david-fernandez

I've played all the Fallout videogames from start to finish since Fallout 1 was released in the 1990s and I can honestly say this faithfully captures the essence of the franchise. This series is not just entertaining, it's thought provoking. To be honest I was shocked at how good it was, I was half expecting a 'Rings of Power' or 'Wheel of Time type debacle' but instead we may have the best videogame to TV / Film adaptation ever.

The writing is excellent and the way the main three protagonists evolve given the revelations regarding their backstory is great.

I think the complainers will say things like 'diversity' this and 'inclusion that' in the casting but forget that; focus on the story for once and you will thoroughly enjoy it.

Most peoples' lives are fairly humdrum and full of bad and the two main characters Alex (a 40 something alcoholic, divorced with a dull job) and a October (20 something, reckless, unambitious floater in Chicago) meet up when she answers an ad he places online. But wait, it's not a dating app. Far from it.

It's well acted, the character's home lives are explored, their demons are on display, they are both troubled people but they do have some common ground.

This is a movie about despair and finding love in a time when many people feel worthless and see no hope and future in their lives from different generations. What is interesting is that I believe that Josh Hope did a movie short back in 2010 with different actors also named 'Alex/Hope' it would be interesting to view that sometime to see what he had sketched out back then. But anyways this movie comes recommended, I miss the days of the late 1990s and early 2000s with even the big studios such as 'Fox Searchlight' doing 'Indie' type 'human interest' movies like this. Mainstream big Hollywood productions are just unwatchable as far as I'm concerned these days, this is where it's really at.

So, this is a TV series commissioned by Amazon with the bulk of the story lifted from the vague appendices from the Lord of The Rings books. So lets just say that there quite a lot of room for 'interpretation' and that's not a bad thing because most people haven't read or know of the content in those appendices which is a great basis for a spoiler free experience. The acting is adequate, the costumes and visuals are stunning/beautiful, getting the pre-LOTR / The Hobbit era just right where everything seems just a tad more primitive than the settings for the books we all know and love. The first episode covers the usual drama tropes i.e. Defiance of authority and tradition, forbidden love, an unseen enemy / ominous threat, revenge and to be honest it's handled quite well.

Now for the loaded question and that is that some more cynical out there have complained that there are breaches in the canon and lore of Tolkein when it comes to the 'appearance' and 'uniformity' of groups of characters in this production; I for one don't mind this as that to me is almost incidental (hey they did it partly in The Witcher and we all loved that); for me what is important is the story, character (as in motivation and persona) and the dramatization.

This production is not a 'Wheel of Time' (awful as that was I gave up on it and could not continue) and watching the 1st episode has compelled me to watch more.

Don't listen to the naysayers who wrote off this production before they saw it months ago, open your mind, sit back, relax and enjoy a wonderful fantasy adventure.