Atlas Shrugged Part III Galt Speech
Posted by deleted 12 years, 8 months ago to Movies
Any opinions or details on how Galt's speech will be handled in the movie? The actual speech is quite lengthy and so may not be exactly reasonable for the movie, but is arguably the best and most important part of the novel. So, how will this be handled? Will it be shortened to appeal to the viewer or kept lengthy for the Objectivist fans?
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The characters of Atlas would never allow themselves to be locked out of a space ship by a stupid computer. And they certainly wouldn't be baffled by "The monolith." Instead, they would have just invented a new space ship and devised a way to unlock the secrets of the strange relic instead of spending two movies trying to react to its implications.
The characters in the book they market with the movies certainly took an approach that cost millions to stop the looters world. A world where they would be free to keep whatever it was they owned and have laws that protect the honest man, not the thief. Losing fortunes to make it happen.
Perhaps, just maybe, the quest to become the ideal man or woman is what they wish to to educate people with in an entertaining way. If that is the goal, the movies have been a huge success.
Look at the book sales of Ayn Rands Books over the last 4 years. Over 2 million copies of Altas sold (close to half a million on the low years and a little over half a million on the hire years. Prior to the 1st movie its under 100k copies sold in a year. The moves have increased book sales by 5 to 1, and held them there 4 years running.
I cant say exactly how many of here others books have increased in sales. However I bought up extra copies of hardback in 2006 of The Virtues of Selfishness, Philosophy who needs it, and Capitalism the unknown ideal. My plan was to give them to people who I talked with that became interested. I did not end up doing that and recently sold them for anywhere from 4 to 8 times what I bought them for. I would also say this would be an indicator of the success of the movies in creating demand for her writing and expanding the exposure to Objectivism.
The fact that they did a 2nd movie and are still doing a third says there is more to it than just the money angle. If that was all there was to it then why make them?
On the other hand I agree that the speech will have to be shortened. Even I would likely not sit through a three hour speech in a movie that will have to be shorter than that in its entirety. It will be difficult to make it a 3-6 minute speech and keep the focus and content in tact. That will be necessary to capture and deliver the ideal the book teaches and still have the movie watchable by many a movie goer.
I personally would love a extra of the full speech with visual in all its splendor on the CD. While I do not find it the best part of the book; the Whole speech is given in much better ways throughout the book. I do find it the most concise piece on objectivism ever provided and would pay a few extra bucks for a CD which included a video delivery of the speech.
Once again though I agree that to deliver it in the movie in its full length splendor would not be the best of ideas. Let those that see it read the book, or watch the extra to get the full deliver in there own time, when they are ready to move a little father down the path of knowledge and understanding.
My time. As a member of the movie-going public, I do not savor the idea of wasting 2 hours of it in a theater.
Two more points:
1) Another variation of a more focused story that would still contain the gist of the novel would be to have Dagny (the protagonist) not just trying to start the John Galt Line for purely personal reasons, but she is tasked with saving rail itself as a means of transportation: the entire industry is counting on her! Early in the story, she finds out about this amazing new technology (i.e., the motor) invented by one man. She needs to find this guy in order to get the motor to save her own business and the entire industry of rail. Galt could still be a shadowy figure, but his "kidnapping" of men of ability would be done for the express purpose of stopping her, and not merely as a big abstract philosophical issue about "sanction of the victim". That way, he's an actual CONCRETE antagonist. To bring things up to date, Rearden could own an Intel-like corporation, in which he is manufacturing a unique microprocessor -- using, e.g., "quantum computing" -- and which makes use of special nano-particle-sized metallic coating made of something he calls "Rearden Metal". Dagny knows she can save Taggart Rail (and the rest of the industry) by combining Rearden's technology with the new motor. Etc., etc.
This approach "fuses" together several subplots of the novel, but it still tells the gist of the book and (in principle, at least) is much more focused than AS-I and AS-II turned out to be.
Again, there are probably many approaches to this, but the main thing — the difficult thing in all novel-to-screen adaptation — is in deciding what the actual story is in the novel, and then deciding on what to leave out when writing the screenplay.
2) Regarding long speeches in films: they're deadly. "Movies" have the word "move" in them. They're ultimately about the kinds of choices the characters make as shown by how they act; what they do, not what they say. If a long speech really is necessary, then the only way to film it without putting the audience to sleep is to concentrate on the REACTIONS of the other characters on hearing the Great Words of the speech-giver. This has to be done during the speech, and not merely as an effect of the speech after it has been completed.
Example:
There's a fine old movie from 1935 starring Charles Laughton called "Ruggles of Red Gap." Briefly: an Englishman is playing poker with an American millionaire and losing badly. As a last resort (he's already lost his cash), he bets his butler, Ruggles (played by Laughton). He loses again, and Ruggles now becomes an employee of the American. Back in the US, Ruggles slowly becomes Americanized and sets out on his own business, transitioning from being a mere employee to an entrepreneur in his own right. The climax is when he is forced to show to others that he is not only American, he is MORE American than they are, because he can movingly recite The Gettysburg Address from memory. While reciting this (thankfully) short speech, the director, Leo McCarey, focuses almost exclusively on the reactions of the Americans hearing this English transplant recite words that are part of their cultural background. It works quite well because a) the speech is short and very well written, and 2) the audience's attention is focused on a variety of different images during the speech, and not simply on a big closeup of the character giving the speech.
In the case of Galt's Speech, the filmmakers should cut it down to something about as long as . . . the Gettysburg Address. Everything about metaphysics and epistemology has to be cut. No one pays $15.00 for a movie ticket to hear a lecture on the nature of concepts. The speech would have to have some "shock value" to its words, involving e.g., the Virtue of Selfishness, and the director would have to show the audience the reactions of the various characters during this speech.
Stupid people get movies like "The Hangover."
Smart people get movies like, oh, say, "2001: A Space Odyssey."
People who are stupid but want to tell themselves they are smart anyway get "Atlas Bombed, Parts I through III" and then throw their shoulders out patting themselves on the back.
for example, because one sees a mirage, one cannot trust ones senses.
Because people thought the world was flat at one time, we can't trust our knowledge. But the reality is, assuming the earth was flat within certain bounds, was reasonable. A = A
In that regard, I would say critics do need to be respectful of ownership because without a producer, the moocher has little value. Critics are moochers.
Darren hasn't said "change the content of the movie so it isn't, you know, atlas shrugged." He's criticized the approach and said they crammed too much into a single movie.
You brought up The Passion, and I think it's an excellent comparison. Two movies whose message the established left hates.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_sh...
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/passion_...
Now, something is going on here beyond "they're just going to hate the movie because of the message" when ASII gets 5% from the critics, and POTC gets 49%.
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