Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context YMMV / AtlasShrugged

Go To

1!!For the book
2* {{Adorkable}}: Quentin once he meets Galt. Sheepishly notes that the reason he didn't wait for Dagny to get to the lab was because "...I forgot."
3* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: It is easy to interpret John Galt as a [[WellIntentionedExtremist fanatical cult leader]] rather than the great industrial hero Rand meant him to be, since everyone in Galt's Gulch has nearly identical personalities and his community can be factually described as doomsday accelerationists.
4** In-Universe Example: Though they do seem to at least have varying opinions on Ragnar's tactics; those in the Gulch who disagree with his means grudgingly tolerate him and benefit from his activities since he funds their new start in the valley with money he believes was taken from the taxes.
5** Though Fred Kinnan is regularly counted among the villains, he's invariably the voice of ''reason'' whenever the bad guys all get together. Further, he expresses admiration for John Galt--and then, once it becomes clear that Gall will ''not'' work with the looters, is noticeably absent for the rest of the novel. AntiVillain who just admires honesty... or one of the good guys secretly ''working'' for Galt, working to speed up the crumbling of the looters' power base?
6*** Or is he an anti-capitalist anarchist in reality, gaming the faux-cialists AND Galt before [[TakeAThirdOption taking a third option]]?
7** Dagny Taggart is at the first glance portrayed as an intelligent, brave and hypercompetent woman, [[HadToBeSharp able to hold herself]] [[NoWomansLand in a man's world]] [[TruthInTelevision as the business community historically was]]. But as her story unfolds, [[TheIngenue she is pretty naive and immature]]. Her intelligence and education (in maths and engineering) serve her mostly in the technical field. Outside it, she is barely able to understand the perverted, manipulative people which abound in society, business or politics just as in RealLife. For her, everything is straight, linear, mathematically precise, counted in money, rails, locomotives, engines, buildings, generators. Like a teenager who plays a [=RTS=] videogame. Even her confrontation [[TheVamp with Lillian Rearden]] over the bracelet sounds a bit like two teenage boys challenging each other [[GoodOldFisticuffs to a fist-fight]].
8* {{Anvilicious}}: Supporters, opponents and the author herself all agree that the book is as much a direct expression of the author's philosophy as it is a novel.
9%% The vast majority of the human race have nothing to offer the tiny handful of genuinely exceptional people that create everything that makes human life worth living except their labor, and rather rather than accept this and be content with their lot, or to try to themselves become great creative minds producing something of value, modern society encourages this majority to become bloodsucking parasites leeching off these exceptional individuals' ideas and success; in this way these great individuals are the ''real'' victims of social exploitation.
10* CriticalDissonance: Critics tend to loathe the novel's style, while a reader's enjoyment of the book generally has a direct relationship with that reader's political views.
11* DesignatedHero:
12** Ragnar plunders relief ships taking food to starving people, including children... because they are loaded with supplies bought with stolen money, and what will happen when there is no one left to steal from? Ragnar sincerely believes that the food will not be freely given to keep people from dying (we only have his word to take on that subject, though; it's never confirmed or denied anywhere else in the book), but will instead be sold by fascist and communist dictatorships, so Ragnar sells it to the starving people himself at what he considers fair prices. His actual prices are unclear.
13** While the most prominent, he's far from the only example. All of the "heroes" actively do nothing to try to save the people dying due to the looters' incompetence, and in fact largely only make the problems worse, because as part of their "strike" they've embraced accelerationism and are actively attempting to drive industrial civilization towards total collapse so that they can rebuild the world according to ''their'' image of how things should be.
14%%* DontShootTheMessage: The reaction of a number of the book's fans to the film version. To some extent, the reaction of a number of Objectivists to the book as well.
