Oh My Galt! Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 Trailer Enters The Marketplace
Wake your sophomore year-self up and meet everyone in the dorm common room, because I have a got a treat for you. After being hastily cobbled together before the producers lost the rights, Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 has released its first trailer. And sweet, suffering Bolshevism, is it a doozy.
Now, regardless of what I think of Ayn Rand and her "school of philosophy," I'm going to try to remain objective [hi-yo!] and just discuss as I would any other movie. Any other cruddy, cheap looking movie.
In a nutshell, Dagny Tagart's (Taylor Schilling) railway company is foundering, and Tagart turns to Hank Rearden's (Grant Bowler) steel company to revolutionize the rail network and save her company. But of course, the government hates and fears personal enterprise and individual accomplishment, and so place its heavy federal hand directly in the way of innovation. Plus, trains. Lots and lots of trains; enough to stock several thousand sexy metaphors.
In a brief critique of the plot, I don't know why the producers didn't A.) make it a period piece or B.) change the plot details, because insisting on matching the novel's idea of "revolutionizing the railways" in this country is a bit like saying you've got a humdinger of a brainstorm for the horse and buggy industry. But leaving that aside, it just looks shoddily made: the colors look off, the CGI looks like something from the local Action News at 5, and the dialogue is as ripe as a brown banana. Low budget doesn't necessarily have to mean chintzy, but this movie looks even cheaper than it's reported $5 million budget.
Verdict: I refuse to subsidize inferior products with the fruits of my own labor -- Pass!
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Comments
We get it. You don't like Ayn Rand.
It's Galt, btw. Not Gault.
The acting looks sub-par. Too bad. It could have been interesting.
Thanks for the correction; it's one of the things I constantly mistype, along with the word "hornet."
I don't know. I think it looks... unstoppable!!!
"Supertrain 2!" Definitely should have been a period piece, but it's always nice to see Michael Lerner and Jon Polito.
I can't belive Angie Jolie almost stared in this. It seems like a tv movie. How did the producers ever think they'd get her
I hope they cover the part about how all women want to be raped in this one. I don't think there'll be enough time to cover it in Part Two what with that 93 minute long scene of John Galt standing around lecturing people about bullshit economic philosophy.
That train looked about the size of the Chrysler Building!
@TN, The producers decided to put up their own money rather than lose the rights, since the mainstream film douches sat on their thumbs and did nothing to make the film. Naturally, they did not have the same available budget as would a majoir film studio. Besides... Jolie would not be a good fit for Dagney... Perhaps it's the whole United Nations ambassador gig.
"insisting on matching the novel’s idea of “revolutionizing the railways” in this country is a bit like saying you’ve got a humdinger of a brainstorm for the horse and buggy industry."
Better tell Obama that.
The producer, John Aglialoro, is a fitness equipment zillionaire and had to go into production with whatever script he had or lose the rights. And he was a co-writer on the adaptation along with a writer whose body of work gives direct-to-DVD horror schlock a bad name. Combine this kind of unquestioned autonomy with a first-time feature director was allowed to cast himself as John Galt, and this project was screwed from the beginning.
The trailer was superb.
All in about two tightly-packed minutes, it had drama, great music, a pulse-pounding force, lots of little 'teaser' things that indicate momentous stakes, Dagny Taggart-intensity in the actress, the cryptic "Who Is John Galt?" line, the eventually-to-be-ironic idea that Dagny will name her own railroad business after him...
Really works as a trailer, as something which ropes in interest. Which is all a trailer needs to do.
i) I also liked the 'solidity' of the Rearden actor.)
ii) As a very minor side benefit, the Economic Dictator even reminds you just a bit of Barney Frank.
iii) I also felt it was appropriate (and looks as if it will be well-acted) that major heroic characters are a bit reserved toward each other at first until they find that they are dealing with people of character and not looters(or even expressing white-hot rage, as does Ellis Wyatt.)
In general, I have a good feeling so far about the two major characters - Dagny and Rearden - the trailer suggests a combination of steel in the spine and a certain je ne said quoi - lightness? good humor?
Which makes them likable human beings. Not philosophical abstractions.
With Hollywood being of the flavour Liberal, it is not surprising that this movie didnt the kind of traction it would need to attract enough capital it a decent work of it.
No, that was the fault of the book. It's impossible to polish that long-winded turd of a book to a sheen that would make a movie adaptation that's even marginally watchable.
I was watching Bones on TV today and it was rather annoying that the whole plot resolved around this weird requirement that they couldn't go home until the found the killer. I wasn't aware that investigators have to work continuously from the point they discover a body until they illicit a question.
Then, I watched this trailer and I got that same feeling again. That.. whuh-whuaaat?
'we can't let them produce that much metal!!'
This looks absolutely moronic.
Really? Wow, I'll have whatever's in that tea-cup of yours...
I look forward to this movie really drumming up interest in President Obama's high-speed rail plan.
I think the trailer looks good. I haven't read the book (I'm not a reader and don't care about politics), but the trailer has at least interested me in the movie.
normally I rely on people's reviews of movies to determine if I'll see it in theaters, but this movie is going to be hard to tell from the reviews as the author and commenters seem to be bringing in lots of outside opinions in before watching the trailer.
Has the reviewer actually SEEN the movie??
> I’m going to try to remain objective.....I refuse to subsidize inferior products with the fruits of my own labor
How's that objectivity thing working for you with regard to judging a movie which hasn't even appeared yet?