Posted on 04/15/2011 1:31:44 PM PDT by RobFromGa
Atlas Shrugged Part 1 Quick Review- 5 stars!
Very faithful to Rand's ideas. I didn't feel like they skipped any major items... the back story with Francisco was hinted at and would have been too hard to develop completely.
Casting was superb. Hank (Hooray!) and Lillian (Boo!)Rearden and Ellis Wyatt (!!!) were done perfectly as was Wesley Mouch and the other moochers and looters. Dagny was good but it took about ten minutes for me to completely buy her in the role.
Pace was perfect... it kept moving at a fast speed, and I didn't want it to end.
Cinematography very good- hard to believe only cost about $5 million! The Rearden Metal bridge was great, as was the Colorado landscape shots...
Audience Reaction: Duluth, GA 12:25pm showing was about 80% full (there was noon showing in a larger theater already going) & audience reacted with enthusiasm throughout and Applause at end.
Can't wait for Part 2! I will be going back to see Part One more than once...
Minor nitpick- shouldn't have had the date 2016 on the movie, it is timeless.
Good, I use the Roger Ebert reverse review system.
A current day setting is perfect. The moral of the story is the need to change the politician created mess we have today.
How much sex was in it?
I enjoyed it. Small group in our party but the theater was fairly full for a noon showing. Too bad there are half a dozen threads on this..would have been good to stick with the one posted first & just added to it so all comments could be together
Always frustrating here at FR when there are so many threads on the same topic essentially..
Ping for later.
We're going tonight. I hope my wife remembers to wear her "Liberty Bracelet" forged from Rearden Metal.
My wife and I saw the 12:25 show also. I do not have much of a critical eye for acting and cinematography, so take my review with a grain of salt. :-)
Go. See. Atlas. Shrugged.
It’s not without it’s technical problems, but the message is too important to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Some things I noticed have been mentioned upthread — the acting was a bit rigid but not so much so that it was terribly distracting. The production was true to Rand’s work, as well as I can remember. (I read AS 3 years ago and had forgotten some details. I had completely forgotten Paul Larkin, for example.)
As has been mentioned, some of the villain characters were a bit underdeveloped. The viewer can see that there are several of them and get a sense of what they represent, but more of their hidden thoughts and objectives could have been brought out. It’s clear they’re up to no good when the Equalization of Opportunity bill is passed, but the underlying evil which drives such ideas could have been presented more explicitly.
When I came out of the theater I remembered Obama’s speech from Wednesday and thought of the similarities between it and and the looters in Atlas. One can barely distinguish the two.
My wife is a full-time mom and homeschools our 4 kids who range in age from 1 to 7. During this period of her life, most of her news and “outside world” information comes through me, and Atlas is no exception. As I read the book 3 years ago I would tell her about it as I went. She saw the movie with me today and at times I could see her wiping away a tear. The message of the movie is not lost on those who are willing to see that message.
As we left the theater, I was gratified to see a vanity plate on a high-end automobile which said “RGNOMX”. It warms the heart. ;-)
Ping for later, going tonight (hopefully).
there was a bedroom scene that was probably 1 minute long between Hank and Dagny. no nudity and mainly kissing but they were on a bed and embracing. pretty tame, but it was adultery as well.
there was also a short bedroom scene between Hank and Lillian showing him leaving after they were done that was a chuckle point in the movie...
Roger Ebert hated it. Tells me all I need to know - It must be great!
Oh I don’t want them to change the moral. No the gist of the book remains the same no matter what. I just feel it would have given the movie a better feel to stay within the time frame of the book. I feel a period piece, particularly one depicting train travel, would seem more natural and enhance the message even more. Either way I hope the movie breathes new life into Ayn Rand’s message for a whole new generation.
The answer is-- both. To be exact, the action of Atlas Shrugged takes place in the near future, about ten years from the time when one reads the book. (Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 613)
Rand considered the setting of the novel to be shifting, regardless of when it is read, and therefore it has no specific time setting other than "near future."
Reinforcing this idea of a non-specific time setting, Rand comments in The Art of Fiction, saying that "Atlas Shrugged is of no period" (p. 163).
Yes, that’s on my short list. I hear it’s great.
There was another thread about how well it did at the box office according to Variety?
Thank you so much!
I would like my 13 and 11-year-olds to see it. I would not let them read the book because of the sex. They did read the Spark Notes and have studied the main idea of the book.
I searched before i posted, and this is the only thread I see for Freeper comments on the movie that came out today. What other threads are you referring to with the "so many threads" comment?
Book club members, post your own reviews.
Well, that was an interesting trip back to the future. I think the Republican party needs to adopt Ayn Rand’s simple advice. “Separate government from economics”. Just imagine what a change that would create in both government and economics.
thanks!
also pinging FreeKeys
The appears in Part 3, not Part 1.
My disappointment was that there were no shots of Starnesville and the way that section of Wisconsin regressed back to the Dark Ages after the factory closed.
I also thought that Ivy Starnes, whom Rand sets up as a proto-hippie, should have been smoking a joint as big as Baltimore rather than hanging out the wash.
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