The Amazon "Fallout" series: an explosion of success or a total bomb?

The following story was written by a student on the staff of The Jaguar Times as part of Hilliard Bradley High School’s Journalism Production course.

by Ian McCormick 

Staff Writer 

The new "Fallout" show was recently released on Amazon Prime and all eyes are on Bethesda (the company behind the video games) as video game to film adaptations have a habit of flopping, or in this case bombing. So whether you’re interested In the show coming from the perspective of a gamer or you saw trailers for it as someone unfamiliar with the vault dwellers, let's take a better look to see if it’s a good fit for your viewer experience.

The big thing most players of the video games want to know is if the Fallout series is staying true to its source material. This is because relying on the lore is where many video game adaptations fail, one big example of this is the Halo adaptation, which is hated on all fronts by gamers. Ben Peña (11) says “I enjoyed it because it was able to stay true to where it came from while also being its own story.” 

This is a point I, along with many others, am able to agree with; if an adaptation doesn’t get this part right it likely won’t get anything right, and so immediately this is a big win for Fallout.

Also, the show should be an experience that not only gamers would be able to enjoy; are you able to go into this show without prior background information of the world? This is especially important considering Bethesda made it clear the show would be canon to the series as a whole, can the show make up for the Information people new to the world lack? Carter Russel (10) says, “I definitely believe [you] would enjoy the show with zero knowledge. It allows the viewer to slowly learn about the fallout universe episode by episode.”

And to Carter's point I agree and disagree. There's a lot of information the show gives you on the world that can be helpful to new viewers; however, it doesn’t tell you everything and it leaves people unfamiliar with the plot wondering what they’re missing. It can be argued that that adds to the suspense of a first time watch though, and that's part of the experience seasoned Fallout players would miss out on themselves. 

Finally, is the show able to be a stand alone experience assuming the video games didn’t exist as the initial attention grab? Without going Into to much detail, my personal opinion is yes, absolutely It Is. If the first 10 minutes don’t grab your attention I don't know what will, Episode 1 starts with a bang throwing you 250 years before the events of the show to demonstrate to the viewer what laid the groundworks for what becomes Fallout.

In conclusion, the "Fallout" series actually managed to deliver on its hype in full. It seemingly met the standards of gamers and the casual viewer alike and tied it all up with its own original plot that remained canon to its world building. So If you’re looking for your next science fiction watching experience that’s both dark comedy and an action thriller, "Fallout" might just be for you. 

Fallout Is quickly regaining popularity due to the show and video games even having real life billboards to advertise its success. Photo Credit: Mike Windle at Getty Images