Earth
Vault Senior Citizen
I thought it would be interesting to look at the different cultural (and pop cultural) influences on the different writers of Fallout. I've been reading a lot of New Vegas trivia recently and it's astonishing how much thought was put into almost every story point and location detail. Mad Max and The Boy and his Dog are obvious ones but there are plenty more subtle ones of note. Then of course there's Fallout 2, which is chockfull of movie and sci fi references.
The thing is, with Black Isle and Obsidian, it's not just sci-fi stuff. There's plenty of other references to other forms of media, such as poetry and music.
I figure it'd also be interesting comparing these with the cultural influences Bethesda has taken on board. In my opinion Bethesda's references and influences are very superficial by comparison but nonetheless it'd be interesting to pick them out and discuss.
I'll set the ball rolling. The entire story behind Dead Money is inspired by the tale of greed told in the 1927 novel The Treasure of Sierra Madre by B.Traven, made into one of my favourite films with Humphrey Bogart, in 1948 by John Huston. It's astonishing to me how they were able to fill Dead Money with so much stuff while also staying true to the original themes of the novel, with Dean Domino being a stand-in for the Bogart character (at least, imo).
Lonesome Road is inspired by the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The ED-E device launching the ICBMs is the albatross, and the Marked Men are the same as the walking dead in the poem.
I find it interesting that the nuclear war takes place in 2077, as this is the same year a meteor catastrophically hits Northern Italy in the Arthur C. Clarke novel Rendezvous with Rama. A coincidence? Maybe. Nonetheless an intriguing and very specific date chosen by writers who clearly knew their science fiction.
The thing is, with Black Isle and Obsidian, it's not just sci-fi stuff. There's plenty of other references to other forms of media, such as poetry and music.
I figure it'd also be interesting comparing these with the cultural influences Bethesda has taken on board. In my opinion Bethesda's references and influences are very superficial by comparison but nonetheless it'd be interesting to pick them out and discuss.
I'll set the ball rolling. The entire story behind Dead Money is inspired by the tale of greed told in the 1927 novel The Treasure of Sierra Madre by B.Traven, made into one of my favourite films with Humphrey Bogart, in 1948 by John Huston. It's astonishing to me how they were able to fill Dead Money with so much stuff while also staying true to the original themes of the novel, with Dean Domino being a stand-in for the Bogart character (at least, imo).
Lonesome Road is inspired by the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The ED-E device launching the ICBMs is the albatross, and the Marked Men are the same as the walking dead in the poem.
I find it interesting that the nuclear war takes place in 2077, as this is the same year a meteor catastrophically hits Northern Italy in the Arthur C. Clarke novel Rendezvous with Rama. A coincidence? Maybe. Nonetheless an intriguing and very specific date chosen by writers who clearly knew their science fiction.
