wiggys... I agree. It Is NOT a 'Love Story', and if that's what Mr. Ruddy is seeking to focus on, I feel that it might be interesting to some, popular with others, and SO NOT in keeping with the kernel message of the novel as to be a serious mistake.

But I'm not The Producer, Director or Screenwriter. What do I know? I do know that when I read a good book, I picture all of it in my mind as a TV movie and I'm damned good at telling the good from the bad and the ugly. I could not possibly imagine 'positioning AS as a "love story"...'

khaling.... 'thousands' have come to read AR and AS by watching the movies...
BFD. We need tens of thousands, maybe millions to see the miniseries and, out of that, take a look at how they're living their lives and how they're influencing their own Government in lots of Bad Ways. But, As A Love Story?! If it works, FINE, but I certainly have a LOT of trouble seeing a 'love story' as carrying the plot or message from beginning to end of such a series!

Back to one of my frequent comments on this and other similar threads... What Is The Purpose of Making A Series of AS?! If it's to make lots of money for Hollywood and TV media, (and Netflix or whatever), so be it. Fess up and move on. If the intention is to convey Rand's ideas into the mainstream, sure, it might work, but not in my mind's eye.

Good luck to all... but please Decide First! If it's an already-made Decision to be a "Love Story," why is anyone humoring us by asking our opinions?

+af

Wife and I have watched and enjoyed all of the DA programs. There are some gay themes throughout parts of the series, but it's the depth of ALL of the characters and how they react to the changes in their world over the span of years, PLUS the excellent acting, filmography and sets that makes it.

If you're hypersensitive about gay issues, don't watch it, because that's the filter you'll be seeing it through. I turn 70 in a few weeks and know a bunch of gay and lesbian people and couples and the gay sex is quite 'off-screen' and there's a lot of hetero-stuff that goes on, too.

Whatever lights or extinguishes your fire... :)

Ew, Angelina Jolie. That would be FINE if Dagney had no lines in the movie...that woman cannot act.

hear hear

hear, hear

If we want the message of AS to catch fire and live, we cannot just depend on one writer to retell the story. There need to be new stories, new characters, and new plots--different stories with the same underlying message through different mediums. Mr. Ruddy is one person. He cannot control the entire message unless he's allowed to. We need more writers.

"Most" modifies "people" and the specific examples given should be neither Americans nor conservatives. Consider this sentence: "When people refer to popular twentieth century American novelists they often cite writers like Hemingway, Styron, Bellow or Rand, most of whom were socialists." See anything wrong there?

There were science fiction elements -- from the motor to project X to Rearden metal on top of the dominant industrial technology -- but the 'present' was described in accordance with the 1940s and early 50s, and that is where the plot lived. Her continuing to advocate for the day after tomorrow and technology in the future didn't change the plot as it was written. Given enough time, she could have rewritten AS as AS in a later setting and retaining the full theme if she had thought it necessary; Ruddy cannot and doesn't want to.

well just because she was not a sci fi writer, does not mean "the day after tomorrow" was not important to her. To whit-why was she so keen on a teleplay for AS even though television was not part of her book? she loved the advance of technology. She did not look backward in time in her novels, in my opinion

Ayn Rand thought of the novel as beginning when she started working on it in the 1940s. That is why the dominant technology of the plot dates it the way it does.

ok wiggys

No and i didn't ever know it was a book. now that i know its a book i can a sure you it will not be a book that i will buy.

well, you have not read First Blood then :)

Hmmm: Ragnar! (Looks like Chris Hemsworth.)

Jan, Yo Ho Ho!

rambo movies are for the least intelligent as it is unnecessary to think when viewing them. Rand makes you think and that is a hardship for most of our population.

I disagree that he showed disrespect. Since movies were made, that is the dance that writers have with producers. Did you like the first Rambo? My mentor, David Morrell, was even a consultant on the set, hated how it turned out. It was a huge success. Morrell said finally by Rambo 4 he saw his original character again in the writing. In the meantime, millions of copies of First Blood have sold

I avoid the love story. I think I finally decided it was because I loved Frisco. So I wanted Dagny to choose him. Even John respected that love between Dagny and Francisco.

great points, ewv, but all of you examples are actually historically placed in time. Atlas Shrugged is not.

There has been a long history of successful movies set in past eras, from countless westerns to major successes like Dr. Zhivago (Russian Revolution), The Sound of Music (early Nazi aggression in Europe), Ben Hur (the first century), Cleopatra (ancient Egypt), Gone with the Wind (Civil War) -- and King of Kings (first century, in Ayn Rand's own entry into Hollywood).

It would be very difficult to rewrite Atlas Shrugged into a different era because it would destroy the plot mechanisms and remove the possibility of retaining much of Ayn Rand's dialogue. The time period of Atlas Shrugged is not an excuse to rewrite it.

A movie cannot be a direct image of a novel transposed to film for many reasons, but the farther it strays from Ayn Rand's story, especially in the hands of someone exploiting it without regard to or antagonistic to Ayn Rand's theme and sense of life, the more damage that can be done. That is why Ayn Rand insisted on retaining the right to approve the script. Ruddy tried to pull a fast one in 1972, promising her to honor her conditions while expecting she would give in to get the contract, and then reneging on his promise when she refused. It is no wonder that so many people familiar with Ayn Rand and her ideas are skeptical of turning it over to him as a Hollywood pro now especially with his dismissals like the one in the article:

"As for concerns about faithful Rand fans objecting to any liberties he might take with the book, Mr. Ruddy said he had none. 'If you can reimagine the Old Testament and the New Testament, he said, 'why can’t I reimagine Ayn Rand?'”

The movie is not supposed to be about "reimagining Ayn Rand" to be whatever some Hollywood type wants to imagine.

I said most, not all.

nope. nothing replaces reading the book. on this we absolutely agree. :)

in the article he showed a lack of respect for AR. i do not think he is an Objectivist anyway.

In what sense is John Mackie, the founder of Whole Foods, not an American or "conservative"?

One thing that I really liked was the idea of shutting down the internet as the strike being led. I don't see millenials being upset over some factories shutting down, but if Amazon, then Ebay, then YouTube shut down in succession, all without explanation and simply a stationary message "I've left it as I found it" on what used to be the top website in the world... That will bring to reality the true magnitude of not only the contributions that men of the mind have brought to the world, but what their absence would be like.
Perhaps what he is imagining is an adaptation like West Side Story to Romeo and Juliet. R&J, as written, is nearly incomprehensible to most modern readers, and they reasons for hatred between families are completely lost on us in the absence of true family feuds. The true tragedy of R&J is not that the two families were just being mean to each other and to their children, but that it was an inescapable position for the lovers. West Side Story put that struggle into terms modern viewers could understand... between warring gangs. Two sides that could never see eye-to-eye.
I think this has quite the opportunity to bring home the magnitude of the repercussions of collectivist and altruistic politics on the real world. Shutting down a railroad does not have the same effect today as it did when the book was conceived, and so taking the literal railroad approach would not have the same impact on viewers.

Objectivism holds that the purpose of art is to represent abstract concepts in a concrete manner. Something to which we can point when we are understanding the intangible. Would we truly understand what a hero was if we didn't have literature or films to demonstrate one for us? So let's see what he does, I at least think he has the right starting point. Perhaps he can bring AR's ideas to what was a previously unreceptive audience.

I didn't downvote you. I have watched about six or seven episodes, but not that one.