Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?

source: Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?

It's the curiosity more than anything. I've already seen the first two "Atlas Shrugged" movies; can't really leave the trilogy unfinished, right? This is what drove me to finish an unsatisfactory series of movies. And the final entry finishes things off in the worst possible fashion. I'm not even concerned with Ayn Rand's philosophy, only with Part III's complete mishandling of it. This is a cartoon with robotic performances, non-existent production values and haphazard direction. The dialogue's stilted, none of these TV actors have any breathing room, and the story rolls out in a hurried low-standards manner. It's so cheap and so cut-rate that any message (even one delivered with a smug sledgehammer) is smothered in the execution. At a certain point, it just becomes unintentionally funny. Just not funny enough to be entertaining. Is this at all like the book? I have no idea, but once was more than enough with this movie. What a sad end.

Ayn Rand is spinning in her grave. These people couldn't have possibly have read the book. They've taken a well written and reasoned novel (whether you agree with he philosophy or not) and reduced it to cheer leading the current right wings talking points. If these people ever read Ayn Rand they would realize that they are exactly the type of people she referred to as takers, users, and looters..... While the first two installments of this robbery of the mind (as Ayn would put it) showed at least a little self awareness and knowledge of the under pinnings of the novels intent this one completely misses the mark.

When i thought that Part II was worse than Part I, Part III went one step further. With another change in the cast, it's been difficult again to follow what's been going on. With the ideas of Ayn Rand diluted in sub-par writing and below average acting, Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt? became a perfect background for an afternoon nap. No pun intended. Once again, i'm not sure why the producers insisted on making three movies instead of opting for a TV show. Nowadays this seems to be a gateway to a broader audience. Besides, the book Atlas Shrugged had enough contents and ideas for eight to ten one-hour episodes.

omg that was horrible. I had really high hopes for this one, after seeing the other two, but basically they just kept in the Dagny and John Galt romance and everything else was reduced to voice-over over stock footage, or dropped completely, while instead political stuff was added (including shots of people you'll recognize). John's speech was about three minutes long -- but lots of long shots of his pretty-boy face in the process. Lots of film of driving around Galt's Gulch -- mountains, trees. Francisco looks old enough to be her father. Hank gets about two minutes, mostly voice-over. The entire movie wasn't much more than 90 minutes long all told. I did learn some things about Free Men, though. Free Men drink. On the other hand, so do Looters. Everyone drinks. Free Men don't smoke. At all. Not even Mulligan's dollar-sign cigarettes. Looters smoke cigars. Free Men don't wear seat belts, but they do register their cars and have license plates even when they're living in secret communities. Free Men and Women are all slender and beautiful.Looters are ugly. Free Men call a quarter of an entire chocolate cake a serving. Okay, I could get behind that one. Free Men have figured out how to grow oranges in Colorado. Free Men have figured out how to make Colorado look like Northern California, sequoia and all. Free Men all know how to fly planes and helicopters. Free Men drink milk straight from the bottle even when they're sharing a house with someone. Ugh.

Let me begin by saying I am a tremendous fan of the novel. Further, I did enjoy parts one and two of the Atlas Shrugged film trilogy. I have been anxiously looking forward to seeing part three. That said, if you feel the same way as the above, do yourself a favor and avoid seeing this. Keep your memories of the novel intact. The direction and screenplay in this film are, simply put, distractingly bad. Daytime television is better done. Scenes added that tie to nothing else in the film: if that was done to remind the watcher of parts of the book, then don't change the story. Seriously, John Galt smirking while the crowd chants his name? A trashed out rover with Colorado plates driving on roads with double yellow line in the Gulch? Project 'F' is an electroshock machine? The Taggart bridge collapses from regulation? Hank Rearden has no speaking part? And, after rescuing Galt they must take off to save Eddie? If part one had been a film of this caliber, parts two and three would never have been made.

