The creators of the Fallout series, which airs on Prime Video on April 11, wanted to make the apocalypse a place everyone wanted to go. And the new show from Westworld creator Jonathan Nolan keeps the gallows humor of the game of the same name. This is according to Wired magazine, writes UNN.
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For decades, it seemed that Hollywood couldn't get video game adaptations right. Films like Double Dragon, Super Mario Bros. and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider were criticized and their creators were blamed for either sticking too closely to the source material, failing to capture the magic of the games, or choosing actors who didn't.
In recent years, however, there has been a shift in game adaptations, with projects like The Last of Us and Werewolves Within receiving critical acclaim and - at least in the case of the former - a slew of awards.
We could point to a number of reasons in trying to explain why game adaptations are getting better (Pedro Pascal, for example), but Jonathan Nolan, co-creator of the new Fallout series on Amazon Prime Video, says he thinks it's because games often have "more complex, more interesting, and more daring" narratives than you often find in movies or television.
Nolan, as indicated, jumped at the chance to adapt a Fallout game about life after a nuclear apocalypse, though he knew it might be a challenge.
While games like Fallout have a sort of canon - monsters, bad guys, target points, etc. - they can also have multiple endings, which can reflect the choices each individual player makes. There is no one exact adaptation of the game, so Nolan and Fallout director and producer Todd Howard decided that they wanted to tell an original story taking place in the game's universe, not much different from how all of the game's sequels are framed, the publication writes.
Fallout, the publication points out, has always been known for its peculiar gallows humor, a satirical look at how horrible and difficult life can be after total nuclear annihilation. This is certainly true of the series, which combines heartbreaking dialog about impending mushroom clouds with jokes and an almost comical amount of gory events, the publication notes. Graham Wagner, one of the showrunners of the series, says that setting the tone of the show was kind of a challenge, as they knew it had to be a little crazy at times and deadly serious at other times.
We edited episodes that had long stretches without comedy, because we felt like that's what the story needed, and it was like: "Oh my God, this is some kind of apocalypse." We wanted to make the apocalypse a place we all wanted to go to
However, the publication writes, some viewers may feel that 2024 is already close to the apocalypse, making some of the series' references and scenarios seem too prophetic. According to Nolan, this is all a coincidence, as the series began development in 2019, before Covid, before Russia's invasion of Ukraine and before renewed fighting in the Middle East. Still, he adds, creating the series "always seemed like an opportunity to poke a finger in the open wound of humanity.
However, assuming the end of the world isn't coming anytime soon, Nolan says that the Fallout team does have a plan for what the show should be if they're lucky enough to get a second season.
"In television, though," Nolan says, "you have to be careful not to leave too much for the future," something he knows all too well as the creator of the beloved but then canceled HBO series "World of the Wild West. "We just want to concentrate on making one great television season. If it works out and there's an opportunity for another one, I really hope we get that chance," Nolan pointed out.