Yes, I have not read the book but past threads in the SDMB already spoiled the subject for me; however, I need to know: what is the title referring to?
:smack: I guess I forgot that SPOILERS will be here!, sorry!
In Greek mythology, Atlas was the titan holding up the world on his shoulders. What would happen if he just … shrugged?
Ayn Rand posited that regarding capitalists in Atlas Shrugged, and what would happen to the economy if they just packed up and left.
Now go read the book.
Thanks Ino, but as for reading the book I am now reading “Guns Germs And Steel” and I’m very busy with other projects. Plus I was waiting for the Atlas Shrugged movie.
Sadly, it seems that Atlas did shrug in that regard:
http://www.atlassociety.org/news_atlas-mini.asp
The strike is the core plot and they are considering removing it from the movie? sheesh, I will get the book when I have more time.
I’ve often wondered about how a movie version would be structured. Dagny Taggerts triumphant ‘crossing of the bridge made of Reardon Steel’ would be the obvious conclusion of a major plot thread. Unfortunatly it comes in the middle of the book, far, FAR from the end. Missing would be the john galt subplots, the mystery island, and most of the South American playboy/copper magnate subplot. What the hell was that guys name? Ricardo? Enrique?
I actually think a mini-series lends itself to the full story telling, which works as both a dramatic story, and a philosopy for capitalism. The story held my interest as Rands ideas sunk in.
If the Objectivist institute maintains artistic control, then this movie will never be made, IMO. And if they don’t, hollywood will turn it into an ANTI-capitalist movie. re: Starship Troopers, which wound up conveying a message exactly opposite to the one in the book.
It’s hard to see how Rand’s unabashedly capitalist worldview could be produced by hollywood today, unless it is a project picked up by the conservative cadre in Hollywood - Kelsey Grammar, John Milius, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Bruce Willis, Fred Thompson, Drew Carey, and a few others.
Now, if they could get Clint Eastwood to direct, and Bruce Willis to star (he’d make a great Hank Reardon, IMO), then maybe that combination would have the clout required to get the studios to play along.
Does anyone know who the creative people behind the TNT miniseries were/are? That would tell us whether or not this was going to be a hatchet job.
I always assumed the reference was to Charles Atlas and his likely response after reading the book: “Hunh??”
Oh god…I read the book. Remember that, Dopers?
What a waste of trees!
I liked it, but I thought the mystery island ending was rather hokey, plus Rand drops way too many clues that its going to end like that. And the John Galt radio monologue that goes on for like 60 solid pages was just too much.
It is a wonderful, life-changing book. The only thing I didn’t like about it was the abandonment of Eddie by Dagny. That seemed cruel to me, and I told Harry Binswanger so. Of course, he disagreed.
Who is John Galt?
Potential spoiler in this next paragraph-
Libertarian- always thought the same about Eddie but in my mind, Dagny & Co find him on the way to the Gulch & take him with them for healing- he earned it!
GIGOB… the quote meant that a possible movie might ONLY focus on the Strike itself & leave out all “extraneous” stuff- to which I answer with Ayn’s own response to the suggested that AS needed to be edited down- “Would you edit the Bible?”
A single theatrical film- HORRIBLE IDEA. TV Miniseries- EXCELLENT but it must be AT LEAST SIX HOURS without commercials (as was Stephen King’s THE STAND miniseries)- the TNT plan was 6 hrs WITH commercials (aka 4-5 actual hours).
If it was a theatrical film, it would need to be a trilogy AKA LOTR- while subtitles are already in the book- NON-CONTRADICTION, EITHER-OR, A IS A, I’m sure some chapter titles would be more intriguing to the non-AS aware movie goer- AS I: THE JOHN GALT LINE;
AS II: BY OUR LOVE; AS III: ATLANTIS or UTOPIA OF GREED or THE BEST WITHIN US.
I don’t think posting on a message board kills any trees.
In Greek mythology, Atlas actually held the heavens above the earth, I thought; the depiction of the fellow with the globe throwing out his back was a later shifting in depiction. (Although that could just mean he holds up the heavens with his feet, and the picture’s upside-down.) Similar effect should he just shrug the burden off, though.
So, yeah: the “Atlas” in the book were the creative minority that the hoi polloi clung to. The heavens they held up was the better world that they’d built for the collectivists; when Atlas Galt shrugged, that better world came crashing right down on top of them. (The tracing of the sign of the dollar upon the book’s close symbolized how bent the Atlasi spines had become by the long weight, but that they would straighten again.)
Drastic, I was under the same impression, about Atlas more holding up the sky than the earth itself, considering that Mount Atlas is all that’s left of him, since he was turned to stone.
AS never seemed like it would make a good transition to film. But then, I thought the same thing about The Fountainhead yet in fact I quite enjoyed that movie.
I’m reading the book right now. I’m on page 98, which means I am 0.0000014% the way through the book. (In case you’re wondering, I bypassed all the posts above.)
My impression so far: The story is O.K., but I can’t stand her writing style. She’ll spend a whole paragraph describing a person’s facial features. Enough already! Get to the point!! George Orwell can do in a couple sentences what it takes her two pages to do…
Yeah, the actual ‘writing’ thing was never her strong suit. I wish she’d taken a few community college courses before she sat down at the typewriter.
For me the tough part was when Atlas went rabid and the little boy had to shoot him in the corn crib.
That was just wrong.
Word of advice, Crafter_Man when John Galt makes his radio speech, you can skip it. It’s basically a rehash of all the philosophy Rand has been discussing up to that point. I skipped it and didn’t miss a beat.
That book scared me to death. The class warfare we have now, with the “evil rich” and “the rich must pay their fair share” I can see that today.
I doubt TNT can do a good miniseries…after the goddess awful butchering they did of Mists of Avalon, I wouldn’t trust them to do a miniseries of Green Eggs and Ham. I’d rather A&E do it.
Oh my god, I haven’t watched that in YEARS! I’ve got to haul it out again, for shits and giggles. Wouldn’t you have just loved to have seen Joel and the 'bots get their hands on it?
“Sell out, Howard! Sell out your ideals!”
“No, no! Never!”
A few months back I was surfing the Net and read a “poem” by Ani DiFranco. It went basically like this for about 50-60 lines:
No, there weren’t any capital letters. It goes through a standard laundry list of complaints for a good two pages.
And on and on. People were RAVING about this poem; it was a wonderful, magnificent work of art. I read it twice and decided it wasn’t really a poem at all; it was just a point form list of complaints. Irrespective of your political leanings, a GOOD POEM makes use of language in interesting ways to convey ideas and emotions in a manner beyond the literal meaning of the words. This “poem” didn’t attempt to do that and so wasn’t really much of a poem at all. People were saying it was a wonderful work of art not because it was, but because they agreed with the political sentiment.
For me, Atlas Shrugged was like that. Forget whether you agree with Ayn Rand. It’s a bad novel. It’s poorly structured, poorly paced, poorly written. Eight out of ten novels that show up at Indigo in the daily shipment are better than Atlas Shrugged, no matter what their political viewpoint is.