“It’s set in the world of Fallout, but it’s a new story that comes after the events we’ve seen,” says Graham Wagner, the co-creator and writer of the new videogame adaptation of Fallout. “The show is built on 25 years of creativity and we thought the best thing to do is to continue that versus retread it. Because that’s what has worked with Fallout over the years. It’s traded hands, it’s changed, it’s been altered, and it’s a living thing. We felt like we ought to take a swing at trying to build a new piece on top of all of that.”
Indeed, the new series is an original story set in the world of the Fallout games, and takes place two-hundred years after the apocalypse. It’s a tale of two worlds: that of the gentle people living in luxury fallout vaults and the hardened citizens who live above them.
“We were especially drawn to the social commentary inherent to the idea of these vaults,” confirms co-creator and writer Geneva Robertson. “This idea that what if we create a vault that is very peaceful and wonderful, what does it mean that not everyone gets to live there and people suffer on the surface?”
One of those people who has had a life of vault-luxury is Lucy (played by Yellowjacket’s Ella Purnell), who is forced to venture to the surface world after a violent event disrupts her harmonious life. “What excited me about playing her was that she is so innocent and naive and very privileged,” Purnell explains. “She’s essentially a newborn baby. She hasn’t had any real-life experiences. All she knows is what she was taught and what she’s read in books that she has in the vault and it’s limited. Then you put her on the wasteland and what happens with that is a really exciting place for me to start in.”
Someone who certainly has not had a privileged life is Maximus (played by Aaron Moten), whose family and home have been destroyed on the surface. He’s found a precarious sanctuary with the Brotherhood of Steel, a militaristic, cultish group who endeavor to restore order to the surface by taking power for themselves. “[Maximus] is a person who’s lived in the wasteland for his entire life,” Moten describes,” and he has to have a certain type of moral ambiguity that is forced upon him, living in the world that he lives in.”
When they both find themselves chasing a bounty placed on scientist Wilzig (played by Lost’s Michael Emerson) Lucy and Maximus soon team up and walk into the path of the mysterious Ghoul, played by Walton Goggins. “The Ghoul is, in some ways, the poet Virgil in Dante’s Inferno. He’s the guide, if you will, through this irradiated hellscape that we find ourselves in, in this post apocalyptic world,” Goggins says. “He is a bounty hunter, an iconic bounty hunter. He is pragmatic, he is ruthless. He has his own set of moral codes and he has a wicked sense of humour. Much like me!
“He’s a very complicated guy and to understand him, you have to understand the person that he was before the war. He had a name, his name was Cooper Howard, and he was a vastly different person than the Ghoul that you’ve seen so far. Over the course of the show, through his experience back in the world before the nuclear fallout, you will understand how the world was and he is the bridge between both these worlds.”
The world of the Fallout games has been capturing gamers for over 25 years now, the first game being released back in 1997. It’s comprised nine games, including mainline entries and spinoffs. So it’s no surprise that when it came to expanding such a wide-scoping world, the filmmakers behind the series wanted to get it right.
Happily, one of the main people behind the games, producer Todd Howard from Bethesda Game Studios, had complete faith in them. In fact, he believes they only add to the world of the videogames: “This is a creative endeavour, and having partners that you trust can really bring something new to it,” Howard says. “It’s been a great collaboration. It’s just a real blessing to see what they’ve done with it.
“Fallout has so many different tones. It goes between the serious, the dramatic and action and some humour and nostalgic music and dramatic music, and what the show does really well is it weaves those different things together in a very unique blend that only Fallout can bring. They’ve done just an awesome job.”
Speaking of the varying tone, that was one element the show’s creators wanted to get right, and which was most challenging: “The tone was a big thing,” affirms director and executive producer, Jonathan Nolan (pictured in the main image with Ella Purnell), who directs the first three episodes of the series. “The tone was maybe the most challenging and intimidating thing for me but working with Geneva and Graham, you knew that we were going to be in a really good place with that incredibly ambitious story.”
It was a particular joy for Nolan to be involved with Fallout (though he is no stranger to adaptations, having worked on the TV series Westworld and writing The Dark Knight) as he’s a massive fan of the games: “It started for me with Fallout 3, which devoured about a year of my life,” he laughs. “I was an aspiring young writer at that point and it almost derailed my entire career! It’s so ludicrously playable and fun. Seriously, the games are just incredible. It’s such a rare and unbelievable thing that I’ve got to do it twice in my career: to take something that you love and play in that universe to create your own version of that universe. The first go-round for me was Batman. This time with Fallout; a series game that I absolutely love.
“One of the things that is so powerful about the Fallout series is that every game is a little different, with different characters, a different setting and a different look into this extraordinary universe.”
That fractured world is something that stands out for Robertson. “It’s not just the incredible tone, which is this unbelievable blend of action, and comedy, and weirdness, but it’s these incredibly prescient themes,” she nods. “Factionalism, being maybe the most obvious. When you play the game Fallout, you go from settlement to settlement or from faction to faction. That was something that we were really excited to manifest with our heroes.”
Not only that, Nolan thinks those main ideas are just as important today as they were when the game was developed. “The world seems to be evermore frightening and dour,” he says. “So an opportunity for us to work on a show that gets to look that in the eye. Where we get to talk about the end of the world, but to do it with a sense of humour. Honestly, there’s a thread of optimism woven into the show as well, that for us is a bit of expiation to be able to work on this every day.”
Speaking of that sense of humour, it seems the set was just as fun a place to work on as the humorous tone of the series suggests: “Every day on set was a new fun challenge and it’s super exciting as an actor to get the opportunity to show up to work to do outrageous things,” laughs Morton. “We spend a lot of time doing things that are normal, or there’s a mundane-ality to them. We spend a lot of time doing that at work. So to get to trudge around the wasteland with the power armour by my side is an experience in itself!”
“It was so much fun working on this show,” adds Purnell. “Every shoot is hard. Not every shoot is fun and this one was just so fun for an actor. No two days are the same. Every prop, every costume, every location, every set was just bonkers. One of the joys of working with [Jonathan] is he loves to do everything as much as he can for real. So you’re not working with that much green screen or dudes in green leotards. You get to really work with practicals and you don’t have to imagine so much. It’s real and you can really do it and you’re just like a kid in a candy store honestly!”
So, the big question. Will fans of the games like the series? “I don’t think you really can set out to please the fans of anything, or please anyone other than yourself,” says Nolan. “I think you have to come into this trying to make the show that you want to make and trusting that as fans of the game, we would find the pieces that were essential to us with the games and try to do the best version of those that we can.
“It’s kind of a fool’s errand to try to figure out how to make people happy. You’ve got to make yourself happy and I’ve made myself very happy with this show!”
All episodes of Fallout are available now on Prime Video
