Fallout Series Director Jonathan Nolan Says Pleasing Video Game Fans Is A Fool’s Errand
When it comes to movies and TV shows that are adaptions of other works, the original fans are often left displeased. They will often feel the adaptation strayed too far from the book (as critics of The Witcher TV series might say), or that it just took the world of the video game and used it as a launching pad for something totally different (as critics of the Halo TV series might say). However, there can also be danger in going the inverse route and trying too hard to please the hardcore fans. That is what has led the director behind the new Fallout TV show, Jonathan Nolan, to call trying to please video game fans a “fool’s errand.”
You Can’t Please Everyone
“It’s kind of a fool’s errand to try to figure out how to make [other] people happy,” said Nolan. “You’ve got to make yourself happy. And I’ve made myself very happy with the show.”
“I don’t think you really can set out to please the fans of anything,” Jonathan Nolan said of the Fallout series. “Or please anyone other than yourself. 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 [ourselves], we would find the pieces that were essential to us… and try to do the best version,” Nolan continued.
Nolan Is A Huge Fan Of The Games
Before getting up in arms that this is another case of a director snatching up a popular media property with no respect or knowledge of it, rest assured that is not the case here. Jonathan Nolan loves the Fallout games. For a while, perhaps he did so a little too much.
He admits that when he was starting out as a writer, he got really into Fallout 3 to the point it became his whole life. Nolan says for about a year, he was so into the game that it nearly derailed his career. So getting to now work on the Fallout TV series is a dream come true for him that allows him to channel his passion in a healthier way.
Finding Balance
So if Jonathan Nolan is a fan of the Fallout series, why is he against pleasing fans of the games? He feels some creatives get too bogged down into trying to include all of the game’s little details. Nolan feels the most important thing is in keeping the core essence of the game intact, rather than trying to do a precise recreation. He acknowledges even if you try to include everything, there will still be fans displeased over what you omitted. So he feels the best audience to try and please is ultimately yourself.
The Vast World Of Fallout
It would be especially daunting for Jonathan Nolan to try and accurately adapt a world like Fallout, which is simply gargantuan. Each game is packed with not only a main quest that is quite expansive, but also countless side quests. Anyone trying to faithfully adapt even one of the games would still have the difficult decision of what memorable side characters should be left aside due to minimal importance to the main plot. And that alone would be a contentious subject, because the Fallout games have some truly beloved side quests with characters that totally alter the lore that players know of the franchise.
The Series Is In Good Hands
And even leaving Fallout aside, Jonathan Nolan has done this kind of thing before. The brother of director Christopher Nolan, Jonathan has previously written for movies like The Prestige, Interstellar, and The Dark Knight. The Batman comics are another medium that have so much content from over the decades that it would be impossible to one hundred percent adapt any of the storylines faithfully. But The Dark Knight is frequently cited as one of the best Batman movies ever made, so evidently Jonathan did something right.
Fallout will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on April 12, 2024.
Source: Retbit
