I don't know whether to cheer, laugh, or cry. Loved the book . . . but a low budget movie? Early reviews say that it's rather amateurish, but that it sticks with the novel. It's supposed to be a trilogy. Probably should've went for an HBO mini-series.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
The actress who plays Dagny used to play a nurse in a short-lived tv series called Mercy. The nurse was constantly putting herself in harm's way to save others. Dagny would not approve.
Posted by Selran (Member # 9918) on :
Why didn't they make it a period piece? The story makes no sense set in the modern world.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I can't imagine any Randian agreeing with that, Selran. Posted by Selran (Member # 9918) on :
I wasn't saying anything about the books philosophy.
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
I think a modern version would almost make MORE sense.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Amanecer: The actress who plays Dagny used to play a nurse in a short-lived tv series called Mercy. The nurse was constantly putting herself in harm's way to save others. Dagny would not approve.
I guess we must have been watching different shows. Veronica put herself in harm's way in order to do what she thought was right. Dagny would absolutely approve.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Selran: Why didn't they make it a period piece? The story makes no sense set in the modern world.
It could be a giant troll to get libertarians and objectivists behind high-speed rail in the US.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Veronica put herself in harm's way in order to do what she thought was right. Dagny would absolutely approve.
Except that it's a rare conversation that I've ever had with anyone who claims to be a real, serious fan of Rand (stories or philosophies) where that sort of...altruism isn't eventually scorned and considered possibly worse than just letting them suffer consequences of whatever would've happened.
Not an objective study or anything, but then we're talking about a fictitious philosophy that operates on enormous leaps of faith, so I'm comfortable with that.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
quote:Veronica put herself in harm's way in order to do what she thought was right. Dagny would absolutely approve.
In Veronica's hierarchy of values, her own wellbeing generally fell far below the wellbeing of pretty much anybody else. Ayn Rand had few good words for such a value system.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Amanecer:
quote:Veronica put herself in harm's way in order to do what she thought was right. Dagny would absolutely approve.
In Veronica's hierarchy of values, her own wellbeing generally fell far below the wellbeing of pretty much anybody else. Ayn Rand had few good words for such a value system.
Like I said, we must have been watching different shows, because that's not what I saw at all.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I guess we'll probably come to the 'it's her wellbeing because it makes her feel better, thus not really altruism' argument. That being the only cogent Objectivist method of dealing with the problem of genuinely altruistic people. Or at least the only one I can think of right now-I may have heard of others, but cannot recall them at the moment.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
Leonard Peikoff, Rand's heir and founder of the Ayn Rand Institute:
quote:Q: During the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech College, there was a professor, a holocaust survivor, who blocked a door against the shooter so that his students could escape safely. And although he died in the process, the students did escape. Is this an act of altruism that Objectivism classifies as immoral?
A: No. As you present it, it was a heroic act in defense of the professor’s values.
Assuming a professor does not have reason to despise his students, then they are a value to him…
By contrast, and assuming no special personal attachments among the students, if one student decided to risk his life to save the others, I would regard that as highly dubious morally; in fact, I would think him weird. (Emphasis added.) If he has no grounds, personal or professional, to value the lives of these students so highly as to risk self-destruction, then, according to Objectivism, his action is altruistic and, as such, immoral.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
This is out and probably totally horrible fyi
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: This is out and probably totally horrible fyi
I'll be interested in seeing what The Market decides.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
The Market don't seem to like it too much. I wonder if a rating in Battlefield Earth territory of awfulness will serve as a sign that it's actually bad, or if that won't be enough. Heck, I wonder at the rating compared to the proportion of Americans who self-identify as Libertarians or Objectivists, and how much the rating exceeds that number-if at all.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
The turfers hired by the studio and some other groups are right now apparently in a campaign trying to get people to load user ratings and comments pages for movie reviewers with positive comments and statements that this movie has succeeded despite the liberal media super hegemony's conspiracy to bring it down.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
for just like a hundred sixty dollars you too can own this ugly as sin bracelet ~*from the movie*~
Wow. Reading the reviews, especially the meta-reviews, the Rand fans are handling the whole ratings thing exactly like the Scientologists.
There must be some maxim that applies to this phenomenon - the sneering, dismissive response of acolytes to any criticism of anything even tangentially related to the focus of their zealotry.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
So, "Eeef You I got Mine" the movie?
