Atlas Shrugged Part II Reviews

[Reidy]

A couple of facts stand out about the Jacobi clip and its accompanying text.

1. The timing is two minutes and two seconds, a realistic upper limit for an onscreen speech. That won't help you with Galt's radio speech.

2. If you follow the quoted text along with the video, you'll notice that at least ten percent of the lines are missing from Jacobi's recitation. Neither the Shakespeare purists nor the Rand purists can take much comfort in this.

[Peter]

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. -- Bill Cosby

So far AS, the movie has not shown around here, though I have seen Les Miz and liked it. That first scene with the hand held camera made me close my eyes so I would not get motion sick. Still I highly recommend “Les Miserables.”

Back to AS Part Two. The current attempt to take away our second Amendment rights has me thinking about an alternative ending for Ayn Rand’s Atlantis. Remember, “Atlas Shrugged” was set in an alternative United States that is quickly becoming a “People’s State.” America has a National Legislature instead of a Congress and a "Head of State" instead of a President. I think this allowed Rand to consider an American rebellion that would not be dubbed treasonous, and as a patriot I like that.

Reminiscent of “V for Vendetta” my new ending has the executive security police called into Colorado after Doctor Robert Stadler discovers Atlantis’s location. A fire fight ensues . . . . I know, I know. Michael does not like us to consider actual violence. I am just saying that we consider changing, perhaps blasphemously for an Objectivist, the ending. Any tinkering takers?

Peter Taylor

[Jerry Biggers]

Addendum to alternate ending of AS Part 2:

However, the Head of State, Mr. Thompson, had failed to inform Dr.Stadler, that Galt had sent him a message informing him of a mass defection to Atlantis of the U.S. Army Special Forces ("Green Berets"), the Navy SEALS; and the U.S. Air Force NORAD/Strategic Air Command; and which had taken-up defensive positions around Atlantis; and warning that any attack on Atlantis would result in severe retaliatory counterstrikes.....

[Peter]

If we are to learn to improve the quality of the decisions we make, we need to accept the mysterious nature of our snap judgments. -- Malcolm Gladwell, Blink

Jerry wrote:

However, the Head of State, Mr. Thompson, had failed to inform Dr. Stadler, that Galt had sent him a message informing him of a mass defection to Atlantis of the U.S. Army Special Forces ("Green Berets"), the Navy SEALS; and the U.S. Air Force NORAD/Strategic Air Command; and which had taken-up defensive positions around Atlantis; and warning that any attack on Atlantis would result in severe retaliatory counterstrikes.....

end quote

That is so, simply right, Jerry, and a very possible outcome of a “Leader” who stomps on our constitution and our rights. My alternative was much darker, while yours is like a Pulsar of brilliance. Any other takers?

Peter

As to that other flick Rand would have loved:

From Wikipedia:

Upton Sinclair remarked that Hugo set forth the purpose of Les Misérables, "one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world," in the Preface:[2]

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Toward the end of the novel, Hugo explains the work's overarching structure:[3]

The book which the reader has before him at this moment is, from one end to the other, in its entirety and details ... a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from corruption to life; from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. The starting point: matter, destination: the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end.

[BaalChatzaf]

So, welcome back speeches.

They don't usually cut the "speeches" from adaptations of Shakespeare. And they make them work.

Galt's Speech is not quite as moving as that of Henry V at Agincourt.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

"Americans! Lend me your ears! Stop producing! Stop looting! Come to Colorado for your summer vacation!"

--Brant

"Brought to you by the Colorado Tourism Board with the cooperation of Galt's Gulch and John Galt"

[Reidy]

The gunfight ending is the worst idea I've come across in a while. Gunfights and car chases are a movie's way of saying that it doesn't have enough plot, or interesting enough characters or good enough actors to fill the screen time.

[Matt Faherty]

The gunfight ending is the worst idea I've come across in a while. Gunfights and car chases are a movie's way of saying that it doesn't have enough plot, or interesting enough characters or good enough actors to fill the screen time.

If you haven't alredy seen it, you would love the Nick Cage movie, "Adaptation."

[Jerry Biggers]

The gunfight ending is the worst idea I've come across in a while. Gunfights and car chases are a movie's way of saying that it doesn't have enough plot, or interesting enough characters or good enough actors to fill the screen time.

What "gunfight ending?" If you're referring to my post (#78) above, why do you think it would end in a gunfight? When faced with superior defences, Stadler's forces would turn tail and run.

If you're referring to the rescue of Galt by Dagny and her brave band, near the end of Atlas Shrugged, which includes shooting, I'm afraid your objection arrived too late.

[Reidy]

This was in reference to #77.