As you've undoubtedly heard, Nolan and Lisa Joy, the people behind the HBO series Westworld, have produced a new series for Prime Video based on the Fallout video game franchise. As I pointed out the other day, according to our Steam statistics, we've played 1,094 hours of Fallout 4, 346 hours of Fallout 76, 199 hours of Fallout - New Vegas, and 117 hours of Fallout 3. That's 1,756 total hours in the Fallout universe, or 73 full 24-hour days.
From what I've read, Nolan is a gamer and enjoys the Fallout series. From what I've seen, I know this to be true. The series is a love letter to the games, a Valentine to the franchise. The fidelity of the sets to the games' environment is amazing, down to little details the casual fan might not notice but the obsessive fan will pick up on. There are, for example, power armor repair stations at the appropriate spots - Red Rocket gas stations, of course - that are never used, discussed or explained in the dialogue, but there they are.
The dialog is witty, the plot is original but feels like it's straight from the games, and the action balances over-the-top comic-book gore with cartoonish invincibility. On so many levels, the show is just pitch-perfect and I commend Nolan and Joy for their effort.
But then there's always the certain breed of noxious fanboy that will never be satisfied. It's one thing to pay attention to details and it's another to obsess over those details to the point where you miss the forest not for the trees but for the twigs and berries - the tiniest, most minute of details. Some fans feel that a faux historical timeline visible in a classroom in one scene has a date that contradicts the canonical sequence of events in the games. From there, paranoid conspiracy theories have evolved that the showrunners are trying to "retcon" the games' lore so that the events in the game Fallout - New Vegas are no longer canon.
Sure, that must be it. The fully grown adults who've produced, written and directed dozens of first-rate movies and shows hate your favorite game so much that they spent years and literally millions of dollars to produce a rich and lavish television series just so that obsessive-compulsive gaming geeks have to give that game up as "canon."
"I hate this," someone wrote on Reddit. "They're literally just shitting all over the entire franchise and everything I love, and there's nothing we can do about it. It makes me so angry I want to do something, but I don't know what I can do to stop them."
What I saw as a loving Valentine he saw as an enormous dump on the franchise.
I've read patient explanations from fans on line and from the show-runners themselves reconciling the dates in question and assuring everyone that, yes, New Vegas is still "canon." But even if thee were minor discrepancies between the games and the show, so what? It's just a video game and a sci-fi serial. Relax and take a breath. It's just an entertainment, it's supposed to be fun. Why so serious? There are big problems in the real world - take some of that anger and focus it on climate change, genocide in Gaza, or discrimination of any sort. Don't take it out on the artists providing you with an entertaining expansion of your favorite game.
Anyway, ignore the static and if you have access to Amazon Video and 10 or so hours to spare, watch this show, okey-doke? It's a fun ride.
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