I first read Atlas in 1961, subscribed to the Objectivist Newsletter and have Branden's lecture series on interminable LPs. Like many fans I slowly turned into a libertarian. Yet I still read Atlas and Fountainhead once every few years. So I'm a fan, not an acolyte. I saw Atlas 1 the day of its premier, sold out for the first showing, crowded the second. I gave it a 7. Saw Atlas 2 to a moderately filled house and gave it a 10. Saw Atlas 3 last night with my wife, the only 2 in the theater. I give it a 6. I regularly write reviews for IMDb. In doing so I try to separate my personal views from the quality of the film. Basically, does it hold my interest. Do I enjoy it. Does the director and cast succeed in putting the ideas across. Well, I have to say Atlas 3 didn't succeed very well. I'm sure the lack of a budget had a lot to do with it. I thought the casting was poor. Francisco particularly was anything but the suave, cultured aristocrat of the book and first 2 films. Galt was almost as bad, looking like a street lout rather than a cultured scientist. Dagny has no presence as a strong executive. The minor characters, however, were quite good. The voice-over was not only unnecessary but stupid. No one is going to see this film who hasn't seen the first 2. Why spend the time bringing us up to date? The interaction of the major characters is missing. How long would it take for Dagny to tell Francisco and Rearden that she had found her true love? Those revelations had a lot to do with the motivation of the characters. The big action scenes in the book are entirely missing, victims of the minuscule budget. Francisco saving Rearden Steel from the looters and particularly, the saving of Galt. The latter action in the book was a stirring climax with each major character taking part individually, if only for a few moments. And the torture device was attached to Galt with alligator clips! Reminded me of the spaghetti strainer on Tor Johnson's head in Bride of the Monster. There was simply no tension in this scene. Without the action the film was simply a talk fest. Such a film can be absorbing and interesting if well written. But Atlas 3 substituted a sledge hammer for subtlety. Now Rand was never one to pull punches but her dialog was the result of action not the action itself. So the question is, after all these complaints, was I bored? No. That's why I give the film a 6. But I suspect that if I didn't know the book and walked in cold my rating would be much lower. From a personal standpoint I believe the producers did a disservice to the film and the philosophy by giving Glen Beck a cameo. Beck's calling himself a libertarian is like Hitler calling himself a humanitarian. But as a film and rail fan I appreciated the Bronson Canyon mine location and the destruction of the Forth Railway bridge. Let's hope, like Dune, the film is the impetus for a better quality miniseries

I thought I knew what to expect being a Ann Ryand based film and figured if I agreed with it or not it might be a study in that mindset. All I saw was a bunch of clowns trying to act with so much cheese on top and worse editing mixed with lots of old footage. If Hitler has seen this piece of sad propaganda he would of shot all who made this film. Heck even the propaganda films I have seen in the past from the 40's had way more merit than this cruddy work. Do Not waste your money! The people giving such high ratings are those who would give a water closet with Ann Ryands name on it a high rating. They are just you brain dead fan boys who can not think beyond their indoctrinated hate of anything the see as a enemy; which basically everything that is not right of Atilla the Hun is their enemy. Save you money and save your eyes!!!

