jdoneagain

Have been a fan of the Fallout Universe since before it was even fallout. (It was "influenced"/borrowed heavily from a game in the late 80s called "Wasteland".

I am someone who loved the Lord of the Rings movies, and hated Rings of Power. Some movies respect the IP (intellectual property) they are based on, and some diredctors/writers/showrunners think they're smarter than the original author or the audience that made it popular in the first place.

Well, all I can say is - NOT HERE. While introducing new characters, and a new part of the world, they catch the flavor of the Fallout post apocalyptic world in everything. Whether it's the Vault-tec themes, the actual music from the game, or literal flavor items like Cram (instead of Spam) or the deviled eggs.

So, as a long-time fan, I am very, very well pleased.

Now, the acting - absolutely love it. The main characters have heart, and go back and forth between human, and shock, a bit of gore to surprising kindness in this harsh world. I mean, what more needs be said about Walton Goggins? Of course, he's a scene stealer, but he's also unpredictable and you never know what he's going to pull. I'm very much reminded of his character Boyd Crowder in "Justified".

I do have to admit, Aaron Moten's character is definitely giving me flashbacks from the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy where. John Boyega played something of a fish out of water/want to be neophyte good-guy type, though I have to admit, I like Moten's character a LOT better. (The writing is infinitely better, and I can't blame Boyega for the horrible writing he had to deal with!)

And it'd be very unkind not to mention. Ella Purnell's Lucy who really is something of the face of the franchise. And, with those huge, lovely eyes of hers, one can understand why. But, her character is bright and inquisitive, and learns quickly from her mistakes. Somehow keeps her sense of humor, and yet, the writers and directors have shied away from the popular trend of making every female a mary sue, and instead having respected women by giving her room to grow - ditto all the main characters, honestly. Even three episodes in, it's plain to see.

Secondary characters and story arcs aren't forgotten either. They REALLY give this world depth. Just b/c Lucy leaves the Vault, doesn't mean the audience does.

TL;DR: The producers/actors/writers/directors have avoided the mistakes that beset so many productions these days: They take their time building up both the world, the sets, and the story, letting the characters develop and letting the audience learn about the world, right along with the characters.

If they keep up this level of development, they surely deserve many seasons to come.

Started watching b/c I was on a Ron Livingston kick b/c of watching Band of Brothers and low and behold, Netflix has all three seasons.

It's not one of those laugh a second shows, but it does have a lot of heart. Granted, Livingston pulls of a very good "a**hole" since they call him that in the show a lot and his character is definitely one of those types of people who can hardly keep himself from commenting on everything. At its heart, there show has some neat tidbits about rock, vinyl, and of course, recovery from alcoholism, and redemption.

And a LOT of cussing. This is not a kid friendly show! Unless you don't mind an F bomb dropped every 30 seconds or so on average.

But there's a great ensemble here of mostly Canadian actors, since it's filmed up in Canada. (It originally played on AT&T, so had a rather small audience.) The leads were great in this show, of course, but even some of the lesser known actors like Tom Butler (Loudermilk's father), Brendan McNamara (who plays Tom), Mat Fraser (Roger) were excellent.

I've read other commentary on the show about it being woke (or not) and on the whole, I think they avoid the topic (there's one episode in Season 3 that kinda went off the rails with a very "in your face" women sensitivity training, but that was about it). Here and there, there's even some spots where they poke fun on some of the more extreme examples of ..., let's just say stuff you'd seen in California coffee shops.

But, the coolest thing about the show is the way they would slide in some really good music. Kind of like how in Guardians of the Galaxy movies, they'd introduce new audience to old classics, or one hit wonders that disappeared.

Definitely a show worth binging, and you'll walk away after the roughly 14 hours of TV feeling like you know this group of rag-tag ...errr, former alkies.

I loved the show.

TL;DR: the casting was AMAZING. Yes, there are strong females in the show, but they are the kinds of females that it's easy to respect. Hera is a mother, and thoughtful and strong. (Side note: The lady playing Hera is the real life wife of Ewan, he of Obi-wan fame.)

Sabine is ...well, she's very similar to how she was in the Rebels show. Badass, taciturn, but moments of softness. And you can tell the actor has a long background in martial arts, b/c she makes the fight scenes look AWESOME. (One could have almost called this show Sabine, and that's fine to me.) Ashoka was also excellent. She even got Ashoka's walk from the animated show down pat.

I won't reference anyone else for spoiler purposes, but again, they were all great.

First off, I can't stand people who say, they don't like fan service.

Sorry, but w/out those fans, there'd be no show. If you don't like fan service, then you obviously didn't like the LOTR movies, since that was NOTHING but sticking with the stories and staying true to the fans. Odd, it tied for getting the most Academy awards of any movie series ever, and the last one tied for getting the highest clean sweep of awards.

So, shut it w/ the "fan service" complaints.

Yes, suffice to say, there's fan service here, if by that you mean, the guy who created the excellent series "The Rebels" basically made this series as the life action continuation of the animated one prior with some great tie-ins (also in Rebels) from some of the most beloved fiction books about Star Wars out there.

We see worlds being visited that are in the lore, and they are done WELL (like the approach to Corellia). We see mentions of famous worlds like Dathomir and the Witches (which were in the Clone Wars as well).

The key here is that this series is made by someone who spent like 10 years working with George Lucas. He picked up story telling and the Star Wars universe by building it with Lucas and by osmosis.

And the differences with how JJ and Rian made SW content couldn't be more stark.

I was not a huge fan of the sequel movies (in fact, I hated them). Boba Fett wasn't as good as I'd like, neither was Obi Wan. Andor was amazng. I wouldn't put this QUITE at Andor's level, but for legit fans of much of Star Wars? It's right up there.