Hacker Cinema
Atlas Shrugged: Part I
2011 · Film · 97 min
Directed by Paul Johansson
DramaThrillerScience FictionMystery
A powerful railroad executive, Dagny Taggart, struggles to keep her business alive while society is crumbling around her. Based on the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand.
8 negative1 mixed7 neutralfrom 16 commenters
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16 comments on Hacker News
Article I read in 2014:
> Trains are such an indispensable motif in Atlas Shrugged, that, when some of Rand’s acolytes produced a slavishly faithful film adaptation of her book set in the present day, they had to invent a convoluted rationale involving resource shortages and industrial disasters to explain how railroads had once again become the dominant form of long-distance transportation.
Well… that aged… interestingly.
https://harpers.org/2014/06/ayn-rands-rapture-of-the-rails/
Ok, finally seems like the right place to share my pitch for a Silicon Valley spin-off:
Gavin Belsom, and a bunch of other billionaires, flee to New Zealand only to find it’s crowded with all of the people they know (and despise). So now they’re stuck with each other.
It’s like Galt’s Gulch from Atlas Shrugged meets Gilligan’s Island.
First episode ends with someone coughing, cuts to Belsom’s distraught face, obscure hip-hop track plays.
> (I believe strongly that we do everyone a disservice by silencing people. It harms the rest of us by isolated us from anything not "mainstream" and it further pushes the silenced into radicalism and vindicates/bolsters their argument that they are mistreated).
I absolutely agree that being "silenced" and feeling "persecuted" only serves to make extreme views more extreme. But I'm also not sure the bias is only directed one way as many of the far-right pundits would have people believe.
I also use DDG and avoid all things google as much as I can but the other day I searched "atlas" on YouTube (looking for the Greek mythological figure) and stumbled across a clip from the movie "Atlas Shrugged." I had read the book in high school and I know it's a favorite among conservatives so I figured it couldn't hurt to watch so I did, without thinking much of it. When I went back to my YouTube homepage later the recommend videos were very different from any content I would ever seek out: Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, the Ayn Rand Institute, and even one called "Why Immigration is Bad for Britain." From watching one movie clip.
I think Google's algorithms, for better or for worse, can very quickly discern what content a user "wants" and filters out the rest. I'm the last person to have anything nice to say about Google but I do genuinely believe it's more a case of algorithms enforcing the unconscious bias/preferences of our brains than anyone at Google maliciously "silencing" certain points of view.
I read Atlas Shrugged cover to cover (and suffered). How did they deal with that speech in the movie that came out for it? I sure hope they cut it short ...
Slick write-up, and I especially appreciate your personal story and context to mull over. I studied Curriculum Design as my advanced degree program, have worked 5+ retail/sales/customer service jobs, and also done formal classroom instruction. I like that distinction you put forward, because it captures what I, well, disliked about sales as a profession.
I love imparting knowledge, telling stories, and holding a person's interest - that is a transaction in and of itself. It's the end goal. What I had to do in sales was get to the very end of the discussion and then "ask for the sale" which always felt like a disservice to the relationship / exchange. As in, if I did well educating somebody that they needed to buy the movie Heat to test out their audio system, I shouldn't have to say, "So, are you going to purchase this today?" because they'll have already made the decision themselves. Sales is hard like that, and I can appreciate good sales techniques in both the soft and hard approaches.
...as to your story, it really reminded me of a write-up over at the AV Club on the second installment of the Atlas Shrugged independent movies. The film beats the audience over the head with dialog that only serves to advance the philosophy (or what have you) of the story, meaning it's really preachy and not very entertaining. I think there's a difference in audience expectations depending on subject matter, e.g. it's more acceptable to learn STEM material from a heavy handed teacher, but with personal belief systems/notions, lecturing creates push-back in many cases.
They're not talking about automated companies. They're talking about distributed companies. That's entirely different. This is the micropayment dream, again - everything is making tiny micropayments to everything else. I knew some of that crowd back when Xanadu was a thing. (Xanadu was Ted Nelson's thing, a predecessor of the World Wide Web. Everything is pay per view in Xanadu.) They were all fanatical libertarians.
Somebody read "Atlas Shrugged" too many times. (Part 3 of the movie is out, and in Redbox, if anybody cares. "The weak cinematic trilogy derived from Ayn Rand's 1957 screed-cum-novel limps to its merciful end." - Variety)
What a skew prospective! I am not considering myself converted to objectivism philosophy (I only saw "Atlas Shrugged" movies), but this "snowpocalypse" is not much of an example against the Ayn Rand's point. The fact that there are people (with equipment) ready to be deployed to plow the streets if needed is an example that there is at least one capable person that thought about such future problematic scenario, developed a strategy, and designed a system to deal with that problem. I challenge one to contemplate about another very real, present world's scenario - Indian cities. Omnipresent garbage and misery (even crap on the streets) and it seems that nobody do much about it, even if all live and "enjoy" the same public environment. That state of affairs may literally exist EVERYWHERE unless out there wouldn't be capable people among us that yes, deserve appreciation. Deserve appreciation starting from just having potential they happen to have (this is a tough one, rarely happens even if people are glad that problem solvers exist), then for their effort of developing that potential, for applying their hard-earned capability on solving problems (including the social ones) and in the end - for helping others to grow and further develop/maintain systems in our world. We happen to see from the Rand's view point the same things very differently.
