Will Nolan give "Fallout" a good ending this time?

I’m a film critic, fervent admirer of Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, and sci-fi and psychological movie fanatic. Come strike up some conversations with me!

Nolan's upcoming work, a sci-fi film with a doomsday theme titled "Fallout," will premiere on Amazon on April 12th. I'm referring to Jonathan Nolan.

Speaking of Nolan, one might think of the recent Oscar-winning Christopher Nolan, but seldom do we recall his younger brother, Jonathan Nolan. Unlike the widely acclaimed older Nolan, his younger sibling has only received one Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Let's briefly look at Jonathan Nolan's background. He graduated from Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois, in 1994, and then Georgetown University in 1999, with an English major. Shortly after graduating, Nolan served as a production assistant for the film "Memento", which is based on his short story "Memento Mori." Following the great success of "Memento," Nolan continued to collaborate with his older brother, co-writing "The Prestige," "The Dark Knight Trilogy," and "Interstellar."

Apart from his collaborations with his brother, Nolan primarily delved into the realm of television, producing well-received series such as "Westworld" and "Person of Interest," both with ratings above eight on Peliplat. Unfortunately, they were all canceled. Before "Fallout," he had another series, "The Peripheral," which, despite getting renewed, was ultimately canceled due to the Hollywood writers’ strike.

All his TV shows received critical acclaim yet faced cancellation. Why was that so? After watching these series, I think I've grasped the reason. His stories emphasize logic, even surpassing his brother in this aspect, but neglect the construction of the characters’ inner worlds. In other words, the emotional depth and poeticism of the latter’s works resemble more of a precision instrument.
Let me elaborate on this.

Complex nature of 'Person of Interest'

Just watching the first episode gives you a sense of the precision typical of the Nolan brothers. The cast is extensive, featuring John Reese - the protagonist who is a former agent with interspersed memories of his girlfriend; Harold Finch - a wealthy man with a mysterious surveillance device who leaves a bunch of clues; and Joss Carter, a female detective whose role from the screenwriter's perspective is to represent the audience's perspective and allow them to observe the world from an ordinary viewpoint. Additionally, due to its episodic nature, there are characters like the female lawyer who is initially thought to be good but turns out to be bad, gangs within the police force, undercover cops within gangs, the male lawyer who is initially perceived as bad but later revealed to be good, and so on. All of this needs to be made clear within 40 minutes, which is already quite a complex task. Furthermore, from my character descriptions, you can sense the abundance of plot twists and mysteries, including the different timelines, making it extremely challenging to articulate.

I see shades of "The Dark Knight," "Memento," and "Following" in it. For instance, Reese investigating the female lawyer by infiltrating her home to gather information resembles the thief in "Following" predicting the homeowner's life through household objects; Reese's flashbacks of his girlfriend are reminiscent of the similar style used in "Memento"; the complex process of gangsters' killings resembles the opening scene of "The Dark Knight." These methods are quite ingenious, but at the same time, demand the audience's full attention to discover them. After a day's work, lying on the couch, and turning on the TV, I just want to watch something more lighthearted; I don't want to switch back to focus mode to solve these "math problems." Moreover, even if I derive pleasure from solving them, I find it hard to sense a lot of emotional depth from the characters; everyone seems more like a tool.

'Westworld': Another level of complexity

I only made it through the first two seasons of this series. The first season aired in 2016, and initially, it pleasantly surprised me. I enjoyed the expression of the robot awakening and human killing instinct in the film. However, Nolan's penchant for creating mysteries surfaces again. As I watched, I discovered that the awakening of robots itself is a twist, all orchestrated beforehand by Dr Robert Ford, the boss. When I discovered his manipulation of the robots, I thought he was bad, but then he turned good - it turns out that he controls these robots to protect them; in another mystery, the human engineer Bernard Lowe, turns out to be a robot, and the creator of the robots; simultaneously, the series also insert two different timelines, which are revealed only in the final episode. I had to watch the entire first season three times to understand the story.

When the second season aired in 2018, two years after the first, I had already forgotten the story of the first season. After spending a long time reviewing the mysteries in it, I found even bigger ones awaiting me — new Westworld; new robots; new humans; humans wanting to become robots; humans whose behavior can be predicted like machines; 30 years ago versus 30 years later; the present versus 20 days ago; the consciousness of the female protagonist from the first season being loaded into another robot; the consciousness of the deceased Dr Ford from the first season being uploaded into another virtual Westworld.

It's too complex. As I describe this complex story, I even discover the morality of the protagonists and find that their appearances keep changing, making the emotional depth of "Westworld" thinner than "Person of Interest."

'The Peripheral': Complex as always

This series has average reviews and far less influence than "Westworld" and "Person of Interest," so I won't go into detail about it. It's worth mentioning that it still resembles "Westworld" in its portrayal of the real and fictional worlds. In the first season alone, there are three different timelines, as usual.
The difference is that traveling between worlds in "The Peripheral" has become more convenient with the help of VR headsets, aligning it with the concepts of "metaverse" and "VR."

Honestly, I still quite like the sci-fi worlds created by Nolan, but I'm a bit tired of his tricks of manipulating time and creating mysteries.

So, will ‘Fallout’ be different?

After watching the trailer, I was captivated by the stunning scenes and the beautiful female protagonist, Lucy (Ella Purnell). So, I'm willing to give Nolan another chance.

On the one hand, the "Fallout" game itself doesn't involve time travel but focuses more on details. It tells the story of a post-apocalyptic wasteland following a nuclear war on October 23, 2077, set in a retro-futuristic world with an artistic, technological, and cultural style reminiscent of the 1950s. It has various factions, technologies, and monsters but no multiverse! That's really good news.

On the other hand, in the trailer, although Lucy initially seems to live in a seemingly orderly world resembling paradise - a shelter, this world is quickly destroyed, making it appear as though the remaining story unfolds in only one world and there is no multiverse.

Lucy, as a resident of the shelter, ventures into the unknown harsh wasteland, which in itself is quite intriguing. Hopefully, Nolan won't add too much complexity to it this time!

Catch you later for more movie musings!