Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Metcarfre » 14 Apr 2011, 13:43

Uggggggggggghhhhhhhhh
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby AmzRigh » 14 Apr 2011, 15:44

sdhonda wrote:But through the lense of objectivist aesthetic judgement, which jettisons anything resembling aesthetics and looks only at the intent of the creator, it can only be ART.


lol authorial intent, so much more important than actual communication, amirite?

I could take a shit on your car and call it a statement against the artificial value placed on material possessions, but that doesn't change the fact it's a mess you're gonna have to clean up.

Granted, that's not a statement an objectivist would be trying to make.

Seriously, though, Rand's a total hypocrite, and I don't understand how she has such a following. I'm glad to see everybody in this thread is pretty much laughing at her, too. Y'all are smrt. :)
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Jillers » 14 Apr 2011, 17:02

sdhonda wrote:But through the lense of objectivist aesthetic judgement, which jettisons anything resembling aesthetics and looks only at the intent of the creator, it can only be ART.


What does that even mean
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Bananafish » 14 Apr 2011, 17:11

p sure he's kidding
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby sdhonda » 14 Apr 2011, 17:51

I'm exaggerating quite a bit.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Jillers » 14 Apr 2011, 18:23

Pretty sure I was being sarcastic since that's my reaction to any time an objectivist tries to explain objectivism for me.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby empath » 15 Apr 2011, 05:40

Jillers wrote:Pretty sure I was being sarcastic since that's my reaction to any time an objectivist tries to explain objectivism for me.


"Greed is good"; what other explanation do you need?

I will say I kind of agree with what sdhonda puts forth as 'the message' from The Romantic Manifesto (haven't read it myself, and while I'm intrigued, I don't really see any suitable free time opening up in the near future to do so. :( ) When one makes an artistic statement, it would be inevitably coloured and influenced by the views and opinions of the artist.

...the one flaw there is that 'artistic statement' is NOT the sole purpose of communication.

"LOOK OUT FOR THAT BUS!" isn't a critique of the hivemind mentality that arises from urban society.

"That'll be $5.07." isn't an attack against corporatism(?) and things like "Mark-ups" and "profit margins".

"Oh, you want to cross the quad, go left around the building with the iron sculpture in front of it, and enter the brown brick building behind it; the Bursar's Office is on the second floor." isn't a commentary on the ivory-tower mentality arising from the 'isolated community' of academia.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Wolfenbarg » 18 Apr 2011, 15:51

I just watched the film last night. I enjoyed it quite a bit, though it's obvious why so many critics are slamming the movie into the dirt. Typically this sort of movie would be done from an underdog's perspective, so we can get some empathy for the characters and understand their plight from a relatable perspective. However, this is two hours of corporate and political lingo to drive a story that's just a giant political philosophy. It is rather well made, the performances are more solid than the trailers suggested, and the theme is good, even if the philosophy has some major flaws. As someone mentioned earlier, it doesn't matter if the steel was the greatest in the world, working on an untested line isn't a magnificent sign. You can have little to no government or public safety attachments and still make sure everyone working with or around you is as safe as possible.

There was another weird thing about the film. It seemed like it had grand build up to the love affair between the two leads. Maybe I was just seeing sexual symbols all over the place because of how obvious it was that they wanted to get busy in the sheets, but the drive toward the sex scene was so long and winding that I was actually quite baffled that it was a brief scene from the neck up with lots of fade outs. And this is coming from someone who *hates* sex scenes in movies. It's part of my silly American tendencies after all. That was just jarring though. It seemed like the one thing that the movie absolute had to get right, and it got it completely wrong.

Overall, if you aren't even slightly taken in with Objectivist, Libertarian, or some sort of minimalistic approach when it comes to governance, then don't bother with this movie, it's not trying to change your mind. However, this philosophy and certain story elements were an obvious inspiration for Bioshock. To the point that at the end of the movie, I half expected to see the card "To be continued in the game Bioshock, idiots!" If you want some semi-hilarious Andrew Ryan references and you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel, then this might interest you, but so would the wikipedia article.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Bananafish » 18 Apr 2011, 18:50

i figured it'd be impossible to empathize with a bunch of psychotic plutocrats and the protagonists would be completely unlikeable was i right y/n
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Wolfenbarg » 18 Apr 2011, 23:38

Bananafish wrote:i figured it'd be impossible to empathize with a bunch of psychotic plutocrats and the protagonists would be completely unlikeable was i right y/n


The entire movie is soaked in business savvy lingo. If you can follow that without nodding off, then no. The characters drive the themes of minimalistic government interference, individuality in a soulless environment, and sexual freedom quite well. However, if you can't stand that speaking style or just find objectivist philosophy to be loathsome, then you won't enjoy it in the slightest.

This is a movie made for a very specific audience, it won't be digestible for most.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby empath » 22 Apr 2011, 06:00

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Some webcomic author just got back from the theatre, methinks...
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby sdhonda » 22 Apr 2011, 06:54

Don't tell me you read that one...
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby empath » 22 Apr 2011, 14:42

Okay.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Tycherin » 22 Apr 2011, 21:23

Bananafish wrote:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/

6%? This movie has 6% on Rotten Tomatoes? What, did it murder some small children or something? I mean I know it's supposed to be mediocre at best, but 6% seems really harsh.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby empath » 23 Apr 2011, 03:00

Your own expression "mediocre at best" does leave room for a LOT of vehement dislike in the worst case...

And wooden acting combined with scripting that tries to justify selfish-to-the-point-of-sociopathic-behaviour? Murdering JUST "some small children" is mild compared to what will happen by part III from keystones of society 'going Galt'...


