Fallout: A Nuclear Disaster Series Falters Badly

The Fallout series, created by Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet for Amazon Prime Video, is based on the iconic video game franchise of the same name. Unfortunately, the series fails to deliver a thought-provoking exploration of the consequences of nuclear war, instead opting for gratuitous violence and shock value.

Nuclear devastation

Many artists have attempted to tackle the significance of atomic weapons and the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. However, the results have not always been serious or penetrating, particularly in the last several decades. The Fallout series is no exception.

The series opens in 2077, in a retro-futuristic world where clothing and technology resemble their equivalents from the early 1960s in the US. We meet Cooper Howard, a veteran Western film star, performing at a children’s birthday party in a house in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Los Angeles. Television news broadcasts suggest the world is dangerously close to war.

Cooper Howard, a veteran Western film star

Soon after, Cooper and his daughter see multiple nuclear detonations in the city below. The guests at the party don’t notice the mushroom clouds in the distance, and, improbably, the blast wave that follows seems like little more than a strong hurricane. Cooper and his daughter escape on a horse.

Flash forward 200 years, and we encounter Lucy MacLean, a resident of the post-apocalyptic underground bunker complex Vault 33. She is the daughter of Vault Overseer Hank MacLean. It is her wedding day, again in a retro-futuristic world where most people are dressed in space trooper uniforms out of a Robert Heinlein novel with bulky Geiger counters/communication devices attached to their wrists.

Lucy MacLean, a deadly martial arts combatant

Lucy’s wedding night is interrupted by an invasion of denizens from the “Wasteland” outside Vault 33. Lucy is a deadly martial arts combatant and, after a gory, slow-motion battle between the outsiders and the inhabitants of Vault 33, her father is kidnapped because of his scientific skills. Against the wishes of the other survivors in Vault 33, Lucy escapes to the bone-strewn surface in an effort to find her father.

After more explosions, we move to the surface to witness beatings, high-tech airborne vehicles, and men in robotic armor. We are now introduced to Maximus, a novice in the Brotherhood of Steel, a military-priestly order devoted to bringing “law and order” to the Wasteland.

Maximus, a novice in the Brotherhood of Steel

The dialogue of the series is both pretentious and banal. Characters spout lines that feel forced and unnatural. The script is marred by internal discrepancies, plot holes, and contrivances, and the musical score comes in at inappropriate moments, disrupting any semblance of seriousness.

Dr. Siggi Wilzig, a fugitive

The series fails to capture more complex themes that have endeared the original games to players for decades. Instead, it relies heavily on superficial elements such as iconography, gore, and gunfights to capture viewers’ attention.

The Ghoul, a gunslinging mercenary

The threat of a war between US-NATO, Russia, and China grows every day. But Fallout will spur very little discussion about the possibility of such a holocaust or how to prevent it. That would take a genuinely significant, or at least coherent, work of art.

Nuclear devastation

The filmmakers had the opportunity and responsibility to depict a plausible aftermath of the consequences of a nuclear Armageddon, but they chose to portray a quasi-whimsical world, replete with science fiction and action/adventure clichés, deviating significantly from the game series’ concept about the rebuilding of civilization.

Oppenheimer, a film about the nuclear threat

This is not the fault of Fallout’s creators as individual artists. They came of age in years of political reaction and cultural stagnation, when vast resources were deployed to convince people that the Russian Revolution had led to nothing but disaster, and there was no alternative to the existing social order, leaving critically minded artists in a terrible quandary.

Nuclear war protest

The issue of nuclear war is an immensely complex one, which cannot be properly understood apart from a conscious rejection of a social order that would contemplate the use of such weapons and risk humanity’s obliteration in an effort to preserve the profits and wealth of the ruling class.

Anti-nuclear protest

The result in Fallout is a series that rings hollow, utterly fails to convince, and lowers, rather than raises, the understanding of life-and-death issues.