15* EnsembleDarkhorse: Eddie Willers. He's a solid worker, devoted to Dagny, a good man through and through, and though not very ambitious, a man who will do all he can to keep running his small place in the universe. He might not be a superman, but he would have been an effective, honest worker according to Objectivist values. No wonder Dagny, Francisco, and that [[HiddenInPlainSight strange track laborer he eats with in the cafeteria every day]] respect him so much. [[KilledOffscreen Not that they bother to save him when society collapses...]] (Although they do say they're going to go rescue him at the end of the film version.)
16* EvilIsCool: Generally speaking, Rand does her damnedest to avert this by making most of the evil socialists egregious {{Straw Loser}}s as well as mustache-twirling villains, but there are a couple of exceptions. [[TheChessmaster Dr. Ferris]] dominates almost every scene he is in with his ominous presence, and even [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Wesley Mouch]] (who is otherwise far less impressive) gets to hold at least one genuinely cool BadassBoast as he socializes the economy through [[DystopianEdict Directive 10-289]]:
17-->''Freedom has been given a chance and has failed. Therefore, more stringent controls are necessary.''
18** Cuffy Meiggs is a villainous, stupid thug, but in a setting with different politics, could be re-interpreted as a two-legged middle finger to the upper one percent (actually, a trigger finger, pressed to a semiautomatic). He's a left-wing militant whose job is to hang around the industrial baron fat cats with his hand menacingly close to his gun, intimidating them, barking orders, making sure they play by the rules of the new socialist order.
19* FairForItsDay: While opinions may differ ''considerably'' on the merits of the Objectivist philosophy as a whole, and leftists were not its greatest fans when it was first published, many feminists today tend to approve of the go-getter careerwoman protagonist, Dagny. A female railroad executive certainly wasn't typical of 1950s fiction.
20** Race gets a similar treatment. The book barely mentions race (it does refer to "Asians, Africans," etc, in vaguely dehumanizing descriptive terms, as the inhabitants of other, mostly impoverished continents), but no one refers to skin color, or the hundreds of years of chattel slavery (which is odd since "slave" and "slavery" are used metaphorically throughout to describe the circumstances of the main characters, especially Rearden). There is no indication that race is a consideration for any of the characters. While this is not unusual for 1950s literature in general, it does speak to Ayn Rand's belief that race was insignificant, and her disbelief in the power of things like institutional racism (she probably would have considered persons complaining of this kind of discrimination to be willing victims, giving themselves over to evil). The movie tried to update this for modernity by giving Eddie Willers a RaceLift, and Francisco, being Argentinian, is AmbiguouslyBrown, but it comes off as tokenism in TheNewTens, by which point it was aleady falling out of style. That being said, in the context of Objectivism, race, like socioeconomic status, sexual discrimination, or really, any other context than your own intelligence or lack thereof, is no excuse for not pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.
21* HarsherInHindsight:
22** In the book, two of the first countries to elect socialist leaders are Guatemala and Chile and the US government completely supports this. Much fun is had at the expense of the Chilean ambassador and his wife, who are referred to as a pimp and a prostitute and given filthy habits. Over a decade after the book's publication, socialist Salvador Allende became president of Chile, and appointed the poet and Nobel laureate Creator/PabloNeruda as an ambassador. Neruda died an agonizing death from cancer a few days after Allende's US-backed death and replacement by the dictator Augusto Pinochet.
23** In one of the extensive flashbacks to their adolescent romance, Francisco and Dagny get into an argument, and he hits her. Dagny seems to see this as evidence of his passionate love for her. She does not tell her mother, or anyone else, and rationalizes that it's like an adventurous secret she shares with the love of her life, which no one else would understand. To be clear, this would be jarring even if the character were an adult, but at the time this takes place she is clearly underage, and that makes it even more disturbing. Fortunately for her, Frisco does not often behave this way, and this is the only instance of violence depicted in their relationship, but in RealLife plenty of people who experience and convince themselves it's love, and there's more awareness and understanding of this today than there was in Rand's time. A teenager choosing not to tell any adult (or even a peer, who might seek help) about being physically abused by their romantic partner is not something most readers take lightly today.
