I’m certainly going against the grain with this one as the Fallout series on Amazon Prime has been hailed by many as the next big video game adaptation and the second season has already been greenlit and ready to go but why does it feel hollow to me?
I found the entire series funny, dark and emotional in parts but without playing the games I wasn’t entirely invested from the off and many said to me, don’t worry, you don’t need to play the games to appreciate the series.
As the curtain closed on the season 1 finale I felt… nothing.
There was no aching desire for me to jump into the next season but there was an appreciation for what had been created I just felt it was all a bit flat.
I can’t quite explain the fallout of reactions I had after seeing this series as I agree with the critics as the acting and directing is 10/10 and you can see why it’s a success but I think the hollowness started in the pilot episode for me.
After an outstanding introduction which saw a nuclear fallout play out in the most realistic depiction of one I’ve ever seen on camera the first episode nose-dived for me exponentially thereafter.
Cheap one-liners, quite predictable events and just a flat deliverance of the script (first episode only) certainly left me with a ‘meh’ feeling that would continue throughout the series.
Yes, there’s a meticulous attention to detail and gamers claim that it’s true to the adaptation and some stellar performances as the series goes on but the pacing of the first episode and the predictability of it all made the series feel unoriginal.
A vault dweller must head to the surface and find their father is just a premise we’ve seen time and time again in many movies but I wasn’t invested in her father to begin with and much rathered him be struck down in the opening attack on the vault to save any of this plot point playing out.
Whilst the series picks up exponentially in the second half the first half just didn’t hook me, I was watching in the hope that it improved and it did but if you can’t grapple my attention from the start (or anyone for that matter) is the series as good as people are making out?
No one was likeable or relatable. Fallout games put the player in the heart of the story to pick and choose as they will but here we are forced to witness a pre-written story with a pre-determined outcome and that for me is where it becomes more of a difficult test.
In a world of poor remakes, sequels and repetitive rubbish being churned out weekly it’s refreshing to see something like an adaptation that dares to leap from video game to movie (a daring risk for any filmmaker) but does that mean we also drop our standards as a result purely because it’s NOT a remake, sequel and requel?
If anything the series makes you want to turn it off and just go and play the games and I can’t be the only person who thinks that.
