Though it’s a globally recognized media brand today, there was once a time when Fallout was considerably more niche. Indeed, decades before Amazon’s wildly popular Fallout TV show adaptation, and even before a little company called Bethesda scooped up rights to the IP, Fallout was a mechanics-focused, visually simple CRPG, designed more around tabletop role-playing systems than thick, ubiquitous atmosphere.
But Fallout was still surrounded by those with cinematic aspirations, as evidenced by the formation of Interplay Films, a movie studio created to adapt several of Interplay’s (Fallout‘s publisher and developer at the time) works. In 1998, after the first Fallout enjoyed a positive reception, writer and producer Brent V. Friedman penned a script treatment for a film adaptation, which would reportedly be produced by Interplay Films in collaboration with Dark Horse. The movie would never get off the ground, and neither would the six other Interplay adaptations slated for development, but the treatment was unveiled to the world in 2011, giving us a glimpse of what could have been.
While the Fallout series’ retrofuturism has always been present, it, along with the IP’s more irreverent tone, became more pronounced over time. This is helpful context to understand the different “feel” of the Fallout script treatment.
What Was the 1998 Fallout Movie Going to be About?
It’s quite interesting to peruse the 1998 Fallout script treatment—which is like a summary or outline of a movie script—since it was written long before Fallout became what it is today. At the same time, there are several elements of the treatment that resonate with what modern audiences know about the Fallout world.
In typical series fashion, the Fallout film begins in a Vault, Vault-13, to be precise. The movie’s protagonist, simply called Hero in the treatment, is experiencing significant disillusion and discomfort with Vault life, and wishes for something more. Lucky for him, an inciting incident is right around the corner: he discovers that Vault-13’s water purification chip is faulty, prompting him to embark on a quest for a replacement. Alongside a few vault-dwelling buddies, Hero sets off into the Los Angeles area Wasteland for the first time in his life, though he is swiftly reminded why he and his kin live below ground: one of his party is killed almost immediately, and the rest is beset by Raiders out for blood, valuables, and radiation-free biomaterials from vault-dwellers.
The group escapes and teams up with a man whom the treatment refers to as a “Mad Max” sort of character: tough, rugged, and street-smart. He begrudgingly assists the Vault-13 party, escorting them to the now-overgrown Los Angeles metro area, where they spend time in a seedy club, learning about the real history of Vault-Tec and WWIII. Eventually, it’s revealed that the relative peace of the LA area is actually just a honey pot-style trap set by The Mutants, a faction of superhuman, infertile psychopaths that need fresh blood to sustain their population. Hero and his friends escape after being betrayed by the Mad Max character, who subsequently reveals that his betrayal was a ruse, and that he has obtained the precious water purification chip.
The team returns to Vault-13 to find that it actually already has plenty of water purification chips, and that the quest to the surface was just a pretext to get rid of Hero, who had been harboring clear anti-vault sentiment. Though Vault-13’s Overseer did this to stem the spread of discontent, the opposite happens: the truth gets out, hell breaks loose, and Vault-13 revolts. Hero and the remnants of the vault, after suffering major losses, emerge victorious from Vault-13 with a G.E.C.K., a Garden of Eden Creation Kit, and terraform the surface world to make it habitable once again. The movie ends with the Hero and the female lead years later with their children, living seemingly tranquil lives above ground.
Would the 1998 Fallout Movie Have Been Good?
It’s certainly not perfect, but I think the above script treatment has the potential to spawn a compelling movie. Smartly, Friedman centered the plot around a fight for resources rather than ideology or grand, world-conquering ambitions. This is not only more believable, but better for world-building, as it places humanity’s struggle for food, water, and shelter at the heart of the conflict, where it should be. In other words, the treatment suggests a nuanced and interesting take on a post-apocalyptic setting. At the same time, the irrational desire for control expressed by the Vault-13 Overseer at the end of the story is both profoundly absurd and depressingly believable—very Fallout indeed.
Despite The Movie’s Potential, I’m Happy with How Fallout’s TV Adaptation Has Turned Out
It wouldn’t have been impossible for a competent Fallout movie to have come to fruition in the late 90s, but this would have been unprecedented. This era played host to some truly infamous video game films, such as the eye-wateringly boring Wing Commander (1999) and the hilariously bad Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997). Whether these films were a result of poor funding, cynicism, or a lack of respect for video games as a storytelling medium, it’s evident that trying to make a good Fallout movie during this time would have been an uphill battle.
Today, things aren’t nearly as bleak. The aforementioned Fallout TV show does the game series—now more complex and multilayered—justice, taking clear inspiration from the games that released in Fallout 1‘s wake. It’s funny, tongue-in-cheek, and delves into Vault-Tec in a way that the 1998 adaptation wouldn’t have. On top of this, the lowbrow approach to video game adaptations that defined this era of Hollywood could have made the 1998 movie more derivative, safe, and corny—in a bad way. It may have followed the same route as 2002’s Resident Evil movie which, regardless of how you feel about it, has precious little in common with the Resident Evil games.
Aside from its historical context, the ill-fated ’98 adaptation would have come before several of Fallout‘s evolutionary steps. Not everyone loves the Bethesda Fallout games, but it’s undeniable that the company injected the IP with an extra dose of art deco aesthetics and gleeful violence, both of which inform the Amazon adaptation for the better. Overall, the 3D Fallout games created a firmer, more tangible picture of the franchise’s atmosphere and character, which the 1998 movie would have had to do without. And if this theoretical movie had flopped hard enough, the impact on the Fallout brand, both on and off the silver screen, could have been irreparably damaged.