24** The lights going out in New York City, after several real-life blackouts, including the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
25** K-Mart and Sears both tried to reverse their decline by adopting Objectivism as a business model...and failed ''horribly'' in the process, sending them into an even further downward spiral. Stores and departments actively sabotaged each other, often hiding items the chain would profit the most from because it benefits someone else more, which would affect them negatively. Rather than boosting productivity like it was intended to, the Objectivist philosophy turned it into a massive civil war.
26* HilariousInHindsight: Dr. Ferris uses Dr. Stadler's research on cosmic waves to write a convoluted book of philosophy to forward his own agenda. Fast forward to 2004, when ''Film/WhatTheBleepDoWeKnow'' comes out.
27** A government plan to develop soybeans as a staple crop is mentioned alongside other wasteful expenditures of money by the looters. Cut to 2014, when soybean oil and other byproducts are ubiquitous, and the US alone produces around 90 million tons per year.
28* HoYay: Hank Rearden and Francisco d'Anconia. "Greatest conquest" indeed. According to Dagny, Hank's "fallen for him!"
29** Hank Rearden is "the only man [Ken Danagger] ever loved."
30* InferredHolocaust: Actually stated. When the lights of New York go out, Galt's Gulch is the last industrial power on Earth.
31* ItWasHisSled: Most people nowadays are aware of the strike and Galt's Gulch when they start reading the novel. Ironically, Rand originally planned to name the book "The Strike", but scrapped it when she thought it would give away too much of the plot.
32* LauncherOfAThousandShips: Dagny
33* MemeticMutation: [[http://galtse.cx/ "Galtse"]]; an InterruptingMeme, where a innocuous looking forum post suddenly turns into John Galt's speech, and then proceeds to recite as much of the speech as the character limit will allow. It is usually employed as a means to {{troll}} other users by making them having to scroll for a while to get past the text.
34* MisaimedFandom: The book is hugely and openly critical of torture and targeted killings, religion, and trusting feelings over evidence. And yet AIG CEO Bob Benmosche claims to be a fan, even though the ''villains'' of the book are [=CEOs=] who take government bailouts after causing an economic collapse through sheer ineptitude. Of course, Ayn Rand herself was known for flip-flopping in her own beliefs, especially later in life.
35* MoralEventHorizon: Dr. Robert Stadler starts out accepting the use of government force [[ForScience to establish the State Science Institute]] because he believes that most people would never value scientific research for its own sake voluntarily. He makes various concessions to the looters in the attempt to preserve the Institute, such as [[KickTheDog refusing to condemn the smear job on Rearden Metal]], but the moment he truly crosses the line is when after finding out that [[FantasticNuke Project X]] was based on his own work, he sells out an IntrepidReporter begging him to tell the world what's going on before reading a speech, sold to the public as his own words, ''praising Project X as [[BlatantLies a project of great benefit to the nation]]''.
36** Also, James Taggart's [[DrivenToSuicide driving of Cherryl to suicide]].
37** For Dagny, seeing that the looters are willing to torture John Galt is what finally makes her truly understand that they are beyond redemption.
38** Hank Rearden is considering whether Lilian actually ''wants'' him to have a miserable existence and suffer horribly, but he can't believe that she could be pure evil, because "to convict a human being of that practice was a verdict of irrevocable damnation... a verdict of total evil" and that "he would not believe it of anyone, so long as the possibility of a doubt remained."
39* OnceOriginalNowCommon: As modern readers are probably familiar with heroes-posing-as-playboys like Franchise/{{Batman}}, ComicBook/IronMan, etc....the fact that Francisco is faking his fall from "great man" to "worthless playboy" isn't that big of a revelation, nowadays: modern readers likely ''brace'' for it.
40* ProtectionFromEditors: The reason for its length.
41* RootingForTheEmpire: Some readers might support the Socialist government/looters because they find John Galt's own philosophy even less sympathetic, and/or even more unworkable in real life. Or they might just support Ferris, Kinnan, and Mouch because EvilIsCool.
