But can you make the first third interesting in one paragraph? Unlike The Lord Of The Rings, this book doesn’t divide up nicely into three parts. Can you give me a paragraph synopsis of only the first third of the book, and make it something worth filming?
You’re overstating the mystery, adventure and romantic elements. Science fiction I’d agree with.
Well, technically Atlas Shrugged divides very nicely into three parts, since that’s what it’s split into.
How about something like this:
“The world is falling apart. It’s a battle for the nation’s survival between the parasitic, bureaucratic looters and the productive men and women of the mind–and the looters are winning. Dagny Taggart, the beautiful woman who runs a transcontinental railroad, must fight not only against the looters, but against her fellow producers who are slowly disappearing, whisked away by a mysterious destroyer who vowed to stop the motor of the world. Dagny’s obsession, along with genius inventor and fellow industrialist Hank Rearden, becomes finding the destroyer and stopping him–but first she has to discover his motives and his methods, and withstand the pull of the man who is depriving the world of its motive power one mind at at time.”
I fudged a little bit since obviously Dagny doesn’t actually meet John Galt until much later on–and I think the blurb could benefit from some mention of the love quadrangle between Hank, Dagny, Francisco, and Galt, but I couldn’t work that out without it sounding a bit cheesy. But hey, if you want to bring in folks who don’t know the book, you’ve got to play up the romance/sex/action/adventure and play down the philosophy. Rand would probably spin in her grave at that, though. 
Not only that, but *We the Living *ends with the heroine attempting to sneak across an international border.
I guess “steampunk” wouldn’t apply to to an alternate 1950s. Atompunk? Spacepunk? Ikepunk?
Dude, I don’t even think the Cannes selection could be deserved to be called “movies” anymore. The most social, boring, progressive, documentary tripe it is, the better chance it has to win the Palme d’Or.
It’s hard not to be a reactionary when we went from “Apocalypse Now” and “Taxi Driver” to “Entre [del]Lémures[/del] les murs”, some documentary about ethnic blockheads in modern Frankistan.
Well I for one will see the movie, if it comes close to the DC area. Can’t remember exactly how the book is divided so can’t give a summary of the first third.
My shot:
“In the face of growing apathy in a failing America, two industrial leaders fall in love during an attempt to keep their world from collapsing. Even though they succeed, by the end of the first movie the seeds of their destruction have been planted by the increasing opposition of a shady cabal of government leaders, lead by the brother of one of the industrialists.”
To be honest, AS has too many Alpha Male characters and any successful movie would likely roll HR/JG/Fd’A into a maximum of two people. I would say that Galt and d’Anconia (sp?) could easily be rolled into one guy - Galt is a bore anyway and his removal would undoubtably help the film.
Keeping Hank the same would probably be OK - you’d end up with a love triangle where the female protagonist fell in love with Guy #1 and, in the tradition of guys everywhere, turns into an asshole after they sleep together. Breaking up with him, she turns to guy #2 as her bounce-back… but Guy #1 isn’t really an asshole (something the audience may be aware of) and he still pines after his first and only love… a love he sacrificed for a noble ideal.
Possibly Dieselpunk or Raygun Gothic.
I like Ikepunk
Given the subject matter, *dieselpunk *would be appropriate.
Yes, totally! That’s exactly what I had in mind, but I couldn’t remember the term. I was trying to fit it into steampunk, but that was too old. From the TV Tropes page a couple posts up, I’d say “Diesel Deco” would be perfect for AS.
No offense, JohnT, but anybody who thinks you could do *Atlas Shrugged *without John Galt either didn’t read it or utterly missed the point.
I don’t think you could do without any of the alpha males in the book, actually–Francisco represents Dagny’s first love, her tie with the past, and ultimately her connection to John Galt. Hank is her present, her fellow fighter against the destroyer, and her current love interest. Galt is her future and her ideal. In order for the story to work, they all need to be there. I think some of the minor characters could be melded into a smaller number, though. AS does have a rather huge cast.
Fine, fine. But, whatever you do, don’t cut Tom Bombadil!
I’m not trying to make the book, I’m trying to make a movie of the book. Big difference!
A love triangle, a woman torn between two men, works well on a movie level. The relationships in AS, however, wouldn’t work well as a movie. I’m not even too sure that they work on paper, but that’s neither here nor there.
Anyway, you could just as easily get rid of Frisco, though he was my favorite character by far. You can’t get rid of Hank, and since Galt is such a damned bore, I figured why not make the movie more entertaining and get rid of the holier-than-thou windbag? 
But you’re right… you can’t have people constantly ask “Who is John Galt?”, and then have the payoff be another character that has secretly lived a double-life… it would be too Hanna Montana-ish.
But she wrote the book!
Well, to be honest, there were a lot of holier-than-thou windbags in Atlas Shrugged.
I don’t think it will translate well into a movie, however. I’m glad somebody is making the attempt, but I think this book is even more unfilmable than Dune or LOTR. It depends too much on exposition, and no matter what, the audience is going to be left with images of the economy collapsing because of John Galt’s campaign to remove all “men of ability” from the world.