World in this sci-fi blockbuster
post-apocalyptic world straight out of the 1950s is the backdrop to the latest sci-fi blockbuster on Amazon Prime TV,
The narrative – be it with a modern twist – seems like a throwback to the Red Scare of the late 1940s early 50s – where there was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by communists in the USA during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union.
In the scenario suggested by a series of nuclear bombs are detonated and the pristine world of middle America is decimated, driving the privileged few into sterile bunkers underground while leaving the riff raff above ground to fend for themselves
– a kind of allegory for what’s happening in society today between the super rich elites and the have nots.
This series is again, as with many others in recent times, based on a video game franchise, and it leaves me wondering why something that is not pure fantasy for once can’t be translated to the small screen instead of this endless stream of increasingly watered down myth, magic and fantasy (so-called) epics?
Perhaps TV execs and bean counting money men have worked out that evolution is reversing and our brains are shrinking in a kind of let’s just give them something that is “the opiate of, or should that be for, the masses” and then rake in the cash.
Having said that this series presents itself as nothing more than pure escapism – not necessarily a bad thing – and is well crafted and presented in a “it keeps you coming back for more” kind of way.
the TV series depicts the aftermath of the Great
War of 2077, an apocalyptic nuclear conflict which leads to an alternate history of Earth where advances in nuclear technology after WWII led
Ato the emergence of a retrofuturistic society (hence the 1950s reference).
Many elite survivors take refuge in fallout bunkers known as Vaults, but they are blissfully unaware that each Vault was designed to perform psychological experiments on the groups interred in them.
Go fast forward 219 years to 2296, and a young woman named Lucy MacLean escapes from her home in Vault 33 to venture out into the dangerous wasteland above ground in a devastated Los Angeles to look for her father who has been kidnapped.
This all occurred as Lucy had volunteered for an arranged marriage with a dweller from Vault 32. After the wedding, the Vault 32 visitors are revealed to be raiders. Lucy's father who is the overseer of Vault 33, Hank MacLean, is forced to leave with them.
On the surface Lucy meets a Brotherhood of Steel member, squire Maximus, who has seen the death of his master and stolen his armour, and also a bounty hunter, Howard, who has been transformed by radiation into a ghoul, each with their own mysterious pasts and agendas to settle.
The Botherhood of Steel are a kind of armoured force who police the wasteland and bounty hunter Howard is a former actor who has succumbed to radiation after the nuclear blast of 2077 – please keep up.
On the surface Lucy’s
1950s high ideals, informed by her isolation in her vault, are severely tested and soon begin to crumble as she comes up against the harsh realities of what surface life and its inhabitants are all about.
On her quest to find her father Lucy encounters giant cockroaches, mutant style sea monsters, surface dwellers who have become highly strung through a combination of paranoia, lack of resources and outright desperation, a cult of fanatics in their very own bunker and unfriendly cannibals and she gets a good dose of radiation poisoning.
The three main protagonists all want to find the severed head of a scientist containing a valuable chip, that Lucy also needs to find so she can trade it for her father.
I can’t help thinking that this is a kind of meets
meets story with a sprinkling of spaghetti cowboy westerns put in there.
A dystopian world where everyone is out for themselves and only the roughest and toughest will win.
Not sure where this was filmed but it really is a land of crumbling ruins, shanty towns and vast desert wastes and aptly depicts the lawless land it is supposed to. If you are not familiar with the game franchise then fear not, this is a stand alone series that doesn’t require any prior knowledge.