42* SoBadItsGood: Even among Rand's fans, it's hard to find someone who will defend this book as good literature. That said, it offers a considerable amount of snark bait and unintentional comedy, especially the part about John Galt's overly long speech.
43* {{Squick}}: James Taggart and Lilian Reardens' sexual affair. Ergh. Gives one the screaming heebie-jeebies.
44* StrawmanHasAPoint:
45** Detractors of the book believe that James Taggart raises legitimately good points in his caricatured arguments.
46** Some readers may think that the "looters" in general have better ''ideas'' than the John Galt crew, even if they implement them horribly poorly. At least some of them seem to actually care about the poor, though their [[DirtyCommunists failed socialist policies]] only make things worse for them in practice; by contrast, in Galt's utopia charity is expressly ''[[DystopianEdict outlawed]]'', with its citizens actively ''forbidden'' from helping anyone who cannot support himself, their own wives and children being the sole exception recognized by the law. [[{{Hypocrite}} (Because, after all, it's fine for the government to make laws about how an individual can choose to freely use their money on philosophical grounds when Galt's the one doing it.)]]
47** Real-life left-wing authoritarian regimes, like the Soviet Union during its multimillion-death famines in the 1930s or the one in Venezuela as of 2019, usually blame their failed economies on [[ConspiracyTheorist evil capitalist spies and wreckers who sabotage their utopias.]] Predictably, the looters in ''Atlas Shrugged'' are no exception, blaming the Galtians for everything as America crumbles and grinds to a halt around them. However, this is actually more or less ''' ''[[NoMereWindmill exactly]]'' ''' what the heroes ''are actually doing'', ranging from massive industrial sabotage (Ellis Wyatt burning the oil fields, d'Anconia destroying the entire infrastructure for copper extraction) to outright terrorism (Ragnar Danneskjold predating the seas and bombarding Orren Boyle's industrial plant with battleship grade cannons and using the threat of more attacks to stop future production). So, in this case the paranoid socialists are actually ''completely right'' about this: there really ''is'' a powerful anti-leftist conspiracy out there trying to destroy them. John Galt thinks their regime would fail anyway (and Rand implies he is right), but at the very least, he and his friends are certainly not helping matters...
48** Hank Rearden designs a new and revolutionary bridge for the John Galt Line ''in a day''. There is no indication anywhere in the text that he has any experience in structural engineering at all. The fact that train drivers balk at being told to cross this structure is treated as proof of their small-mindedness, and not that they might conceivably have heard of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Bridge_disaster the Tay Bridge disaster]] - which ''was'' built by an experienced railway engineer, but one who didn't factor in Wind Loading, with appalling consequences.
49* TooBleakStoppedCaring: If you're not on board with Rand's philosophy, the book can fall into this. On one hand, you've got a FascistButInefficient government that ignores all evidence that their policies are destroying the nation. On the other side, you've got a CorruptCorporateExecutive and his followers who treat selfishness and greed as virtues and openly hope for and actively work to accelerate the total collapse of society so that they can build their idealized world order in their image on the ash heap that's left.
50* TearJerker: Eddie's last scene, as well as the deaths of Cherryl and the "Wet Nurse."
51* ValuesDissonance: Jim Taggart's marriage to Cherryl is portrayed negatively, due to factors such as Jim having [[FakeUltimateHero lied about his accomplishments]] to her, and eventually he is discovered to enjoy Cherryl's struggle and pain as she tries to understand him (and in the end, he commits adultery and drives her to suicide just ForTheEvulz). These are all very good reasons for the marriage being completely wrong... but the fact that Taggart is ''[[MayDecemberRomance 20 years older than Cherryl]]'' is not even mentioned. Rand had personal reasons not to speak out against MayDecemberRomance.
52* TheWoobie: Steel tycoon Hank Rearden, believe it or not. Watching his mental strain when dealing with his unsupportive family and wife, as well as the [[ObstructiveBureaucrat government's policies]] which seem to be designed solely to choke him off from doing what he loves best, just makes you feel sorry for him.
