/hobby/ - Hobby

naturalism is a stupid standard to hold motion picture works to
visual stylism isn't a sin

The show didn't make me feel anything. The plot is strung together with a mishmash of coincidences with no rhyme or reason beyond narrative necessity. The Enclave scientist stumbles into the protagonist in the middle of the wasteland. Max is singled out and promoted so he can start his adventure. Max and the knight happen to land in the exact place where the scientist had lunch. The knight immediately dies so max can get the armor. Everyone converges at the same town at the same time. The entire show is like this and it feels so fucking lazy. The fight scenes are ruined by the 50s music, slow motion, poorly timed comedic relief: "Get that jelly mold out of here!". There are traces of good storytelling in the show (the encounter between the ghoul and the other ghoul, the organ farm sequence, the voting sequence and concurrent Norman subplot, the ghoul-governmint scene) but these are exceptions from the rule.
>>41498
the cinematography bad by modern standards. it's artless, but competent. If you mute it, set the saturation to zero, raise contrast, lower gamma, and fix the speed you can see that some shots would be pretty good if it wasn't for the music, sets, costumes, and actors.

>>41490
it's a marketing vessel for FO4 and it has captured the exact audience they wanted to attract. they knew what they were doing.

>>41485
>>41477
Capitalism is a meaningless word in the popular consciousness, just like socialism. They're just words that convey different magnitudes of freedom, opportunity, welfare, or fairness. They could have shown pre-war america as it was described in the games: militarized, chaotic, impoverished, but they made it look idyllic in the show and they did the same in the intro to FO4. The pre-war controversy is between the American Dream (equal opportunity capitalism that brings prosperity to all who work) and the monopoly capitalism that killed it. It's about Vault-Tec, which has already absorbed everything, bringing about the end of the world in order to achieve total control over the wasteland. It's a fantasy conflict for a fantasy world and it's impossible to translate that message into reality.

>>41506
>They could have shown pre-war america as it was described in the games: militarized, chaotic, impoverished, but they made it look idyllic in the show and they did the same in the intro to FO4
intro to fo4 only shows idyllic suburbia but the rest of the game definitely shows hints of what the actual real world outside of that suburbia is like, like the kim wu logs
in the intro scene to the series, there's red scare talk between the gossiping suburbanites, and in howard's flashbacks it shows his acting roles becoming more violent and warlike

>>41506
They don't just namedrop capitalism (which is still a rare thing in mainstream productions, there are people like Boots Riley but he's more of an indie producer - Jonathan Nolan's Westworld had plenty of theme that worked as a critique of capitalism, but never once called it that), they show a simple logic chain about the weapons industry having an objective interest in launching WWIII. This is something the average normie can easily digest.
>The pre-war controversy is between the American Dream (equal opportunity capitalism that brings prosperity to all who work) and the monopoly capitalism that killed it.
I mean, this is kind of what happened? For all those who were allowed to participate in the American Dream (e.g. not including blacks, Irish catholics, Chinese and other minorities) it did exist unter the Hamiltonian "American System" until, well, monopoly capitalism killed it.
>It's a fantasy conflict for a fantasy world and it's impossible to translate that message into reality.
I guess I heavily disagree, French enlightenment era thinkers were forced to only write comedies, or about Asian fantasy lands, to avoid censorship by the crown. Again, I already mentioned Boots Riley, and he caught some flak for being out in the open with his beliefs, and even he has to use the guise of comedy, satire and fantasy.

>>41503
>The show didn't make me feel anything. The plot is strung together with a mishmash of coincidences with no rhyme or reason beyond narrative necessity. The Enclave scientist stumbles into the protagonist in the middle of the wasteland. Max is singled out and promoted so he can start his adventure. Max and the knight happen to land in the exact place where the scientist had lunch. The knight immediately dies so max can get the armor. Everyone converges at the same town at the same time.
I agree with all of this, but writers who do their own world-building are always guilty of this. Everyone bumps into each other in Lord of the Rings too, which is regarded as a masterpiece of narration. But yeah, they really fast-forwarded that, with everyone converging in episode two.
> scientist had lunch. The knight immediately dies so max can get the armor. Everyone converges at the same town at the same time. The entire show is like this and it feels so fucking lazy. The fight scenes are ruined by the 50s music, slow motion, poorly timed comedic relief
I don't mind comedic relief because the show is already far out there with their overall theme, with ridiculous premises, so I am glad it doesn't take itself too seriously. But I agree with the 50s music, I mean I generally don't like that type of music, some really dig it, but I've never understood the appeal to own the entire discography of Johnny Cash or whatever. Shit is just boring and even lacks the technical skill you can appreciate in Jazz (although I hate Jazz too). But they were really overdoing it, they sort of reduced that shit towards the end which is a bit more serious.
>the cinematography bad by modern standards.
That was also the weakness in Nolan's Westworld, IMO.

