(courtesy IMP Awards)
SNAPSHOT
Based on one of the greatest video game series of all time, Fallout is the story of haves and have-nots in a world in which there’s almost nothing left to have. 200 years after the apocalypse, the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind — and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird and highly violent universe waiting for them. Fallout is a series created & written by TV creators / writers Geneva Robertson-Dworet & Graham Wagner. The first three episodes are directed by the sci-fi filmmakers Lisa Joy (Reminiscence, Pushing Daisies, Burn Notice, Westworld) and Jonathan Nolan (Interstellar, Person of Interest, Westworld). Based on the video game series created by Bethesda Softworks; the very first Fallout game launched back in 1997 on Windows. It’s executive produced by James Altman, Todd Howard, Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Graham Wagner, Athena Wickham. (courtesy First Showing)
Video adaptations have not had, to date, the most illustrious rate of execution.
Somehow what was vital and alive when playing the game, became, in most instances, inert and lifeless when transferred to another medium, an affliction that also befalls book to film or TV/streaming adaptations but at an even greater rate of failure.
Shows like Halo though that maybe, just maybe, those attempting to adapt these games are getting better at the transition, and while we only have a trailer to go on (albeit a damn fine one, full of playfulness and darkness in equally appealing measure), Fallout, based on the extremely popular and long-running series, also looks like it might be benefiting from the new age of video game adaptations.
It has a delightfully naive but determined protagonist, a Big Bad with severe nasal issues, and a clever apocalyptic settings that’s so batshit crazy and yet groundedly human all at once, that the storytelling possibilities are damn near limitless.
Just how expansive Fallout is in its narrative possibilities will become nuclear clear when all eight episodes release on 11 April on Prime.