I agree. I too want the philosophy to 'soar'. Good phrase! I do wonder if the SF aspect will put the Gulch on another planet...I had not thought of that_. (Your idea of a Bioshock Gulch is also good, but probably not possible to keep secret in the modern world - and it would be very vulnerable if discovered.)

Mr Aglialoro did a fine job of 'getting it right'. If the world had been ready for a shot of raw distilled Ayn Rand, his first film would have done well at the box office (our metric); the next 2 films would have taken off from there.

We obviously need an entry point for the philosophy. A love story is a strong beginning, for one has a choice and can chose to love both the person and his ideals. Dagny's lovers reflect a consistent philosophy, but each has a better embodiment of it, ending with the archetype of John Galt.

The lamentable almost-rape scene is another expression of outdated worldview. In modern times, it is quite acceptable for a woman to be an enthusiastic and physically assertive lover without having had to be raped to give permission for that level of intensity. We are in a different world and this needs to be taken into account.

Jan
_ It occurs to me that the dark energy needed for FTL travel (per the Alcubierre equation) may also be a key to unlimited power generation. Hmmm...

There has been a long history of successful movies set in past eras, from countless westerns to major successes like Dr. Zhivago (Russian Revolution), The Sound of Music (early Nazi aggression in Europe), Ben Hur (the first century), Cleopatra (ancient Egypt), Gone with the Wind (Civil War) -- and King of Kings (first century, in Ayn Rand's own entry into Hollywood).

It would be very difficult to rewrite Atlas Shrugged into a different era because it would destroy the plot mechanisms and remove the possibility of retaining much of Ayn Rand's dialogue. The time period of Atlas Shrugged is not an excuse to rewrite it.

A movie cannot be a direct image of a novel transposed to film for many reasons, but the farther it strays from Ayn Rand's story, especially in the hands of someone exploiting it without regard to or antagonistic to Ayn Rand's theme and sense of life, the more damage that can be done. That is why Ayn Rand insisted on retaining the right to approve the script. Ruddy tried to pull a fast one in 1972, promising her to honor her conditions while expecting she would give in to get the contract, and then reneging on his promise when she refused. It is no wonder that so many people familiar with Ayn Rand and her ideas are skeptical of turning it over to him as a Hollywood pro now especially with his dismissals like the one in the article:

"As for concerns about faithful Rand fans objecting to any liberties he might take with the book, Mr. Ruddy said he had none. 'If you can reimagine the Old Testament and the New Testament, he said, 'why can’t I reimagine Ayn Rand?'”

The movie is not supposed to be about "reimagining Ayn Rand" to be whatever some Hollywood type wants to imagine.

I think the millennials may have a point. Speak to them about visionary entrepreneurs and you'll hear about people like the founders of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Whole Foods -- most of whom are not American or conservative -- or maybe about Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who hold themselves out as being creative and entrepreneurs but who are really just investors who love and frequently use cronyist government intervention.

A sort-of-AS story set in the present day could not both keep to the principles of AS and be really believable, both because those businessmen are not especially our allies and because many of them have political and social agendas that are not ours, so they would certainly not participate in John Galt's strike.

I would like to see AR (or someone who can fill her shoes) write such a story, though, because it would teach us how to sell our cause to that type of businessman.

Quite a few 18-35 year olds watch Downton Abbey. If the production is exemplary, the audience will follow.

in the article he showed a lack of respect for AR. i do not think he is an Objectivist anyway.

wait, wiggys-thousands have come to AR and reading AS by watching the movies. so I have already proven your hypothesis incorrect.

Do it in 1 hour spots may work. Short attention spans out there. I figure he has about an hour more for each episode than were in the original three movies. Timing and budget will determine what they can do and not do.

One thing that I really liked was the idea of shutting down the internet as the strike being led. I don't see millenials being upset over some factories shutting down, but if Amazon, then Ebay, then YouTube shut down in succession, all without explanation and simply a stationary message "I've left it as I found it" on what used to be the top website in the world... That will bring to reality the true magnitude of not only the contributions that men of the mind have brought to the world, but what their absence would be like.
Perhaps what he is imagining is an adaptation like West Side Story to Romeo and Juliet. R&J, as written, is nearly incomprehensible to most modern readers, and they reasons for hatred between families are completely lost on us in the absence of true family feuds. The true tragedy of R&J is not that the two families were just being mean to each other and to their children, but that it was an inescapable position for the lovers. West Side Story put that struggle into terms modern viewers could understand... between warring gangs. Two sides that could never see eye-to-eye.
I think this has quite the opportunity to bring home the magnitude of the repercussions of collectivist and altruistic politics on the real world. Shutting down a railroad does not have the same effect today as it did when the book was conceived, and so taking the literal railroad approach would not have the same impact on viewers.

Objectivism holds that the purpose of art is to represent abstract concepts in a concrete manner. Something to which we can point when we are understanding the intangible. Would we truly understand what a hero was if we didn't have literature or films to demonstrate one for us? So let's see what he does, I at least think he has the right starting point. Perhaps he can bring AR's ideas to what was a previously unreceptive audience.

Yes, Taggart Intercontinental Air Lines would be logical. The great disaster would be an incredible one: a mid-air collision involving a coast-to-coast jumbo and a C-19 Globemaster flying for the Air Mobility Command.

Could the valley stay hidden with the kind of false-image projector Rand conceived? I am not convinced. But I am open to argument. Most recon satellites do depend on visible light. Anything that can trick the eye of a pilot looking down, could similarly trick a camera in orbit. But that leaves one more thing John Galt must use: a radar jammer. And very likely a sophisticated heat sink to eliminate or mask the thermal footprint. Much harder. But perhaps no more than a John Galt would be capable of, if he is all that Rand sketched him out to be. (We can't put it in orbit. Dagny would never have reason to stumble onto an orbiting space station by accident.)

The one I'm more interested in is Ragnar Danneskjöld. I can well see him as the terror of the high seas. But what kind of ship would be sail? Here's a thought, that I have put somewhere else on this thread: Ragnar Danneskjöld's first battle, the one where he gets his "minor scrape," is to hijack a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier that is slated for the boneyard in "defense budget cuts." I first conceived this idea in 2013. So my candidate then was USS Enterprise CVN-65. It's too late now; that ship is already in the boneyard--what's left of her. But did you know the Navy has tentative plans to build another ship named Enterprise? That would be USS Enterprise CVN-80, third in the new, heavier Ford class of aircraft carriers. Let Ragnar hijack that ship, and everyone who is not blind, will see the irony.

I would also suggest, of course, that D'Anconia Industries S.A. mine more than just one metal. But let's leave that company's headquarters in South America. Corrupt Latin leftists do make good copy.

The electrostatic motor, I am convinced, would work. I think that's what Nikola Tesla had in mind. The trick would be to make a jet engine that uses an electrostatic booster of some kind--and also a jet airliner with an electrostatic Auxiliary Power Unit. (Today's jets use very weak jet engines as APU's. An electrostatic APU would weigh less and deliver enough energy to relieve the main engines of the duty of power generation for the aircraft's electrical systems. That alone would add value.)

Any other questions?

The movie business is hard. So much is a function of finances. Creation of an alternate reality to match a storyline isn't cheap!!!

I hardly ever bothered to listen to her lines...being too busy admiring her other attributes :-)