Posted by Ace of Spades (Member # 2256) on :
Eeef?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: There must be some maxim that applies to this phenomenon - the sneering, dismissive response of acolytes to any criticism of anything even tangentially related to the focus of their zealotry.
Cognitive dissonance. Deliciously ironic in cases like these.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
ooo, maybe this is a good time to submit my poem that uses "Rearden Metal" as a metaphor...
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
If I turn the movie into a drinking game, I will be provided free booze for the inaugural watching. I hope I can get hold of a copy soon.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
Make it an endurance contest. See who can watch the longest before they need to take a drink (or five).
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: This is out and probably totally horrible fyi
Spoken like someone who hasn't seen it. It was actually pretty good. It kind of hurt when it got to the end. I would rather have sat there for another 3-4 hours to finish it. But I was quite impressed. I'm glad they didn't use big name stars; it would have overshadowed the story.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: Wow. Reading the reviews, especially the meta-reviews, the Rand fans are handling the whole ratings thing exactly like the Scientologists.
There must be some maxim that applies to this phenomenon - the sneering, dismissive response of acolytes to any criticism of anything even tangentially related to the focus of their zealotry.
I haven't seen any. I mean, the movie wasn't perfect, but it was cool to watch. I'd love to know how it came across to someone who's never read the book (not someone who is already prejudiced against the philosophy or the book, since they won't be looking at it with an open mind).
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by MattP: There must be some maxim that applies to this phenomenon - the sneering, dismissive response of acolytes to any criticism of anything even tangentially related to the focus of their zealotry.
Cognitive dissonance. Deliciously ironic in cases like these.
You can see the irony on the other side as well, right? The sneering, dismissive response of... well, you, really, to any suggestion that there might be something of merit either in Objectivism or in the film. Look in a mirror, boys.
Posted by Ginol_Enam (Member # 7070) on :
I have never read he book, nor do I have any deep knowledge of (even a passing knowledge, really) or any predisposition towards Ayn Rand's philosophies or beliefs. However, based on the trailer, this movie looks horrible. I have no interest in seeing it for entertainment and even less for an education on "Randian" philosophies. The book is probably better, I'm sure.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I'd love to know how it came across to someone who's never read the book (not someone who is already prejudiced against the philosophy or the book, since they won't be looking at it with an open mind).
I've never read the book and I'm certainly prejudiced against the philosophy, but I don't see that being an obstacle to determining whether the movie is compelling as a piece of art or entertainment. I'm certainly prejudiced against religious philosophy and that hasn't thus far been an obstacle to enjoying movies that include religious themes provided they are actually, you know, good.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: You can see the irony on the other side as well, right?
The irony based on the trailer not looking horrible to practically anyone neutral to objectivism? Or the irony based on this movie coming out and not being reviewed and scored worse than Avatar: The Last Airbender? Because if not, then you've completely missed what irony I'm talking about (and are, doubtlessly, part of it in addition).
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
addendum: meow hiss hiss oh how cute they're fighting again!!
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
This thread title is still giving me very funny visual images. When i first read it I was like "Ayn Rand does ecstasy?" Still hasn't gotten old. Ha. It makes me wonder how prevalent objectivists are in the club scene.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
I think any movie that's actually only 1/3 of a movie will suffer from such a setup. If it wasn't for the cult popularity, it would have no chance. But since it does have the cult popularity, it might succeed. I found the book extremely compelling when I was a teen and while I no longer buy in to a lot of the assumptions/ conclusions that Rand makes, I'd love to rent the movie when it comes to DVD and refresh my memory a bit.
I think the mockery leveled against the movie is somewhat missing the point. Atlas Shrugged never succeeded on most typical literary levels- it was a vehicle for selling a philosophy and quite a good one. That's what the movie is trying to be too, so why mock it for not being something it's not really trying to be?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:I think the mockery leveled against the movie is somewhat missing the point. Atlas Shrugged never succeeded on most typical literary levels- it was a vehicle for selling a philosophy and quite a good one. That's what the movie is trying to be too, so why mock it for not being something it's not really trying to be?
Pff, no. You could have made a pretty amazing movie out of Atlas Shrugged. Yes, it would have all the silliness of the movie being used as a contrived fantasy vessel for the vindication of her theories, but hey.
