Hell, I had to get the Cliff Notes version of this damned thing when I was assigned to read it in college!
To me it was like reading fargin’ Dianetics!
Am I gonna be able to watch it on the screen if I hated it in print? 
Thanks
Q
Inferior beings cant stand the truth, only glorious Randists can bask in its revealing light. The light of self importance.
Ah rest mah case!:):)
Pour me another Tequila, Sheila and let me read some Greg Iles!
Q
I see it will be a multi-part film. I suppose the end of part I through part III will be taken up by that lovely speech that drives the nail through your eye over the point of the narrative until you’re lobotomized?
A college professor actually had you read that piece of crap? Good grief.
Why would you want to?
I read the book. It was a difficult read for me, even though I have been made very aware by posters on this board that the book is not only garbage, but also not a difficult read at all, so go figure. I am looking forward to the movie.
<shrug>
The quality of this movie is going to be exactly what the book deserves.
The free market has spoken.
I played Bioshock, is that enough?
You read that thing? I could not get past the first chapter. It’s dreck…the writing style is horrible.
Really. I mean, one would imagine that if you detested it, there would not be much hope a faithful adaptation would be any better, save that the cinematography and the acting performances were so excellent that they got to you in spite of the plot. OTOH one may WANT to look at this adaptation to see if his problem was just with the prose style. But if you just hated it, why risk compounding the misery?
How did you like the film of The Foutainhead, ?
Why not go watch a trailer for it and see what you think?
I thought it looked pretty meh, but then I didn’t like the book either.
One thing I noticed that comes out much more strongly in a visual medium than in a book: how odd it seems these days to have a militant hymn to capitalist individualism centered around the industry of, you know, trains.
Nowadays, trains are kind of an icon of un-American collectivist thinking, right? Mass transit! Government subsidies! Amtrak! Old-fashioned infrastructure pork-barrelling! Environmentalist car-haters! Socialist European nationalized industries!
I guess back in 1957 Ayn Rand just didn’t foresee how dominant the interstate highway system would become, or how thoroughly cars would take over as a symbol of capitalist individualism. She was harking back to the great railroad barons of the 19th century as embodiments of the power of free enterprise.
It was a difficult read for me, too; I wouldn’t say I liked the book, but I was glad I had read it; it introduced me (I was very young when I read it) to ideas I had never encountered before. I am somewhat interested in the film; it could be more accessible than the book.
Not to mention that Steinbeck had claimed Route 66 several years earlier.
If all Rand’s superfluous description is stripped away, along with the needless repetition of her talking points, Atlas Shrugged contains a novella-length story that could be entertaining; whether you agree with her philosophical/political points or not. A watchable 90-minute movie could be made from that novella. Multiple full-length movies tells me, right away, that the cinematic version will be as bloated, repetitious, and boring as the book.
I think it’s not a difficult read if you read it during that very brief window of your youth when you’re like, “Oh maaaaaaaan this makes SO MUCH SENSE! This is sheer genius!” (*)
If you get to it after that window has (blessedly) closed, you’re like “What the fuck? People have actually made it to the end of this thing? I am going to use it as a doorstop.”
(*) I realize this isn’t a universal thing, but I’ve heard enough other people say they had a brief, silly Ayn Rand phase in their youth that I think it’s not just me. Pretty sure anyway. Ha, ha, it’s not just me, right guys?
I went through a brief, silly Ayn Rand phase during my youth.
There is no way to predict whether or not a film will be any good, based on the quality of the book. And there is certainly no way to predict whether a particular viewer will like it.
As for the book, I thought it was an easy read. Long, but easy. I’m looking forward to the movie.
As for why it was so repetitive, Rand answered that question herself: (paraphrasing) “In my previous books, people kept missing the point. So I had to hammer it home as strongly as possible. And they still keep missing it.”