- #1
Jimmy Snyder
- 1,122
- 22
I just saw the film Atlas Shrugged: Part 1. Here are my thoughts.
First of all about the book. I agree with the philosophic stance. No one should be forced to live for another. In my career, I never worked for free. I always charged for my services in the form of wages. This is as it should be.
I also think the main plot of the book is a good one. People who are fed up with being forced to share with others are enticed into quitting and letting the rest of society fend for itself. In my opinion, this is a pretty good idea for a dystopia.
There is not much else about the book to like. The situations and events are unrealistic as is the dialog and the actions of the characters. In addition to being unrealistic, the dialog is also wooden and unanimated. The characters are all one-dimensional caricatures. Given such a good plot premise, it's a shame Rand wasn't a better writer.
Now about the movie. It was produced on a low budget and with severe time constraints due to foot dragging before filming began. The end result is a movie that isn't very good from an artistic point of view. However, I enjoyed it. This dichotomy, poor art but good movie, is reflected in the Rotten Tomatoes website where only 6% of the reviews are positive, but 85% of the viewers liked it. I think that some small effort was made to make the characters less wooden than the book, but unfortunately it wasn't enough and the B-level actors weren't up to the task anyway. There didn't seem to be any attempt to make the characters less one-dimensional.
I saw the 4:00 matinee at the Ritz at the Bourse, in Philadelphia. The theater seats about 200 or so, but there were only 6 customers, myself included. The Ritz specializes in artsy-fartsy foreign films. One of the trailers was for the Tom Shadyac documentary "I AM". What an odd couple these two make.
I give it 3 stars out of 5 for poor but watchable art.
First of all about the book. I agree with the philosophic stance. No one should be forced to live for another. In my career, I never worked for free. I always charged for my services in the form of wages. This is as it should be.
I also think the main plot of the book is a good one. People who are fed up with being forced to share with others are enticed into quitting and letting the rest of society fend for itself. In my opinion, this is a pretty good idea for a dystopia.
There is not much else about the book to like. The situations and events are unrealistic as is the dialog and the actions of the characters. In addition to being unrealistic, the dialog is also wooden and unanimated. The characters are all one-dimensional caricatures. Given such a good plot premise, it's a shame Rand wasn't a better writer.
Now about the movie. It was produced on a low budget and with severe time constraints due to foot dragging before filming began. The end result is a movie that isn't very good from an artistic point of view. However, I enjoyed it. This dichotomy, poor art but good movie, is reflected in the Rotten Tomatoes website where only 6% of the reviews are positive, but 85% of the viewers liked it. I think that some small effort was made to make the characters less wooden than the book, but unfortunately it wasn't enough and the B-level actors weren't up to the task anyway. There didn't seem to be any attempt to make the characters less one-dimensional.
I saw the 4:00 matinee at the Ritz at the Bourse, in Philadelphia. The theater seats about 200 or so, but there were only 6 customers, myself included. The Ritz specializes in artsy-fartsy foreign films. One of the trailers was for the Tom Shadyac documentary "I AM". What an odd couple these two make.
I give it 3 stars out of 5 for poor but watchable art.
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With the little that I know of Rand and when the book was written, it really isn't much of a work to me. She took the existing McCarthyism that was prevalent during that time and applied it to a socialist US. 