Instead, we get this:
quote:About to lose his long-held rights to Ayn Rand’s novel, and perhaps to cash in on apparent Tea Party interest and support, producer John Aglialoro (the CEO of Cybex International in Medway) rushed this film into a low-budget production and it shows in every frame. Even fans of Rand’s 1957 antigovernment manifesto may balk at having to endure dialogue that would be banal on the Lifetime channel, along with wooden performances, particularly from Taylor Schilling as rail tycoon Dagny Taggart, and a tedious plot that reduces political and high finance machinations to boring dinner table patter.
Even Reason.com, an objectivist/free market site that devotedly followed the production of this movie and produced a video diary about it, has given up the ghost on this one and admitted it's bad.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:Wealthy industrialist Henry Reardon (Grant Bowler) joins forces with like-minded entrepreneur Taggart to bring a high-speed train through Colorado despite government attempts to thwart their ingenuity.
I'm currently reading the book, because I said I would, and it's apparent to me that Rand's whole argument about how railroads are an example of a business that should be profitable in its own right is probably a major reason why the Rand/libertarian/conservative types are so dead set against high speed rail. She shoots her own argument in the foot.
Also, it's apparent in almost every sentence that Rand's thin skin was still chafing from the criticism she received for "The Fountainhead." Everything she says is a rationale for her philosophy, and the story could have been told with about 1/10 the words if she just let the narrative flow. But she's too busy making long winded explanations of how Reardon made his miraculous metal by the strength of his character.... plus ten years, a million dollars, and the help of his staff.. but oh, because his staff kept insisting it couldn't be done, it obviously wasn't their achievement, it must be his. And also convenient that the government funded institute that was trying to develop a new metal at the same time and spent 10 times as much, but wasn't able to achieve anything at all. Nice how these things work out the way the author intends them to.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
I also think John Galt might be Ra's al Ghul.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
I just don't get how anyone (okay, anyone but Lisa) can look at those movie previews and think "hey, this movie looks fantastic"!
I am looking forwards to the drinking game though.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I can admit that I have biases that lead me to believe the movie will suck. But I would have still been happy if it turned out to be a good movie.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
Do you mean thinking that the book was not likely to result in a good movie? I have heard fans of the book say that its probably true for the later half of the story but the first third could still have been well done.
I don't care about the book, for me it was just seeing the dry, stiffly acted sequences in the previews and the cheap setpieces and immediately feeling how rushed and barebones the production is. Finding out the circumstances of the movies production helps make sense of how it happened the way it did. But I still have yet to see it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Well the forums just gobbled my post. In short,
Family member, owns own business, obsessed with Atlas Shrugged and The Goal (A novel about a factory being turned around by super manager). Rumored to be renting a theater, and requiring all employees to watch movie. I'm sick of this phase he is in. I hope it stops.
A former employer of mine here in Utah was strongly encouraging executives to attend Landmark and paid for tuition. When it was pointed out that the LDS church had counseled members to avoid organizations of that sort they backed down.
sounds like LDS is straight-up no-go with freemasons membership.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Why was the Landmark thing relevant? (I actually wanted to discuss Landmark but don't see why this thread is the place to do it)
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
Raymond Arnold, the link I posted was in direct response to BlackBlade's post, which was the one above it.
BlackBlade had posted in frustration about a family member taken by a certain ideological ideal (in this case, Ayn Rand, etc.) and requiring all his employees to participate in the communal expression of that ideology (the movie at a theatre he rented). I commiserated and commented that it reminded me of a similar situation where I live -- a painful ongoing experience for this city -- where the CEO of a company essentially forces the employees to attend Landmark.
That brief aside may have started a turn in the thread. If it did, that is well within the culture here. We call it "thread drift."*** It is also well within the culture to try to redirect the conversation in a path you want it to go (including back to the prior discussion) or to start your own thread. Either is fine. Do what you want, so long as it is within TOS.
---
***Edited to add: Egads, the last bit sounds snotty/condescending. Just now noticed you have been around a few years -- my apologies! I thought you were new, and that is why I was going into detailed explanation, which I now see you doubtlessly already knew.
You are in good company. I just explained to my husband a piece of information that he has, in fact, covered in his teaching to classes at university. Oops. Sorry, sweetheart.
It has been a stellar night.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
CT: Interestingly enough, this same family member was quite taken with some sort of program that sounds exactly like Landmark. He pushed a lot of us to try it out with him, but I for myself politely declined. It just didn't sound right when he went into particulars. When church leadership came out against such groups, I was glad to see talk of trying that program out stop.