>>41509
Sure, but that's nothing compared to how it could have been represented. Imagine this: the ghoul was a veteran who fought in Alaska, like in the show, but when he returns he doesn't become a movie star and instead gets a regular job and marries a low-level Vault-Tec employee. They live in a small suburban house on the outskirts of LA. He returns (walking, to save fuel for his car) from his work at the munitions factory, where labor discipline is strictly enforced, late in the evening and the family sits around the table to have a dinner that consists of spam and beans from the government food bank. He asks his daughter what she learned in school that day and it was some propaganda narrative about the Alaska campaign. He gets angry and starts explaining that it's all bullshit and his wife tries to calm him down but they're silenced by a power blackout. His co-worker friend is arrested for being a subversive and he convinces his wife to attend an anti-war demonstration with him. At the protest, vertibirds equipped with loudspeakers declare that it's an unlawful assembly and that it will be dispersed with force. The demonstrators are stunned by a sonic generator and MP stormtroopers start pulling people out of the crowd for summary execution. The ghoul and his wife are separated and he sees her get executed as he's fleeing from the scene. He returns home and flees the city with his daughter, crashing through a military checkpoint while the bombs drop behind him.

All of the other pre-war characters could have been similarly modified to preserve the exposition while communicating a strong message that pre-war america is a deeply sick society locked in an unwinnable war for resources. Maybe the ghoul could have remained an actor, but he stars in a role playing an american soldier fighting a racist caricature of the chinese like in American anti-japanese ww2 propaganda. His wife is Chinese-American and she gets sent to a concentration camp and when he protests he gets ostracized as a communist sympathizer a la red scare. Anything but the softcore bullshit we're treated to in the show.

>>41511
>they show a simple logic chain
We're Marxists, we know that the show's logic is incoherent. A ceasefire would supercharge the arms industry into another arms race and Vault-Tec could continue making billions from selling spaces in their vaults to paranoiac Americans. It's more of a critique of PMCs since the antagonists post-war (bud's buds) are all middle-managers.
>I mean, this is kind of what happened?
I don't want to quibble over the details of this point, because I broadly agree. I meant that the conflict as presented poorly represents the circumstances: a social order in its terminal death phase that's in the process of cannibalizing the world for profit.

>>41511
>Everyone bumps into each other in Lord of the Rings too, which is regarded as a masterpiece of narration.
Not to derail this thread into LoTR discussion, but where do people bump into each other? Tom Bombadil rescue, and thats it as far as I can think of.

oh my god imagine how bad the disco elysium amazon adaptation is going to be

>>41515
The Fellowship doesn't just bump into each other, since they're explicitly a team put together for a mission, but there are a few examples.
>bilbo bumps into gollum and the ring in the backstory
>frodo and sam bump into faramir
>merry and pippin bump into treebeard
ofc somebody could make jokes about "pippin bumps into a skeleton and then gandalf bumps into a balrog" or whatever, but these examples are pretty much coincidences. LotR has the caveat that there's an actual God character and some lesser divinities guiding the events with intent that the story goes a certain way.

>>41513
I wasn't talking about Marxists, when you don't make something satirical the message will fly over people's heads. How many people know that The Matrix was influenced by Baudrillard? One of the best anticapitalist shows I've watched recently was Severance, and people didn't even seem to get that.
>a social order in its terminal death phase that's in the process of cannibalizing the world for profit.
A civilization in death spiral also shows remarkable signs of decadence by the leisure class. I thought that this was protrayed in Cooper's backstory, and the Hollywood/Beverly Hills enviroment he was surrounded with.

>>41516
Fuck you for reminding me.

>>41518
The best satire flies over people's heads, actually.

