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Atlas Shrugged considered

Monday,  05/02/11  02:08 PM

I am flying to New Orleans just now, but wanted to share my thoughts on Atlas Shrugged, the movie, which we saw yesterday, and Atlas Shrugged, the book, which I finished this morning, just as I was boarding.

The movie was great; not Avatar / When Harry Met Sally / Almost Famous great, but solid entertaining on several levels.  Especially for a low budget affair they did a nice job of bringing a long complex book to the screen, with good characters true to their literary counterparts, and a decent script.  They also pruned the story back to the essential elements, there were only a few gratuitous plot devices thrown in to satisfy book fans.  (The worst part of the movie: they botched the subplot of Dagny's Reardon Metal bracelet!)  I thought the actors were great; in particular Taylor Shilling was exactly as I pictured Dagny Taggart, and Grant Bowler was a perfect Hank Reardon, and overall the politico-philosophical message was woven through and communicated.  I might not see it again and again and again - there is no spectacle in the movie, it merely illustrates the book - but I liked it.  And I love that critics hated it but audiences loved it; for a film which cost $15M to make, it has repaid its producers many times over.  The biggest drawback is that it was Part I; the story was just getting started when the movie ended.  Onward to Parts II and III.

Meanwhile the book was great, as great as a book can be; full of ideas and thought provoking and world changing.  If you haven't read it since college you should read it again; the messages will speak to you in a way they didn't then; you are [probably] older, and it is [probably]a different time.  It was a long book but never boring, you knew where it was going but never how it would get there.  On Facebook I posted this quote: "I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don’t exist. That this book has been written - and published - is my proof that they do. - A.R. 1957."  Indeed.

Wow.  And so today will be the first day of the rest of my life.