Many people see Objectivism as a “religion”.
Sure. But Objectivists make up a tiny minority of people who read and enjoyed her books.
So no, I don’t buy Dio’s classification of this film as a “hardcore religious movie”. Whether The Passion of The Christ is one… I’ll leave that for a thread about that film.
I just wanted to say this term always messes with me. I always think it means followers of James Randi.
Oh, and my interpretation of Rand’s philosophy comes from what I’ve seen her followers say it means. Her philosophy leads to people believing that anything not in your own self interest is wrong. If you can convince yourself that giving to others isn’t moral, you remove the one thing that keeps people giving. She is trying to abolish the inner conflict between selfishness and selflessness, when that very conflict is what we need to survive. It is that conflict that makes giving something that makes you happy. It does eventually wind up meaning what Dio says it means.
Also, I’ve never met anyone who enjoyed her books who did not agree with her philosophy. It seems to be one of those things that you can’t even enjoy “ironically.”
That’s silly. Even the most nominal Christians go to church on Easter. The only Christians I know who would not watch this film were fundies: they either didn’t believe in R-rated movies, movies altogether, or didn’t want to subsidize an “evil” Catholic.
I always confuse it with the Raelians, especially since Rands detractors usually use it while describing her followers as a cult. I’ve read entire paragraphs of text thinking a Randian refered to a type of UFO worshiper before the context finally made it clear I was confusing the two.
I don’t think so. I think they’d be hyper-critical of anything that wasn’t true to the novel. If the quality of production is so low that it adversely affects the message (and it sounds like this is the case), there’ll be hell to pay.
Hell hath no fury like an Objectivist scorned.
The movie expanded into 465 theaters this weekend, more than double what it played in last week, but the gross dropped by an estimated 47 percent to $879,000.
Even with DVD sales, I can’t see that they’re going to even break even making less then a million per weekend. They’ve only grossed 3 million so far with a 20 million production budget. I think my initial prediction was right, we aren’t going to see a Part II.
The people shrugged…and went on with their lives. 
I agree. This doesn’t bode well for the following parts. They might drum up investors for the second part, partly among true believers who might be willing to take a loss for the message, but it doesn’t seem likely. Condensing the second two parts into a second movie might be a wise move-- that might allow finishing the story, which would save face.
Wouldn’t taking a loss for the message be completely contradictory to the message?
golf clap well played
No? She expressed contempt for “today’s mawkish concern with and compassion for the feeble, the flawed, the suffering, the guilty…” She said “selfless service…is not a virtue.”
That’s awesome, because so did I.
I think it gave the director more room for creativity to not be encumbered by having to deal with historical consistencies, even if it’s staged in an alternate past, which is why he chose to go with the distant future, the year 2016.
No, though its telling that you think so.
Only if you have a very superficial understanding of Objectivism.
The philosophy is more about doing the thing you believe is right, than it is about profit optimization. For instance, in the Fountainhead, the hero makes architecture the way he believes it should look, even though few people will hire him for that.
It has nothing to do with “doing right.” The whole thing is a rationale for selfishness.
Is it possible that anyone ever honestly believes that doing what is best for self is ultimately what is best for society? Or is everyone who claims to believe that only rationalizing selfishness.
I liked this movie. The book gave me trouble, but the movie, I ate up with a spoon. Parts of it were so contrived as to be laughable (the way they talked Reardon and Dagney spoke to eachother when they found the motor stuff was so obviously one of those things where the actors take time to explain things to the audience as if they were idiots.)
But, I was entertained. I regret to hear murmurings in this thread that they may not make the other films.