>>41516
why do you choose to speak evil into existence

>>41528
wow, you stop enjoying something when it's a bunch of disjointed shots? who knew

>>41528
don't worry I'm sure somebody will chop it up into 30 second tiktoks/shorts for you to consoom

>>41530
?

Just finished it. It's ok, which is a lot better than most of these adaptations.

The biggest problem for me is the overarching plot feels pretty contrived for the sake of having a story to tell for a neat season of TV. The way that the plot threads come together makes the setting feel too small. If you want it to feel like a big open world, you want everything to be connected to other things out there. You want it to seem like there's always more you haven't seen. As the Ghoul says "thou shalt always be sidetracked by bullshit." I get they wanted to have a complete arc for the main characters this season, but they didn't have to all converge on the same plot point.

Teasing New Vegas for season 2 makes me think they are going to really fuck up the lore and cause way more arguments.

>>41241
You are right about the show being pretty on the nose anti-capitalism. The bad character monologuing about the evil plan does it while staring down the barrel of the camera, explaining to the audience the capitalist basis of the motivations. Amazon and Bethesda don't care though because it will make them money. But hey, if they incidentally lead more people to think capitalism is bad, then it's a win-win. They'll sell us the rope we hang them with, and so on.

You're wrong about the communist part though. There's no communists in the show. The main person from that group outright says they're not communists, and calling people communists is just a scapegoat and a cope.

what the fuck are you talking about? who are the communist characters in the show? there's not even any chinese.

>>41536
I'm tired of people sucking up any vague toothless "anti-capitalism" in fucking pop culture and ignoring everything else (actual writing, design, characterization…).

>>41537
oh, i loved the show. op just got me annoyed cause i had the impression that the show went out of their way to say the hollywood people were *not* communists and the US was in a mcarthyist frenzy. politically it's important to distinguish between anti-capitalism and communism.

but you could say the trends of concentration and centralization of capital will inevitably lead to a singular company like vault-tec essentially usurping the power of the state (which is after-all, nothing but the bourgeois organized). and from that point organizing nuclear war so they can rebuild it in the aftermath. that's a fun idea.

in the show though it comes off a bit cabally i think though.

>>41538
The "communists" aren't even anti-capitalist though. They are just mad at Vault Tec for keeping cold fusion hidden as a trade secret instead of letting their company sell it to the world.

>>41517
Out of examples you mentioned only hobbits meeting Treebeard is bumping into plot device, because they both are important characters whose accidental meeting had an impact on overall story. Bilbo and Gollum is an inciting event of the entire series, both complete nobodies, only the presence of ring makes their meeting important in grand scheme of things. Similarly for Faramir and Frodo, whose meeting had logic behind it (Faramir guards passage from Mordor, Frodo journeys to Mordor), and didnt really affect plot in a significant way. If it never happened we would loose on some characterisation, but the story would chug along the same way.

Is this show actually worth watching or all the podcasters lying to me?

>>41552
It's only 8 episodes so no great loss if you don't like it. Unless you're a fan of the series I'm not sure what the appeal is other than more content to consoom. It's above average for streaming shows though for sure. There were obviously people working on it who cared and tried to make it good.

>>41558
>It's only 8 episodes so no great loss if you don't like it.
Dude that's 8 hours. You should value your free time more.

>>41559
um you can split it up into weekly watch sessions
it's got a "previously on…" montage at the beginning of every episode, like old tv shows, as well

>>41560
Life is pretty short. The 3-episode rule is king.

>>41504
>it's a marketing vessel for FO4
More like marketing for Fallout 76 with its millions microtransactions.

>>41558
>I'm not sure what the appeal is other than more content to consoom.
I like how the franchise popularizes the idea of a nuclear war for the masses. Its a difficult subject that people like to avoid so its important to make it light and fun like this show.

>>41559
You can also just stop watching it if you don't like it. I usually watch stuff and play games while doing some cardio.

>>41564
>I like how the franchise popularizes the idea of a nuclear war for the masses.
I guess? It's kind of making it out as something you shouldn't take so seriously though. Like everything in the universe is unrealistic (which is the point)

>>41564
The point of the first Fallout game came from the wuesyion, "What if our (America's) Cold War 1950's fears were real?". That and it was meant to explore the ethics of a post-nuclear world. Besthedsa made it into a 1950's sci-fi theme park set after the bimbs just fell.

Vid relayed

>>41575
And here's another video about the topic.

