Jonathan Nolan, the man behind Westworld, has turned the immensely popular computer game into an acclaimed television series.
Allout frequently appears to be the far off future—in actuality, it’s the end of existence as we know it—but it’s actually the distant past.
A nuclear war breaks out over Earth in the new series, which makes its premiere on Amazon Prime Video on April 12. 2077 is (or was) an era of robots, hover cars, and a profound and enduring love for the America of the 1940s. Everything, including the automobiles, entertainment, and clothing, has a sci-fi feel while still evoking the style of that bygone era. One of the highlights of the best-selling video game series that served as the show’s inspiration was its retro-futurist look.
Fallout was created for television by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the husband and wife team behind Westworld, and mass extinction is just the beginning of the story. 219 years pass after the flaming mushroom clouds in the novel. What was the fate of humanity throughout those two ill-fated centuries? One of the main characters, Lucy (played by Ella Purnell, star of Yellowjackets), doesn’t know. She has spent her whole life inside an underground vault, where all of her needs and desires are met as countless generations wait for the day to come when it is safe to come to the surface.
Lucy discovers that the planet above is still a hellscape crawling with enormous insects, voracious mutant animal “abominations,” and a human population of sunbaked miscreants who make the manners, morals, and hygiene of the gunslinging Old West look like Downton Abbey. This is the case when a crisis forces Lucy to travel above on a rescue mission. For this exclusive first look, Nolan tells Vanity Fair that “the games are about the culture of division and haves and have-nots that, unfortunately, have only gotten more and more acute in this country and around the world over the last few decades.”
Though kind, Lucy lacks experience. The only reason the humans in the Fallout universe had the opportunity to live out the apocalyptic events in underground colonies was due to their financial status. Fallout may now have action and adventure along with some social satire thanks to Lucy’s forced escape into this cruel, Darwinian relic of society. Similar to the popular computer game The Last of Us on HBO, the end of the world provides a great chance for commentary on the real one.
“We have the opportunity to discuss that in an amazing, science-fiction manner,” says director Christopher Nolan of the first three episodes. “I believe that all of us are thinking, ‘God, things seem to be heading in a very, very frightening direction,’ as we look around.”
Nolan is fascinated by the combination of psychology and mythology that make up human nature, as evidenced by Westworld. Generally speaking, his characters have one belief about themselves yet act very differently when under duress. In addition to co-writing movies like The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and Interstellar with his brother Christopher Nolan, he previously created the television series Person of Interest, which was set in a world where crimes and acts of terrorism could be foreseen in advance. Jonah, sometimes known as Jonathan, enjoys putting his fictitious test subjects in uncomfortable situations that challenge their firmly held beliefs.
“One of the things I admire most about America is how many of us still have such innocent notions about other people’s lives. It’s this enormous, frantic assemblage of various viewpoints and experiences, according to Nolan. Fallout’s desperation only makes those cracks wider, as Purnell’s benevolent character quickly learns. “Lucy exudes charm, bravery, and strength.and you realize that she is faced with the possibility that, well, perhaps the morally-respected things you were raised with weren’t actually all that moral. In the event that they possess virtue, it is veiled in a seeming virtue. It’s a virtue of opulence. Since you never ran out of food, you must have a point of view. Because you have enough to share, you guys were able to share everything.
“Her collision with the hard reality of other people’s experiences and what happened to the people who, frankly, were left behind, left to die” is what the Fallout series follows, according to Nolan.
The same dark humor that lent such appeal to the video games also permeates Fallout. Lucy’s people, the Vault Dwellers, are represented by a cartoon character that is always winking and giving the thumbs up. Originating in the games, this “Vault Boy” motif was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek, satirical counterpoint to the rough and tumble existence of those who manage to survive on the outside. The key to making the universe work as a series, according to game developer Todd Howard, director of Fallout 3 (2008) and Fallout 4 (2015) and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, which developed the franchise, was Nolan and Joy’s resolve to keep that mordant comedy.
Howard, who is also an executive producer of the show, says, “We had a lot of conversations over the style of violence, the level of violence, and the humor.” “Look, Fallout may be postapocalyptic, dark, and tragic, but you also need to add a wink here and there. I believe the TV show did a great job of threading that needle.
Not only does Vault Boy make an appearance in the program, but the imagery also has a backstory that we won’t reveal here. Howard remarks, “That was something they came up with that’s just really smart.”
Fallout mythology officially encompasses everything in the franchise, and Bethesda took care to ensure that the scripts could coexist with prior tales from the game titles. This is something that fans of the games should be aware of. According to Howard, “We see what happens in the show as canon.” “It’s amazing when someone else reads your work and interprets it in a different way.” He acknowledges that he is jealous of some of the changes and interpretations made for the TV show: “I kind of thought, ‘Oh, why didn’t we do that?'”