Atlas Shrugged Part 3 Full review: Really a shame, since Part 1 was decent and Part 2 was legitimately good. I was excited for 3 to continue the progress and for this to be a trilogy worth showing to people who won't read the 1100 page book. Nope. Bad casting, bad acting, bad music (not alone, but it didn't match what was happening on screen), bad adaptation of the plot, baaaaad dialogue. First, we had to deal with the re-casting of all the roles from Part 2, just as we did from Part 1 with one glaring difference. Part 2's actors were improvements, Part 3's were not. Francisco D'Anconia is cast as a man too old to be Dagny's sweetheart, rather more of a father figure. Almost every other character is almost comically one-dimensional, as if they are cast for only their one trait. Rearden is saved from this travesty by being completely omitted from the story save for his voice on a phone call. John Galt is acceptable, and even gives a passable speech. Worst was Mr Thompson, who couldn't be bothered to know the first thing about his own philosophy, but more on that later. Hugh Akston had a believable conversation with Dagny which, unfortunately, may be the highlight of the movie. All of this is being distracted from by music that doesn't fit the on-screen action, unnecessary landscape shots of California pretending to be Colorado, and dialogue so badly cut, that the audio track doesn't even match the visual track in some places. And that's just the details. My biggest complaint is the audience was treated like idiots. The plot was narrated through the whole movie (ever heard of show them, don't tell them? I guess not), and the characters explicitly spelled out their ideals more like they were reading talking points off of Ron Paul's pamphlets, not describing hard decisions they actually had to make in their lives. Additionally, the antagonists in the movie were bumbling idiots. At the point in the book most of the movie covers, the leaders of the People's State of America are supposed to be whole-heartedly dedicated to the way they are running the world., completely convinced of its morality, and well versed in the language used to defend it. Instead, they are obvious fools, unable to defend the most basic premises of their world view, supposedly so that the audience can more easily see that their world view is wrong. Well I didn't need that help, thanks. Almost as offensive is portraying John Galt, Ayn Rand's (a staunch atheist) hero of society, as Jesus complete with torture on the cross and a resurrection scene. It was probably added to make the movie more appealing to Evangelical Republicans who might be sympathetic to a Randian ideology if it weren't for the atheism. And to round out the offensiveness, Dagny Taggart, a powerful woman who runs a railroad empire and is the strongest voice against the socialist elites, is reduced to s starry eyed schoolgirl seemingly struck dumb (literally and figuratively) by her love of John Galt and her admiration of the society he's built. Her character is reduced to a passive window through which we watch the "story" unfold. 0/10 would not see again, and will not be adding the Blu-Ray to my collector's edition Parts 1 and 2.

I've read Atlas Shrugged. Then and now, I've been convinced that one could make a pretty good film out of it. I still think it's doable. But it has not be done. Three times John Aglialoro (the connecting tissue in this misbegotten series, since each entry has different directors and casts) has delivered a film that delivers Rand's message in a wholly deficient dramatic context. It's like eating flour and calling it bread. Part I was bad. Part II was worse. Part III might be worse, but let's give credit where credit is due: the cast actually does a passable job. That doesn't mean they weren't miscast; Kristoffer Polaha is all wrong as John Galt, coming off more like a suburban Everyman than a man with the intelligence and ambition to "stop the motor of the world"; Laura Regan is okay as Dagny, but the butchering of the story denies her the full scope of her character. It's the script that really sinks it. Admittedly, adapting the third part of the novel with any kind of fidelity would requite quite a long film, but this is just pathetic. Much of the film passes in montage, with a narrator filling in far too many gaps. And the final quarter of the novel (from Galt's arrest to the end) is rendered an unholy mess, with plot threads left unfinished or tossed to the winds entirely. The final scene of the novel isn't even shown! J. James Manera's direction doesn't help; the staging is usually flat and the pace is nothing special either; the film avoids being boring mostly because so many scenes zip by in a matter of seconds. Gale Tattersall's cinematography, the odd shot or two aside, is at the level of low-budget TV; the production design is fatally underfunded, with Mulligan's Valley (excuse me, it's called GALT'S GULCH) looking like a suburban co-op, and an obvious lack of resources visible from start to finish. The score is laughably overwrought, the editing is sloppy, and the whole thing just looks rushed and cheap. Glenn Beck, Ron Paul, and Sean Hannity make cameo appearances, but they didn't do much else for the film; it looks cheaper than many indie films made for a fraction of its reputed $5 million budget. And as for the politics, the film merely proves that successful propaganda requires some level of artistic accomplishment. Could anyone be inspired by this? Could any fan of the novel accept it as even remotely worthy of Rand's narrative, let alone her message? I'm not politically inclined to agree with Galt or Rand, but the film doesn't even make a case. It is, to put it plainly, an embarrassment to all involved. This whole trilogy should be studied as an example of what can happen when enough people are willing to waste enough money and time, though not enough to result in a worthy product.