Atlas Shrugs yet Again!

[Xavier_Onassis]

I see that they have produced, released and put the DVD of Atlas Shrugged, Part II. I wonder how sales of this novel are selling. No teacher in his/her right mind would assign such a long book and expect it to be read. War and Peace comes to mind. As a rule it is an entire  grad level course in Russian Lit. classes, just like Don Quijote.

Rand said she wrote the book so it could be put on film. She got her start writing screenplays, so this is logical. Then when someone wrote a screenplay, they edited (the horror!) John Galt's speech. She said that it MUST be included, word for word. But then again, that would take up most of the movie. The human bladder limits the length of a film. Only the few, the brave, the chosen,  the constipated, have sat through Bertolucci's 1900, a far better film than anything you could make of Atlas Shrugged. The original cut lasts six hours.

Atlas Shrugged II has a totally different cast from the first film. Apparently the Rand Institute does not have the magnetism or the funding that Jackson had with the Tolkein books. And of course, the script for LOTR is more believable.  Orcs and Trolls are more believable than Rand's bureaucrat villains. Mount Doom is more believable than The John Galt Line made from Reardon Metal.

Galt's speech will be dealt with in Part III, Atlas Shrugs Thrice. It will be amazing if the director can make anything watchable that lasts that long.

I think that a guy like Ken Burns could make a decent video of the Gettysburg Address using still photos and music like 'Ashoken Farewell", but then again. that is a pretty short speech. Lincoln managed to say exactly what needed to be said at that time and place in that speech. But, unlike Rand, he was not Russian and I think he was a much clearer thinker.

[Plane]

Orcs and Trolls are more believable than Rand's bureaucrat villains.

Oh?

Breaucrats that frustrate good ideas don't seem far fetched at all to me.

[Xavier_Onassis]

There surely are bad bureaucrats. But Rand's bureaucrat villains are unbelievable bureaucratic villains. Bureaucrats may frustrate geniuses, but Rand's bureaucrats and her geniuses alike are comic book characters: They are more like Lex Luthor and  all those Gotham City baddies than real villains. Read the book and you will see what I mean. They have comic book names Dagny Taggert, Wesley Mouch.

In the LOTR, it is a fantasy world, and we suspend our disbelief in the case of imaginary orcs and trolls.

Rand's book presumes to be an authentic future USA. But there have never been any bureaucrats as outlandish as her bureaucrats. No one has ever suggested nationalizing all copyrights and all patents. We cannot suspend disbelief in Rand;s world, because it is supposed to be the real world of the future,

We are asked to believe that the entire future of this country depends on one single railroad shipping oil out of one place in Colorado. That is just dumb.

Rand's mind was in Russia, where there actually WAS a transcontinental railroad. There has never been one in the US and still none exists.

Rand's Colorado (she visited flyover country only for a few weeks in her life) is her vision of Siberia, a remote and mountainous place with untold resources.

Did I mention that this champion of capitalism never invested a dime in even one company? Nope, she put her money in a passbook account like the dowdy old Jewish housewife she was.

[Plane]

Rand's mind was in Russia, where there actually WAS a transcontinental railroad. There has never been one in the US and still none exists.

Just to quibble.

It took the Pioneers 4-6 months overland which was reduced to 6 days. Life in the West began to catch up with that of the East. The idea of a Transcontinental Railroad had been discussed for years but as usual Politics got in the way and delayed any initiative.

On July 30, 1965 Golden Spike National Historic Site was established Located on the very site of the driving of the Last Spike on May 10th 1869.

http://localism.com/blog/ut/posts/1227425/Salt-Lake-County-Real

[Xavier_Onassis]

Yes, it is possible to travel by rail across the continent. No, there is no single transcontinental railroad that goes from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There are many railroads that go from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. There are at least four lines that go from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

Russia has a line that goes from the Baltic to Vladivostok. Of course, there is no Russian line that travels across Europe. The Union Pacific went from Omaha to Promontory Point. The Central Pacific went on to the Pacific. Eventually they merged into the Union Pacific.  The other lines were the Rock Island, which went from the Mississippi to the Pacific. the Great Northern which went from Minneapolis to the Pacific, the  Santa Fe, which went from Atchison Kansas to near Santa Fe NM, and theSouthern Pacific which joined it. I think they are merged into BNSF .

There is a map of the BNSF here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchison,_Topeka_and_Santa_Fe_Railway