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
BlackBlade, I am sure some people who go to Landmark get what they want out of it. That's great. I don't think I would, and I have concerns about the level of pressure to enroll others which seems to be endemic to the program.
It's on my list of advise against, should anyone ask my opinion.
You and I can go read a good speculative fiction book instead.
--------
Raymond, your name is now perfectly familiar to me. I don't know what I was thinking, other than to note I was just coming off a migraine when I read your post. (The ibuprofen was kicking in.)
Good thing I don't drive when I'm having one.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
CT: Maybe, I haven't attended Landmark, and I can't be sure the format my family member was raving about is the same thing, but it employed similar principles.
My biggest objection was the principle of ripping somebody apart emotionally and even somewhat physically then building them up again from scratch.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Landmark has you confessing all the bad things you've ever done to the other Landmarkees, followed by apologizing to everyone you've ever wronged, typically over the phone and on the spot. It is very much a tear you down and rebuild you sort of thing.
That said, I do know one person who came out of that, if not a better person, then at least a much easier person to work with. But he started as an extraordinary jerk. Perhaps it's just a regression to the mean phenomenon.
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: My biggest objection was the principle of ripping somebody apart emotionally and even somewhat physically then building them up again from scratch.
No quibble from me there.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Not to interrupt the thread drift (yes, landmark sucks) but the official title for the drinking game is going to be "atlas chugged"
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I have a friend who went to Landmark. She called me up one day and said "so, Ray, I joined a cult!" She explained the structure of the weekend. She identified the "cult-like" qualities, but did so in a value-neutral way.
She said some people in the audience got completely transformed. She just walked away with some new tools, but she found it a very powerful experience that was worth having at least once in her life.
One thing I've been wondering about is the power that comes from communal experiences. They can be extremely dangerous, but they also seem to offer things that can't really be found elsewhere.
From what I can tell, the only thing that makes Landmark ethically questionable is that they do their sales pitch AFTER breaking you down psychologically and rebuilding you in their image. I don't know if there's a way to actually legislate this, but I think transactions should require consent and at the end of a Landmark weekend, you aren't able to give it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by CT: ***Edited to add: Egads, the last bit sounds snotty/condescending. Just now noticed you have been around a few years -- my apologies! I thought you were new, and that is why I was going into detailed explanation, which I now see you doubtlessly already knew.
You are in good company. I just explained to my husband a piece of information that he has, in fact, covered in his teaching to classes at university. Oops. Sorry, sweetheart.
It has been a stellar night.
You are not alone either. I once introduced someone to his own roommate.
"Atlas Chugged" is brilliant.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
from inbetween a lot of the obviously turfed reviews
quote:Is the actor's portrayal of Dagny wooden? Dagny is the embodiment of Rand's ideal, an inhuman creature without compromise or compassion. Wooden yes! But that is not a defect in the acting or script! She is RANDs character, accurately realized on the screen.
ok well then good job objectivism
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Movie is a flop, exercise equipment CEO bows before Power Of The Market and vows to quit, currently out $16+ million, schadenfreude shockafella, or whatever.
quote:Despite the objective fact that Ayn Rand is the finest philosopher in history and the greatest novelist ever born, "Atlas Shrugged," the film version of her magnum opus, is not doing very well at the box office. After a very good opening weekend in limited release, "Atlas Shrugged: Part 1" quickly sank upon opening in more theaters.
And so its producer, an exercise equipment company CEO (I mean a DYNAMIC PRIME MOVER) who spent $20 million of his own money to finally put Rand's vision on the big screen, is giving up. The film will not expand to 1,000 screens. The second part of the trilogy will not be produced. (That is the real shame, here: The second part is where hundreds of people die horrifically of asphyxiation. And the best part is that they all totally deserve it for being "looters.") (No one will miss part three, which would've just been a three-hour-long speech.)
And so John Aglialoro, the film's producer, will "go Galt" and retire to the desert, where his ability to manage a company that produces exercise equipment will allow him to create the perfect society:
Back in that first wonderful weekend, when the film briefly looked like a success, the Randians were all convinced that the disdain of critics -- the ultimate looters -- meant nothing. The combined forces of liberal Hollywood, which conspired to keep the film from being made because of their insane devotion to collectivism, were no match for the truth of Rand's words made animate!
Now, though, those stupid critics ruined everything. Damn those all-powerful film critics! Even America's hedge fund managers are no match for their wizardry!
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