A thought for all the economists out there contemplating seeing the movie;
Option 1 - Read the whole book which will take you at least 2 years and 4 months of your finite life.
Option 2 - Watch the movie and the successive sequels, which if you include transit time, will at most be 9 hours.
I just hated reading as a child and would always point out to my mother, "I'll just wait for them to make a movie."
Well, they did it with the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
And now they're doing it with Atlas Shrugged.
If for any other reason, even if the acting is horrible, you don't have to waste your youth on reading the entire tome of Atlas Shrugged.
9 comments:
I simply have to object. I've read Atlas Shrugged. Twice. And I found it most enjoyable.
Then again, I really like reading, and maybe that makes me a bit of a douchebag in this modern age.
It is still a brilliant book, so if people would just take some American Idol-crap out of their busy schedules I'm sure they could find the time.
;)
Meh, I think the book took me less than 9 hours, it's pretty light reading.
Modestly entertaining, could have used an editor.
The fountainhead is better anyway. However, John Galt's great speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged would probably take 2 hours to say in its whole, so expect his film to be chopped and probably miss Rand's entire message.
- Breeze
Of all the books you have read, which ones do you call "tomes?"
I doubt the movie will be able to accurately portray Ms Rand's poorly concealed rape fetish.
They'd have to make two movies to fit Galt's speech in.
I read the book while living in eastern Europe a few years after communism fell. The book was especially entertaining given where I was living. The length of the book didn't bother me, because I had plenty of time on my hands. The John Galt speech could have been much shorter, though, and I think I skipped most of it.
I saw the movie last night, and it was pretty good. They didn't completely screw up the story, like a lot of movies do when adapted from books, so that alone is a plus. One thing that surprised me, but should have been obvious, is that the movie starts in the near future(2016.) The opening montage tells us that war in the middle east has driven the price of oil much higher(making railroads more relevant again.)
The main characters were well done(Dagny, Rearden, Francisco, Mouch, James, Wyatt, Lillian,) and only a few characters seemed poorly acted(mostly minor characters except for Galt...I really hope he improves considerably.)
Some of the scenes in the book were skipped or adjusted, obviously, and most were not missed. I blame Rand for the few scenes that felt a little forced--her style of discussion works fine in the book but people don't really speak that way normally. Part one of the book doesn't include any of Rand's speeches, at least.
I read over 10 years ago. Like Tolkien's trilogy, it becomes a little long winded in some places and kind of boring, but overall, well worth the time.
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