Atlas Shrugged getting several movies

True, for parts of it. For other parts it seems that the characters don't have much of an identifiable motivation, or at least not one that lends itself to good storytelling.

A key question for any character is, "What do they want?" If what Rearden wants is to make money, and he starts out as a zillionaire, well then congratulations! Now what?

Actually I think a good deconstruction of Randian philosophy would start with the question of, "And Then What??" Even at the end of the book, the Strikers are looking out over the ruined landscape of the USA and saying that now they'll come back. Come back to what? Where will they go? Do they think the world will welcome them back with open arms? Who would trust them? Would you go to work for somebody who you knew had already said Screw This, I'm Outta Here when they don't get their way?

And maybe this is more apt to a discussion of the book, but was Rand totally ignorant of the long-standing cooperative relationships between politicians and wealthy industrialists? Especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries?

"And what" is a slightly redundant question, because the means was an end unto itself. Domination over everything, with the ultimate triumph being the collapse of everyone who's not John Galt.

I suppose. . . "and then we will build a society according to the Right Ideals this time, to stand as an eternal monument to our(my) greatness"?

Rand doesn't really believe in a society, though—just individuals who can help themselves.

In an "ideal" Randian "utopia", people (at the very least, the most powerful people in business and production who would already have the greatest advantage in such a "utopia") would essentially act as their own nation-state (and, consequently, flourish or crumble accordingly).

edited 1st Aug '13 11:57:57 AM by SeanMurrayI

And that of course leads to the paradox that such industrialists can't exist except in a society with a government, laws, courts, monetary system, advanced means of production, etc. etc. And these things are only functionally possible with government regulation and supervision. You can't form a corporation unless there are laws saying you can.

Rand may have said that she was morally opposed to the use of fraud and force, but without a government in place to say "no", inevitably businesses will resort to the use of fraud and force.

I really haven't seen many pro-Randian people who can spell out precisely which government "regulation" they disagree with and why. Unless they're willing to outright say they oppose labor unions, workers' compensation, minimum wage and overtime, pollution controls, anti-discrimination laws, and so on.

Well, in theory you could have an anarcho-capitalist system, but that has its own problems ( notably, it probably can't work if the society is dominated by Randians ). The core issue is that a lot of things governments do are pragmatically necessary, and even if you solve the same problems via non-government means, it'd end up being far more efficient to use governmental means ( common power pooled for common interest ).

And people are naturally social animals. A group of people acting together can accomplish a lot more than one person acting alone, regardless of how talented that one person is. Governments are just one means through which a group may act collectively.

Really, a person's "right" to life, liberty and property are utterly meaningless without some means of enforcing them. If you can't call the police or go to the courts if your rights are threatened, then for all practical purposes they don't exist.

The true message of Atlas Shrugged is this: Utopia works if it's inhabited by perfect people. Galt Gulch and its little capitalist paradise will succeed because the people are perfect and won't abuse the system they create. Likewise, a communist paradise will work if the people don't abuse that system.

Having seen Part 1, it was just boring and slow. In the novel the characters are just barely decent enough, and the villains are cartoonishly vile enough, that you want to see them succeed. That didn't make it into the movie. I do like Rearden in the novel, he's not a deep character but he's likable. The actor playing him was just smug. He wasn't the brave man standing by his ethics he's the arrogant asshole who knows better.

The source material is ridden with problems as is and the films aren't doing it any favors.

I hope Part 3 completely replaces the cast again. Three full casts of actors to tell Rand's story? Priceless.

edited 1st Aug '13 3:44:11 PM by Rotpar

Part 3 should go straight for the jugular and cast all A-listers.

That's not the message of Atlas Shrugged. That's just the problem with utopias in general, that they can only work in a bubble where several often impossible conditions have to be met.

For Randroids, the idea is that it's impossible to implement their utopia on any sort of nationwide, countywide, or even citywide scale without there likely being an immense re-emergence of some kind of feudal serf class. However, just limiting the idealized vision to a couple dozen people "going Galt" and starting up some sort of antithesis of a hippie compound or as some unspoken code of conduct for the few and far-between isolated, individual survivors of a global catastrophe that wipes out close to the entire world population simplifies the entire discussion.

Two things on which to keep up to date:

• (1) The Other Wiki reports that filming is due to take place this Autumn (I'd estimate 30+ shooting days due to start sometime in October) in order to get the film ready for a release on the 4th of July, 2014.
• (2) Not even a partial cast list has yet been released on the movie's IMDb page

Principally, this already tells us that nobody from Part II's ensemble cast worked out any kind of agreement to reprise their roles in an eventual Part III when they signed on for the previous movie; otherwise, those cast members would already have those credits appearing on that IMDb page. Even if the producers were to approach any of the actors from Part II, they'd have to work out brand new contracts with those people, which can be a hassle in the sort of circumstances that these movies are being made and is something that shouldn't be settled at the last minute.

Assuming there's any chance of this movie beginning principal photography on time, at least, two months from now, I'd say that with each passing day there's no cast list, I'd expect it to become increasingly more likely that Part III will have yet another completely new ensemble.

Well, yes, that's my point. To have a perfect society, everybody in it has to already be perfect.

Well, here's hoping they have problems and need a new gang of actors.

Hell, they still haven't even lined up or announced a director for Part III. Again, they're supposedly two months away from principal photography.

And even if they do manage to put somebody at the helm with enough time to prepare for an Autumn shoot, there's apparently no guarantee that the director's position would be safe.

