Galt's Gulch

First review of the movie that I've read

Posted by $ brd76 10 years, 4 months ago to Movies
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This review confirmed my suspicions that Ayn Rand was right yet again. She knew that her opus would be turned into something that it is not by someone with an agenda and demanded exclusive rights to the screen play because of it. I've watched the previous two movies and have already been disappointed by them. Seeing this review, I'll wait for netflix, and keep handing out my copy of "The Fountainhead" to promote the idea of objectivism.
SOURCE URL: http://scottholleran.com/ayn-rand/movie-review-atlas-shrugged-part-3/

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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 4 months ago
    wow. quite the scathing review. Makes me want to see the movie....
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    • Posted by $ brd76 10 years, 4 months ago
      See it, yes. Drive an hour to the theater, drop $40.00 for tickets and a drink, just to confirm my suspicions that this interpretation of a work of art has been glossed over and faded into some colloquial Hollywood cookie cutter movie.... No. The hopes that I had that the third movie of the series would be the hammer that drove the nail home were already quite skeptical. For today it is not culturally acceptable to identify the true consequences of manipulation, coercion, and theft by proxy. To do so is considered sedition of the sensibilities of those who just sit back and allow their government to act in their name and use/steal the production of wealth as a means to their own end.
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  • Posted by Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
    Ayn Rand didn't want any material cut from the book whatsoever, which is a totally impractical request for a film. If her demands for control of the script had been granted, I have no doubt that the project would have languished in development hell without ever getting produced, likely wasting exorbitant amounts of money in the process, especially if she tried to revise the script after filming had already begun, which she probably would have. Her own version of the Atlas Shrugged screenplay (which she did not complete before her death) was being written as a mini-series for television, so as to get around the necessity of cutting content for the sake of time (an inevitability in any book-to-film adaptation).

    While the approach of filming Atlas Shrugged as a TV series rather than a movie trilogy might have been interesting, I sincerely doubt many people would want to sit through 60 hours of content when the same story could have been effectively and efficiently reduced to three two-hour movies (a total of 6 hours, or 1/10th the time) without any difficulty.

    Any time any book is converted into a film, the fans of the book always complain about how the film changed the story or cut out content. The same thing happened with Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Personally, I think people just need to realize that no book-to-film adaptation is ever going to perfectly replicate the story of the book. The transition between mediums inevitably requires the story to undergo alterations in order to work within the new format. There is simply no way around that. So rather than whining about how the film isn't an exact replica of the book, I think people should just be happy that they get to enjoy the story in a new way, and celebrate the added attention that the film brings to the book, thus expanding the book's audience and introducing the ideas to more people, many of whom might not have been interested otherwise.

    So what if the movies change a few things here and there? Who cares? The movies still get the general message across, and that's all that matters.
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    • Posted by ewv 10 years, 4 months ago
      Your claim that Ayn Rand "didn't want any material cut from the book whatsoever" is false. Stop making things up in your continuous misrepresentations.
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      • Posted by $ brd76 10 years, 4 months ago
        Correct, what she wanted, and retained, was exclusive rights to the screen play. Exactly like she DID for "The Fountainhead". In that movie she wrote out only the parts of the book which were excessively redundant. For example, in John Galt's speech redundancy exists that she alone wanted the final call on reducing. She spent 10 years of her life writing AS and didn't want to see it redacted by anyone but herself. That it now is reduced to three movies as opposed to a cable mini-series that covers the book in its entirety, disappoints me.
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        • Posted by ewv 10 years, 4 months ago
          She did not regard anything in the book as redundant. She recognized that the criteria for a book are different than for a movie, which conveys more through visual images and less through description and dialogue.She had been willing to let a professional write the overall AS script but was disappointed in an early version because it tried to copy the book too closely and fell flat. Her own movie script (not completed) was not a copy of the book.

          She did not want, for good reason, the intellectual precision of the statements of her philosophy in the major "speeches" in particular to be undermined or worse by those not competent to rewrite them, and after the FH experience wanted final say on the script, which she had not had for the FH movie.

          A movie can be just as successful as a mini-series artistically and philosophically by someone competent to do it, but a mini-series can include much more, making it much better in that sense.
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        • Posted by Snoogoo 10 years, 4 months ago
          A TV series would be perfect for the book. I believe "Roots" was made into a TV series and that was also a very long book. I think a TV series would also allow for the funding needs to be spread out which would give you better quality overall for acting and special effects. Plus I bet at least one network would pick up the idea given that AS already has a built-in audience. Does anybody know why this route was not taken?
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