The Atlas Shrugged Trailer | Hacker News Reader

The Atlas Shrugged Trailer

atlasshruggedpart1.com

15 pointschops12 comments

I'll be upfront with my bias: I strongly oppose Ayn Rand's politics, I find them abhorrent and morally vacuous. Furthermore, I thought "Atlas Shrugged" was god awful, and this was after having just read "The Fountainhead" and somewhat enjoying it. I also think Ayn Rand as a person was not just hypocritical, but also generally repugnant.

That said, I'm a sucker for a good movie. I'll gladly watch a film which disagrees with my politics, and even recommend it to friends, because cinema is that important to me.

However, this just doesn't look very good. The cinematography looks adequately epic, but some of the acting and dialogue, and even the shots, look like a decently-produced television series at best (and that may be generous in terms of the dialogue), but nothing on the level of something for the big screen.

I'll be upfront with my bias: I strongly agree with Ayn Rand's politics, philosophy, and worldview. Atlas Shrugged is my favorite book. I think Ayn Rand had integrity as a person, and she's one of my heroes.

That said, I agree that the movie doesn't look great. I'll almost certainly go see it anyway, but I'm bracing myself to be disappointed.

Anyone who hasn't read Atlas Shrugged owes it to themselves to pick it up. Love it or hate it, it's highly influential.

I think Ayn Rand had integrity as a person

This is totally off-topic, but... really? What are your thoughts on her refusing to pay people back including her family, taking large amounts of government assistance, and idolizing a serial killer?

It was nice, watching the trailer, and being a cinephile, being able to recognize all the C-list character actors. The pawn shop owner from The Crow was an especially good find.

Who knows, it might be better than the trailer lets on, but it doesn't do a good job of selling it.

Could you please provide a reference to the sources for these claims? Thanks.

http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/

The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." She called him "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism."

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/28/ayn-rand-took-govern.ht...

An interview with Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand's law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand's behalf she secured Rand's Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O'Connor (husband Frank O'Connor).

There was a huge, multi-page expose about all of this stuff, but I'm having trouble digging it up. I'll edit this comment with it once I find it, but google searches will easily come up with all of this information.

...Objectivist opponents and proponents agreeing on something? I take it the apocalypse is about a year early?

Or you can let somebody else read it, so you don't have to:

http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=3903

"BEAST philosopher-at-large Michael Caigoy reads Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, so you don’t have to"

Perhaps when people can see an Ayn Rand novel at a movie theater they will stop confusing objectivism with libertarianism with corporatism.

I will be very surprised if objectivism or for that matter any philosophy , can be condensed to a movie. The fact that Ayn Rand chose to convey her ideas, although not all of it was entirely new at that point, in the form of a novel, made it more accessible to people but still left a lot of question unanswered.

The trailer was released within the past few hours, and the film is set to release April 15th.

April 15th huh? Naw--- no body in Hollywood has got that kind of humor do they?

If that's not intentional, I've lost what little remaining respect I had for Atlas Shrugged groupies.

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