Shortly after the successful release ofFalloutseason 1, Amazon Prime revealedFalloutseason 2 was officially underway. For those who have seen the show, this much probably seemed obvious, but thehigh reviews of theFalloutshowand positive fan reception no doubt played a lot in this decision as well. TheFalloutshow struck all the right chords in tone, in design, in appearance, and every element of its design, seemingly being plucked right out of the video game. PerhapsFallout’s greatest strength, however, was not how much it felt like the video game, but how it was okay not feeling like the video game in some places.
FALLOUT SPOILERS AHEAD
Of course, the Wasteland, the Vaults, and all those necessary elements are there, but theFalloutcrew was never overtly constricted. Game Rant recently spoke withFalloutproduction designer Howard Cummings, who said the showrunners, Bethesda, and everyone involved were “very open to bringing new things in, not just realizing the game but taking those elements and making it a show.” Perhaps one place where this is most obvious is in the halls, offices, and various rooms associated with pre-war Vault-tec.
Creating the Los Angeles Headquarters of Vault-Tec
At various points, Vault-Tec looks like what any modern American imagines of an evil corporation, but what’s important is that there was no recreating the core LA Vault-Tec Headquarters straight out oftheFalloutgames. Instead, Cummings said, they looked at ensuring that 2077’s Los Angeles had a certain vibe and then applied that aesthetic, in so many ways, to the Vault-Tec Regional HQ found inFallout 4’s Bostonto create a fitting, yet completely distinct version of Vault-Tec. Cummings wanted all the Pre-War moments to have a mid-century feel, since it isFallout’s past but the real world’s future, and aimed to hit a mid-century vibe with a slicker appearance than the games, for obvious reasons. Once the aesthetic was decided, it was pretty much applied:
“We took a lot of things from the game’s Boston and gave it a West Coast architecture twist.”
How Dr. Strangelove Influenced The Fallout Show’s Vault-Tec
Cummings also recalled how Paul Kramer, location management on theFalloutshow, found this corporate office from the 1960s out in Westchester. Using that as the basis, matching the aesthetic of their vision for LA and the structure of Boston’s HQ, the team managed to turn this corporate office into Vault-Tec. They virtually extended the tower with the Vault-Tec logo and all the office scenes were shot there. The foreboding cement room and basement of Vault-Tec, however, was not shot in Westchester; it was shot in the middle of Manhattan in a theater. As Cummings explained,
“The basement layer was based on Dr. Strangelove, the movie, with the light, roundtable, and cement room. It was fun to do. That was in the middle of Manhattan in a theater, so we had to use whatever we could to pull all that stuff together, because you know we shot in New York and also in Namibia and Utah, all to do LA.”
It’s not uncommon for filming locations to depict places a world apart, and it very clearly worked when watching the Pre-War scenes of theFalloutshow. But it is incredibly interesting to know how all these locations came together to depictFallout’s iconic wasteland, its denizens, its Vault-dwellers, its Ghouls, and more, just as it is to know howthe evil corporation of Vault-Tecwas brought to life before the fanbase’s very eyes.
Fallout
Fallout is a franchise built around a series of RPGs set in a post-nuclear world, in which great vaults have been built to shelter parts of humankind. There are six main games, various spin-offs, tabletop games, and a TV series from Amazon Studios.
