Atlas Shrugged

[phantom000]

This thread is for both the movie and the book.

I guess you should not just a book by is movie but when they made the film it is like they were trying to make the audience hate everyone. I watched a little on Youtube.com and did not see anything to make me like any of the characters. Taggart and Rearden are supposed to be the heroes and i don't want to cheer them on i want to give them a good stiff kick.

I read some excerpts from the book and they're enough to send me into an angry rant.

So what is your experience/opinion of this story?

[Arkle]

Shitty steampunk with warped perspective on who the heroes and villains should be.

Take the sequence where a foreman (I think) who built a rail line with this fancy new metal our rapey male protagonist invented wants to test it before running a fully loaded passenger train over. The female protagonist balks at this because her company has some sort of perfect on-time record or some shit.

Now, in any NORMAL book, not written by someone who sings the praises of child murderers, the guy who wants to make sure the track is safe first would be the hero of the story. But Atlas Shrugged portrays him as the villain; an obstacle to our "heroes" getting their way. Ayn Rand wants us to root for these people, but if they were characters in the 1980s TMNT cartoon they're the type of people that the Turtles and Shredder would agree to temporarily set aside their differences to fight against.

[Rocketboy1313]

Ayn Rand wants us to root for these people, but if they were characters in the 1980s TMNT cartoon they're the type of people that the Turtles and Shredder would agree to temporarily set aside their differences to fight against.

I would point to "Captain Planet" as the same sort of bad guys. "Why do I have to follow regulations of safety or decency, I have money and will!"

[The Romulan Republic]

Ah, Ayn Rand. The woman who basically turned sociopathy into a political philosophy.

To be fair, I've never actually read Atlas Shrugged. But I've heard enough about it that I have no real desire to change that.

[Karha of Honor]

Tried to read it, failed. The movie would had taken too much space on my DVR so i deleted it. Shoot me, but capitalism would be just fine without Rand.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I read it, and it's not good. Amusing at points maybe, but not good. I find most of what Rand is advocating to be despicable. It isn't even very well written. Of course the entire book is mostly a way for Rand to get up on her soapbox, which leads to the main characters uniforming acting in the most ridiculous ways imaginable. Then there's the bizarre assumption in her book is that her characters are somehow moral paragons.

It's an angry, hateful book. Whittaker Chambers' famous review puts it perfectly- "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: " To the gas chambers — go!"

And as a fairly conservative person, the number of neo-conservative politicians and thinkers who have embraced Rand's philosophy (or at least parts of it) really ticks me off. The conservative parties in the US need more figures like Chambers and fewer Randian ones.

[Karha of Honor]

I read it, and it's not good. Amusing at points maybe, but not good. I find most of what Rand is advocating to be despicable. It isn't even very well written. Of course the entire book is mostly a way for Rand to get up on her soapbox, which leads to the main characters uniforming acting in the most ridiculous ways imaginable. Then there's the bizarre assumption in her book is that her characters are somehow moral paragons.

It's an angry, hateful book. Whittaker Chambers' famous review puts it perfectly- "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: " To the gas chambers — go!"

And as a fairly conservative person, the number of neo-conservative politicians and thinkers who have embraced Rand's philosophy (or at least parts of it) really ticks me off. The conservative parties in the US need more figures like Chambers and fewer Randian ones.

Why did the Neo Cons embrace her?

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Why did the Neo Cons embrace her?

Mostly for her economics and focus on individual freedom (the libertarian ideal), I think. The idea that if the rich and powerful are free to be greedy, selfish, and do whatever they want, their success will benefit everyone else (trickle-down economics). Maybe not exactly the way many Republicans would put it, but many do admit to being fans of Rand, and she was very explicit about "the virtue of selfishness" and how bad altruism is.

[Karha of Honor]

Why did the Neo Cons embrace her?

Mostly for her economics and focus on individual freedom (the libertarian ideal), I think. The idea that if the rich and powerful are free to be greedy, selfish, and do whatever they want, their success will benefit everyone else (trickle-down economics). Maybe not exactly the way many Republicans would put it, but many do admit to being fans of Rand, and she was very explicit about "the virtue of selfishness" and how bad altruism is.

What does that have to do with an aggressive Foreign Policy? That makes them different from regular free market people.

[Wild_Kraken]

I haven't read the book, though I have seen all three films and wow, they're quite an experience. Not a single actor reprises their role from film to film, and the budget cuts are painfully obvious. The last film's major plot point, something set up way back in part 1, happens off screen. A lot of shit can be said about Rand's philosophy and the plot in general, but taken just on their merits as movies, holy crap. They could not have done worse.