Jonathan Nolan said trying to please any fans but themselves was a "fool's errand," not that it was a bad idea to please any fans at all.
Director and executive producer of the upcoming Amazon Fallout TV series, Jonathan Nolan, has been catching some flak from fans for comments he made at a recent press event. As reported by T3, Nolan was chatting about his approach to the upcoming show when he remarked: "I don't think you really can set out to please the fans of anything, or please anyone other than yourself." Deliberately trying to make a Fallout TV series that would please fans of the games, said Nolan, would be a "fool's errand."
Well, more than a few fans of the Fallout games heard those quotes out of context and didn't like them at all. Take a saunter through social media and it's not hard to find Fallout fans irate at the apparent disregard Nolan has for them.
But that wasn't all Nolan said. In almost the same breath as those comments, the director added that his approach to "come into this trying to make the show that you want to make and trusting that, as fans of the game, we would find the pieces that were essential to us." He even told the audience that Fallout 3 "devoured about a year of my life," and "almost derailed my entire career."
"It's such a rare and unbelievable thing… to take something that you love and get a chance to play in that universe, to create your own version," said Nolan.
Now, to be honest, Nolan and I need to have a serious conversation about which Fallouts he decides to namedrop at press events. I'd be a lot happier if he were talking about losing a year of his life to Fallout 1 or New Vegas, but I guess nobody's perfect, and it's certainly unfair to lambast the guy as some interloping, ignorant Hollywood director when he's clearly got quite the résumé under his belt.
Over on Reddit, Fallout fans exposed to the full breadth of Nolan's comments were far kinder than the response you can find elsewhere on social media. "Context is key," said a user named wolfenyeager, "I for one as a lifelong fan of Fallout look forward to the show. Will it suck? Maybe. But I’m curious to see what they came up with." A much-upvoted comment from Monster-Frisbee is even more succinct: "Fans can’t even agree on what would please them."
Nolan's strategy isn't really about not pleasing fans, it's about not trying to guess at what some imaginary collective of Fallout-likers who aren't him would like, and making that. Instead, the fans that the Fallout TV crew are trying to please are themselves. Which, you know, could definitely still be terrible, but not because the creative team behind it deliberately set out to disregard what Fallout fans want.
We'll only find out whether Nolan and co did Fallout justice when the whole series drops on Amazon Prime on April 11. I just hope they get Johnny Five Aces in there.