Even with copyright law, Lord of the Rings was almost not made.
Trouble struck when Marty Katz was sent to New Zealand. Spending four months there, he told Miramax that the films were more likely to cost $150 million, and with Miramax unable to finance this, and with $15 million already spent, they decided to merge the two films into one. On 17 June 1998, Bob Weinstein presented a treatment of a single two-hour film version of the book. He suggested cutting Bree and the Battle of Helm's Deep, "losing or using" Saruman, merging Rohan and Gondor with Éowyn as Boromir's sister, shortening Rivendell and Moria as well as having Ents prevent the Uruk-hai kidnapping Merry and Pippin.[9] Upset by the idea of "cutting out half the good stuff"[10] Jackson balked, and Miramax declared that any script or work completed by Weta Workshop was theirs.[9] Jackson went around Hollywood for four weeks,[10] showing a thirty-five minute video of their work, before meeting with Mark Ordesky of New Line Cinema.[11] At New Line Cinema, Robert Shaye viewed the video, and then asked why they were making two films when the book was published as three volumes; he wanted to make a film trilogy. Now Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens had to write three new scripts. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy]
And because of copyright law, we now have a shitty screen version of Atlas Shrugged that takes place in the future? C'mon!
I am not advocating abolition, only reform. I am not sure it is even possible to create copyright-free material in the United States. The producer of the content would be required to explicitly waive copyright.
I think they should go for an intentionally retro feel to keep true to the style and the origins of the book. If they set it in the "modern" conception of the future, it would seem as incongruous as the Atlas Shrugged film featuring modern day railroad magnates.
If you are looking for other reviews, Metacritic (27%):
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/atlas-shrugged-part-i
Rotten Tomatoes (10%):
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/
It would seem to be impossible to dislike Rand's ideology as presented in Atlas Shrugged and enjoy any film that is dedicated to the novel. I read most of Atlas Shrugged, but didn't finish it. I was bored to tears and turned off by the stereotypical nature of the characters.
I like many of the ideas presented in objectivist philosophy, but I'm not quite a kool-aid drinker. Still, I'll reiterate, I have respect for the ideas. The problem I had with Atlas Shrugged was that it was rather transparently philosophy first, story second.
Have you ever hung out with someone who purposefully complicated their speech? The kind of person who subscribes to every "word of the day" feed they come across. The kind of person who says, "but I digress" more than any one person should be allowed? The characters in Atlas Shrugged all come across like this to me. I kept finding myself thinking, "Who talks like this?" The follow up thought was, "I hope I never meet them."
The characters in Atlas Shrugged are vehicles for communicating Rand's philosophy, but the philosophy shines through their actions like the mid-day sun through plate glass. I started out reading Atlas Shrugged and feeling like, "Yeah, damn those government men for getting in the way of progress," but by the time d'Anconia revealed that he intended his mine to become nationalized, all I could muster was an "Oh gaaaaaawd," followed by a lengthy sigh. The story had crossed over in to some strange form of industry-worship.
I have no idea how the film will deal with the lengthy inner monologues present in Atlas Shrugged, much less the contrived conversations and scenarios, but I believe even the most skilled filmmaker would have a difficult time crafting this work in to something that a film critic would enjoy.
I tend to use Movie Review Query Engine to quickly find reviews of movies. (The Ebert review isn't there yet, but it will no doubt appear soon.)
The link for this movie is: http://www.mrqe.com/movie_reviews/atlas-shrugged-m100058649
The Variety review absolutely pans the movie too. I'm a little disappointed.
I'll be upfront with my bias: I strongly agree with Ayn Rand's politics, philosophy, and worldview. Atlas Shrugged is my favorite book. I think Ayn Rand had integrity as a person, and she's one of my heroes.
That said, I agree that the movie doesn't look great. I'll almost certainly go see it anyway, but I'm bracing myself to be disappointed.
Anyone who hasn't read Atlas Shrugged owes it to themselves to pick it up. Love it or hate it, it's highly influential.
I'll be upfront with my bias: I strongly oppose Ayn Rand's politics, I find them abhorrent and morally vacuous. Furthermore, I thought "Atlas Shrugged" was god awful, and this was after having just read "The Fountainhead" and somewhat enjoying it. I also think Ayn Rand as a person was not just hypocritical, but also generally repugnant.
That said, I'm a sucker for a good movie. I'll gladly watch a film which disagrees with my politics, and even recommend it to friends, because cinema is that important to me.
However, this just doesn't look very good. The cinematography looks adequately epic, but some of the acting and dialogue, and even the shots, look like a decently-produced television series at best (and that may be generous in terms of the dialogue), but nothing on the level of something for the big screen.
>Which means you can catch Atlas Shrugged [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/] in a movie theater near you before you play the game.
Didn't expect that.
Duke Nukem Forever is available for preorder from Amazon[http://www.amazon.com/Duke-Nukem-Forever-Pc/dp/B002I0JAJ2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295033339&sr=8-1]
Which means you can catch Atlas Shrugged [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/] in a movie theater near you before you play the game.