Maturity Versus Vitality - Did the Producers of Atlas Shrugged: Part II Make the Right Move?
Posted by WesleyMooch 12 years, 7 months ago to Culture
The main characters of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged were in their twenties at the beginning of protean protagonist John Galt's strike. This the producers of the film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged: Part I nearly captured. Did they and the directors, writers, actors they hired capture the spirit of Rand's intention, in the Atlas Shrugged: Part I film better than in Atlas Shrugged: Part II? Neither in Rand's work nor in the world which gave rise to the writer do men perform their greatest feats in their fifties, therefore I must answer in the affirmative.
Did the producers decide to shift the age of the character base upward by two decades based on an inside-out assessment that the gravitas of Rand's character base was impossible to achieve with a younger actor base? If so, that I forgive, but if their decision is based upon outside criticism, or worse, upon the social disease commonly called "focus group," I do not.
Did the producers decide to shift the age of the character base upward by two decades based on an inside-out assessment that the gravitas of Rand's character base was impossible to achieve with a younger actor base? If so, that I forgive, but if their decision is based upon outside criticism, or worse, upon the social disease commonly called "focus group," I do not.
It comes down to increasing the size of the choir hence. Romney's choosing Paul Ryan helps here, as does the timely release of D'Souza's film 2016.
As I stated above, the characters are in their mid-to-late 30s when the novel starts, so the young ages in the first movie are actually more "controversial" if you're sticking with a strict adaptation.
Ayn Rand was born in 1905 and published Atlas Shrugged in 1957. Certainly she began writing that before even turning fifty, but was on the cusp of turning fifty and by the time she published the book was over fifty.