53** Also Eddie Willers, Cherryl Brooks, and some named companies headed by generally decent people (notably the Atlantic Southern, which suffers one undeserved financial blow after another due to the looters' policies) all end up being this.
54** Tony. Just when he starts understanding what's really going on, he gets killed in a staged union riot.
55
56!!For the films
57* BetterOnDVD: Many people, even if they disagree with a lot of Ayn Rand's political leanings have been quite patiently waiting for each film. The second one in particular has quite a few "more-from-the-book" [[DeletedScene Deleted Scenes]], too.
58* CriticalDissonance: 11% of critics liked the first film, while 69% of users on Website/RottenTomatoes did. The second film had a stupefying 4% on Rotten Tomatoes with 23 reviews and an average 3.2/10 score. Fans rated 60% with an average score of 3.4/5. The last film did not gather enough reviews to have a rating (although the 10 reviews it did gather were all negative), while 41% of audiences liked it, with an average rating of 2.8/5. Whether or not one likes the film might be related to whether or not one already agrees with it and its messages, or is a fan of the source material; the sampling bias is probably strongly weighted in favor of superfans who went out of their way to watch a critically panned and commercially unsuccessful movie while critics had to watch it regardless.
59* DontShootTheMessage: The reaction of a number of the book's fans to the film version. To some extent, the reaction of a number of Objectivists to the book as well. The movies deliver the book's message in a dull and incoherent way that makes it hard to understand or care if you didn't agree with its messages already.
60* ItWasHisSled: A man is convincing industrialists and other producers to vanish by convincing them that society is exploiting them. This was a twist in the book that didn't become clear till at least 500 pages in - the man's existence was unknown for much of the earlier parts, and once it was, he was portrayed as a "destroyer" who simply sought to attack industry. The film, however assumes that people already know this is the story's premise and reveals it in the official synopsis and opening scene. Indeed, Part II is even titled "The Strike."
61* OpinionMyopia: Critics gave all three movies abysmal reviews and all three were huge box office bombs, but ratings from general viewers tended to be mixed to positive. This can probably be chalked up to the fact critics ''have to'' watch them, the general public largely didn't care enough about the films or their subject matter to watch them, and the minority of laymen which ''did'' watch them and review them tend to be objectivists and/or superfans who already agree with its messages and would be much more likely to speak positively about the film.
62* QuestionableCasting:
63** In terms of the actresses who played Dagny, this trope went from averted (Taylor Schilling was generally agreed to be well-cast, and arguably even the best thing about the first film) to borderline (Samantha Mathis's performance in the second film was seen as decent, but a little too meek and vulnerable) to played straight (Laura Regan's acting in the third film was widely panned, although she was nearest to the literary Dagny in terms of physique).
64** Particularly glaring in the third film: Laura Regan, age 38, looks about 28. Joaquin de Almeida, playing Francisco, is 58 and looks older (the second part has him played by Esai Morales, who is more believable as a contemporary of Dagny with whom she had a romance as a teenager). Dagny's first lover becomes a lot creepier thanks to this casting...
65** In a more general sense, this is almost certainly the first film trilogy to have ''every'' major role played by a different person in all three films. It's understandable that some of the lead actors in the first film (Schilling in particular) had moved onto bigger and better things, but none of the minor actors wanted to return either? (The given explanation was that given the very low budget, they couldn't afford them because they were established and would therefore need a bigger salary.)
66* RetroactiveRecognition: Dagny in ''Part I'' is played by Creator/TaylorSchilling (in only her second-ever film role) before she became famous for ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack''.
67* {{Sequelitis}}: Both critic and audience reviews went down with each film, as did the budgets and the box office gross.
68* SoOkayItsAverage: A few critics, like Creator/RogerEbert, expected to tear apart the first film's philosophy point by point, and thus hate the film utterly. Instead, they found themselves simply bored, not angry, [[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/atlas-shrugged-2011 and unable to discern what the film's message was]]. (Ebert didn't review the second film, and didn't live to see the third.)

Top