To reiterate something I pointed out a couple of months ago, in John Aglialoro's determined quest to find the right "professional" and "collaborative" director, he doesn't have qualms with swapping people out of the director's seat and finding somebody else (presumably, even in the middle of the film shoot and at the risk of bringing the principal photography phase to a screeching halt while Aglialoro looks for a replacement) if he sees fit.

In fact, making this intent public (we already know he said it in a production meeting that was filmed and put up on Youtube; it's also mentioned in their regular e-mail newsletters and Part III's Wikipedia article) CAN'T be helping the production in their search to find a director (let alone the "right" one) to commit to this. If anybody being approached for this project knows that the guy putting the money up for it thinks it's "fine" to hire and fire multiple people (let alone hire 6 and fire 5) for a single short-term job, that should leave next to nobody who is actually "professional" or "collaborative" in the application pool for the production to choose from.

edited 2nd Aug '13 10:39:26 AM by SeanMurrayI

I haven't read much Rand. And I don't have much to add. But: everyone's been dancing around this issue for a few pages.

Was Atlas Shrugged not prescient? After all, the setting is dated but the possibilities aren't. Free markets allow for vast corporations to adjust prices so most people can't pay them. The service economy is on its last legs, being replaced by traders wiring money between accounts. Does Monsanto need us? We need them. Do banks need us? Telephone companies? Big Pharma?

You might argue that it's a parasite-host relationship. That one party can't live without the other. But I don't get that impression. I think a lot of companies have "gone Galt", can afford to sit on their liquidity and charge whatever they like.

That question has been posed ever since the book was written. And I, for one, have been trying to avoid directly discussing the philosophical/moral/economic aspects of the book because this thread isn't about that, although there isn't a dedicated AS thread in the Literature section.

For my two cents, I think Rand was projecting the future as she saw it growing up during the rise of the USSR and wrote with a view to an extreme backlash at the prevailing rhetoric of the time.

I think Stephen Colbert referenced AS in one episode regarding the current economic downturn. Apparently a lot of people were reading it. "That's right. Things are so bad, Americans are actually reading," he said.

Colbert also dedicated half a segment to Part I a couple of weeks after its initial release.

"America, you must see 'Atlas Shrugged'. Do it for John Aglialoro. Do it for Ayn Rand... because they would not do it for you."

Ha, ha. He also points out that the things the "heroes" say in the film would make them villains anywhere else.

He should've said, "''Atlas Shrugged! As enjoyed by Anne Hathaway."

(Which she compared with the ultra-liberal Bush administration.)

edited 3rd Aug '13 12:53:00 PM by johnnyfog

Isn't Rand's whole moral philosophy wildly contradictory? If you place your own well-being and material prosperity as your highest value, then everything else, by definition, must come after. That includes things like being honest and refraining from violence. But Rand also condemns those who live by fraud and force.

Consider, put Ayn Rand in the position of a CEO. Hypothetically, suppose she could drive the company into the ground, bankrupt it, leave hundreds of employees without anything, and parachute out herself with $50 million. Suppose her scheme to do this would involve accounting fraud, but she knows that if done properly, she wouldn't get caught. Would she do it? Should she do it? Must she do it?

Which value do you choose? Your own well-being, or honesty?

I'm not exactly knowledgeable on the subject, but I'd imagine it's a bit of a distortion to put it so simply.

I think that Ayn Rand would say that fraud and short-sightedness is wrong, as its not *creating* anything. Selfishness is glorified in the sense that any obligation to help others is rejected, but not every selfish act is treated equally.

The problem is, Objectivism fails to come up with any good way to *avoid* having just such short-sighted self destructive acts happen. Which ironically means it fails as an economic model for exactly the same reason Communism fails.

Not quite, Communism fails because it has no mechanism for ensuring that everyone works for the common interest. Objectivism fails because situations where if everyone works for their own best interest everyone loses exist. While they are effectively the same in practice, the former cannot reach its desired state, while the latter fails even upon reaching its desired state.

Yes. The difference is that communism, if successful, would create a better world. Objectivism, if successful, would create a terrible world.

Granted I have never read Atlas Shrugged because anything that has a continuous six hour preach speech gets a less than enthusiastic response from me but from what I do know it seems like Rand got so caught up in believing she was right that she never stopped to actually think her philosophy all the way through.

Like an incompetent Friedrich Nietzsche or George Orwell who was no fun to hang out with.

edited 11th Sep '13 12:26:32 AM by Canid117

A major problem with her literature, specifically AS, but also The Fountainhead (which I haven't read personally) is her enthusiastic use of the Strawman Political and Alternate History.

I think I posted this in the Headscratchers page before, but perhaps it bears repeating. Atlas Shrugged takes place in a clearly alternate timeline. The movies begin in late 2016, but the way the government is set up bears little to no resemblance to the way the US government today is organized.

For example you have agencies like the Unification Board and the Bureau of Economic Planning that seem to have plenary power to act as economic dictators without any sort of oversight or restriction. They can even put people on trial and pass sentence. There's a "Head of State" who can rule by edict, and the various state governments are pretty vaguely organized.

Some of her points could be taken as a criticism of the modern "Agency State" or "Administrative State" that started to come into being during FDR's New Deal. Although I don't know if Rand had that in mind I have read things by her modern supporters that say her work was prescient of that.

You might want to back that statement up with some explanations.