No offense, but it's just a cartoon. Not everything in life needs to be analyzed to death.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
He has it exactly backwards.
The moral message of the movie lies beneath the superficialities of presentation, in the fundamental traits of its characters. Given their complaints about the false choice presented in this movie, one would expect objectivists to remain neutral in judging it on moral grounds. But, disturbingly, they are not. It's disturbing because, in a choice between a self-made innovator and a hero with innate powers, they side with the "hero". Instead of praising the American spirit of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, they engage in royalty- and god-worship.
The "Self-Made innovator" wants to use the machinery to make everything Egalitarian, not what Rand proposed. The Heroes are the can-do's and the evil little troll is the government bureaucrat....FCOL. Even my 6 year old got that.
"Choose again"
It was a cute family-oriented flick.
To note the error in this conclusion, merely subsititute the word 'government' for techonology. That is the message of the movie, the inherent wrongness of egalatarianism.
Rand did a creditable job of acknowledging the little guy in Atlas Shrugged (e.g. a mechanic in who's workmanlike motions she saw poetry). But the worship of the very talented was disturbing. It was less disturbing when I first read the book 20 years ago, and was pretty sure I was very talented.
Just a great, fun, cartoon based movie. Nothing more.
I agree, the writer is taking deconstruction too far here, but I agree that making Syndrome a bad guy in a sense picks on genius for getting too uppity and not knowing its (non) superhero place.
When did Howard Roark "earn" his architectural insight? He worked hard to develop the skills, but he was born with his talent. Peter Keating could never have been a Roark, no matter how much effort he put into it.
Rand's characters are effectively humanistic demi-gods.
Man, what I wouldn't give to be an unemployed blogger with hours and hours and hours of free time.
Actually, for about the first 25 minutes or so, I thought to myself, "This could be a kids version of 'Atlas Shrugged.'" The the plot quickly turned away from that.
Huh? this guy must have read a different "Atlas Shrugged" (or "Fountainhead") than did I. Since when is this the "Randian" philosophy?
What underlies their confusion is their reflexive attempt to fit cultural narrative of the proper dichotomy between the superficialities of presentation in the fundamental objectivism.
OR, you can just enjoy some animated entertainment.
This is actually a extremely moral movie. The superheros have talents and use them to do good. It is society that that wants to hide the talents. What did Jesus say about having talent. Do not bury your talent in the sand but use your talent for the benefit of God! We do not have superheros in our world but we have gifted people - intelligent, artists, singers, dancers, athletes - the list goes on. But we have a society today telling our children to hide their talent because it is not fair to the other kids. Liberals wants us to hide our talent in the sand. The movie says that no matter what our talent, we should have it shine outward to the world. That is the moral and Christian message.
A is A.