Just got done watching it. My expectations for this was in the toilet, but it was surprisingly alright while being laughably predictable. The only surprise to me was that they managed to keep their dick in their pants and only cameo'd a deathclaw at the end.

>>41575
Maybe this gets brought up in those videos, haven't watched, but it's like how the first two games only use the 50's doo wop music shit in the intro and it's clearly non diegetic, it sets the tone for the audience but in universe just because it uses a retro-futuristic atompunk aesthetic doesn't mean they would literally still be listening to music that is at that point hundreds of years old

then in bethesda fallout the 50s music becomes diegetic on the pip boy radio with absolutely no justification.

>>41594
>Maybe this gets brought up in those videos
it does. one of them cuts a battle scene from nu-Fallout with FO2 where the latter is just ambience. they also point out that FO1/2 isn't 50's retrofuturist America because that world got blown up. you'd expect the people inhabiting the post-war world to not want to recreate the antebellum world since, you know, it led to the War

>>41595
The creators nuked the west coast so they could have a wasteland playground for their marquee factions to fight in. My guess is that the writers just didn't know enough about Fallout to write around the existing faction dynamics on the west coast.
>I will say that it was very, very early in the decision [making process], once we decided to put the show in L.A. That was the very next thought, because it's a post-apocalyptic show. And if you study the Western, which has a lot in common with the post-apocalyptic genre, ‘civilisation is not around’ is a big part of it.

>>41596
problem is if you want there to be no civilization you can't set your show hundreds of years after the war. you'll want to set it just after the war. Shady Sands was founded just 20 years after the war. there's no reason to think industry wouldn't start up again. Redding and Broken Hills are both active mining towns in 2241

>>41594
>then in bethesda fallout the 50s music becomes diegetic on the pip boy radio with absolutely no justification.
The justification is implied in the sense that the industry capable of producing the media no longer exists, but they still have all the old stuff sitting around. The original creators don't seem to have a problem with the radio since they included it in New Vegas. They even parodied the LARPy aspects of FO3 with The Kings, while also making that actually make some sense, since they're basically a cargo cult who thought Elvis was a religious figure.

>>41596
another thing one of the videos bring up is the use of bottle caps on the east coast. within FO1/2 and even FO:T caps aren't the only currency in use. they're sometimes called Hub bucks in FO1, and they're useless in FO2, having been supplanted by NCR dollars (except the different types of scrip used in Redding). you can even find a crashed Nuka Cola truck with thousands of worthless caps in a random encounter in FO2. in FO:T the Brotherhood has its own scrip, while the surrounding wasteland uses ring pulls. there's only one merchant in FO:T that exchanges scrip for RPs I think
it would have been far more interesting for Bethesda to pick something else as the medium of exchange other than caps

I watched the 1st episode. It's just bland. I think it would be better if they expanded through Lucy's journey first before branching into the other ones. Or alternatively starting with the ghoul cowboy who is the most interesting protagonist despite having a shorter time than Lucy, because in this episode's dynamic her time was too much intro and not much plot advancement.

The best thing we can get out of this show is an Elder Scrolls animated series.

>>41683
part of the reason they structure shows like this has to do with industry rules for how many episodes you have to be in to be counted as main cast for things like awards

At the Chernobyl reactor, we have discovered radiation-eating fungus. They are capable of doing what is basically photosynthesis, but for nuclear radiation. This works a lot like how ghouls are supposed to work, being able to live off radiation. Their ability to do this is based on their melanin levels - the more radiation they are eating, the more melanated they get. Ghouls would need similar biochemistry to survive on radiation, even if its origin is unrelated, and humans already come with melanin. This means that people with higher melanin levels would have an advantage at becoming ghouls in the first place, and that anybody who becomes a ghoul would likely become more melanated than they were before.

Just an interesting science tidbit that won't make anyone mad.

>>41688
That belongs more in the Chernobyl thread TBH >>9068

Also did you take that from >>>/edu/21949 ?

play some disco elysium op

>>41689
>That belongs more in the Chernobyl thread TBH >>9068
But it's about fallout lore and the fact that becoming a ghoul has some real world basis in biology and if it was real would probably affect or be affected by skin color which might have some complicated implications.
>Also did you take that from >>>/edu/21949 ?
I thought of separately from that.

>>41688
In the future humanity will be glowuyghurs or will not be.