even story presentation details like the part at the very start of the very first episode where our vault dweller character presents herself in a way that is lot like the choice of character traits in the game.
Mind you, the story develops and goes deeper way faster than in the actual game (you end up discovering way more of the lore in Season 1 than from playing the games, IMHO) and it has of course a lot more depth in the human relationship between characters side, but all in all it feels like home if you played and enjoyed the games.
I’m glad I haven’t been reading much about the show online. I just finished episode 4 last night and I’m really loving the show. They absolutely nailed the visuals and general vibe of the world. I’ll admit to be being skeptical about the show in Amazon’s hands. The Rings of Power and first season of Wheel of Time were just poorly written. Though, I did feel that the second season of WoT picked up a bit. So, maybe the folks at Amazon are learning. My only remaining concern for Fallout is how subsequent seasons go. They have hyped the involvement of Johnathan Nolan who was behind Westworld on HBO. Westworld season 1 was downright awesome. But, the rest of the show felt like they were so busy trying to re-capture that magic that they forgot to tell a good story. Fortunately, Nolan is directing and producing Fallout and not writing it. So maybe it won’t get written into a corner where there really isn’t any more story to tell and several more seasons ordered.
You’re right about the writing, and the moment that sold me that the writing in this show is actually good was when Maximus and The Ghoul are fighting in Filly and instead of showing the entire fight, they cut to the people inside talking. Realizing that the fight adds nothing of substance but showy graphics is usually the indicator to me that the writers are in control of the vision of the show which pretty much always bodes well.
I like the show, the only problem is that it reduces the universe for the purpose of its medium, and factions essentially become people. Otherwise, the show is what I would expect from a Fallout game, a slowly developing main quest where a lot of the experience is in the random encounters and side quests. I’m looking forward to the possibility of them talking about THE courier and their legend, and perhaps even bring out the lore of the random stranger. Worst criticism I have is that its removing a lot of the mystery surrounding Vault-Tec lore by serving it out on a silver platter, it was basically the one mystery that stretched out and was never fully revealed throughout the games, where you actually had to dig into to know more, now being served to any person who watched the show whether they want it or not. It’s sort of like my problem with Starfield, it brings you too close to all the major players in that universe way too quickly, making the world smaller and eliminating mystery, anticipation, and depth before it has had time to ripen.
Those are usually the incel kids. I blame Blizzard for creating them.
Go watch his video on YouTube, he saw the first 2 episodes, not the entire thing.