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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby sdhonda » 23 Apr 2011, 08:05

Not quite part of the discussion, but I'm just going to drop this here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qECfl9bVv0o
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby epocalypse » 23 Apr 2011, 10:02

which is hilarious, as she was famously resistant to actual criticism. Embracing the fact that even your firmest conviction may be flawed is an essential facet to continued progress of knowledge. Uncertainty is not a sign of weakness, lack of drive and commitment are.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Wolfenbarg » 23 Apr 2011, 15:30

Tycherin wrote:
Bananafish wrote:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/

6%? This movie has 6% on Rotten Tomatoes? What, did it murder some small children or something? I mean I know it's supposed to be mediocre at best, but 6% seems really harsh.


I think the keyword here is bored. Typically, boring big idea movies are accomplished or praised because of a mastery of craft, using visuals to tell the story and all that. But this movie wasn't made by Kubrick, so all that remains is a script with a very small target audience.

empath wrote:Your own expression "mediocre at best" does leave room for a LOT of vehement dislike in the worst case...

And wooden acting combined with scripting that tries to justify selfish-to-the-point-of-sociopathic-behaviour? Murdering JUST "some small children" is mild compared to what will happen by part III from keystones of society 'going Galt'...


"Nobody will let me do what I want in the way I want, so I'm gonna take my ball and go away and let mankind fall apart and starve! NYAH!"


I don't know how the book works, but the screenplay doesn't work like that at all. In the film, government interference isn't helping anyone. The labors to equalize the burdens of society end up stifling certain industries who can profit from the economic turn. Essentially, it'd be like taxing a gas generator company to death because they're profiting from the worst hurricane season in human history. The film also establishes that growth and industry can ultimately HELP people, while these taxation practices can not. It's basically the Douglas "Greed is good" speech, and not about letting the world burn while fashionable billionaires have a party.

The only points where it talks down to people trying to help each other are instances where heavily unionized sectors or essentially charity jobs do more harm than good. Giving dozens of jobs to a rail line that isn't seeing any traffic is a horrendous idea, and that line should fail. If that's sociopathic, then diagnose me right here.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Master Gunner » 23 Apr 2011, 16:01

Well, empath and the rest of us are talking from the books, where there's a lot more room for Ms. Rand to dig herself into a massive hole than the film can show, even when split into three parts. But it does get much worse, and the philosophy extremely unworkable in any world outside of the one carefully constructed for the book.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Lisra » 23 Apr 2011, 16:26

Giving dozens of jobs to a rail line that isn't seeing any traffic is a horrendous idea, and that line should fail. If that's sociopathic, then diagnose me right here.


The thing is, this is not an honest portrayal of reality. Master Gunner pointed it out already. It works, because the circumstances in the book are constructed in a way that make it all work.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Wolfenbarg » 23 Apr 2011, 16:52

Master Gunner wrote:Well, empath and the rest of us are talking from the books, where there's a lot more room for Ms. Rand to dig herself into a massive hole than the film can show, even when split into three parts. But it does get much worse, and the philosophy extremely unworkable in any world outside of the one carefully constructed for the book.


Right, remind me to never read those books. Even as a massive advocate for limited government, I always say there are specific things that must be done to make sure private industry doesn't create a legendary circle jerk followed by a massive crash (see 2007).


Lisra wrote:
Giving dozens of jobs to a rail line that isn't seeing any traffic is a horrendous idea, and that line should fail. If that's sociopathic, then diagnose me right here.


The thing is, this is not an honest portrayal of reality. Master Gunner pointed it out already. It works, because the circumstances in the book are constructed in a way that make it all work.


It's not trying to be reality though. The entire prospect is surreal and over the top to illustrate a certain set of problems in progressive economic philosophies. I'm not advocating Rand's entire vision though. Her Atlantis would crumble before the first Big Daddy could walk off the assembly line.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby theDreamer » 23 Apr 2011, 17:01

You mean Rapture.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby sdhonda » 23 Apr 2011, 17:27

Right, remind me to never read those books. Even as a massive advocate for limited government, I always say there are specific things that must be done to make sure private industry doesn't create a legendary circle jerk followed by a massive crash (see 2007).


Some have argued that the financial crisis was caused by government regulation.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby Wolfenbarg » 23 Apr 2011, 17:35

theDreamer wrote:You mean Rapture.


They drew inspiration from Rand's works. It was a joke.

Unless of course her paradise was also called Rapture, because they called it Atlantis at the end of the film.

sdhonda wrote:
Right, remind me to never read those books. Even as a massive advocate for limited government, I always say there are specific things that must be done to make sure private industry doesn't create a legendary circle jerk followed by a massive crash (see 2007).


Some have argued that the financial crisis was caused by government regulation.


Regulation was what was missing. Government was a major part of the cause though. They repealed legislation like glass steagall, which kept savings and investment banks separate. When you suddenly have free capital of saving banks to leverage and make bad investment deals, the opportunities are endless. There were also problems with the Federal Reserve encouraging and even purchases these bad investment vehicles, despite their status as a regulator and triple A rated credit agency. Derivatives would have been on the books regardless, but it never would have gotten to such a ridiculous level if the government and semi-government agencies like the Federal Reserve were doing their jobs instead of jerking off and swimming in pools of money like the rest of us idiots.

Remember, there aren't really free market regulators to keep people honest when dealing with bad money.
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Re: Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Postby theDreamer » 23 Apr 2011, 17:37

...oic...
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