Atlas Shrugged (Movie)

I watch Atlas Shrugged on a streaming-service last night. This is a three movie marathon, and not for the faint-hearted. I was motivated to do so mostly because the book by Ayn Rand is referenced a lot in the video game Bioshock.

Ayn uses the book to espouse her philosophy, which can be considered super-capitalism. Quoting Wiki:

Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute". She considered Objectivism a systematic philosophy and laid out positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.

Philosophy

The protagonist is Dagny who runs a railroad company in depression-torn 2017 (the first movie was released in 2011). The company is owned by her brother James, and most of the first two books is about the political shenanigans he, other big company owners and politicians engage in. At the end of the second movie, Dagny arrives in the philosophical utopia, and the third movie is set there. We see this discussion (Jim being her brother):

Why do Jim and so many of his cronies have so much power?

Why do they?

Because they promote the idea the idea that it is okay to take from one man and give to another. Dagny, all of your life you've heard people saying that we have to help the less fortunate. that the measure of virtue is... is not what you achieve, but what you do for others. Hm? You... you've heard them say that people have a right to a living just because they're human. And that is not the right to earn a living, but the right to a living which you are required to provide to them. Now do you see any common themes here? Need of other paramount. Your needs secondary. Their philosophy is based on how much you sacrifice to other people.

So the movie is saying that the reason billionaire business men have so much power is that they promote this idea that you are required to give the poor money? Really? I would say they have all that power because they have so much money and buy people off. The very opposite of what this is saying, really.

These billionaires exhibit none of the supposedly bad traits discussed here, indeed they are the antithesis of those traits.

Science

Reardon invents a metal that is twice as strong as steel and half the density. The great thing about writing a book is you can just make shit like this up, and reality be damned.

It gets worse. John Galt invents a motor that uses atmospheric vacuum and the Casimir effect to generate static electricity. Enough to power the entire west coast of America. Never mind the laws of thermodynamics...

And then there is the magical cloaking device that hides the utopia. What do people see on Google Maps? In fairness, the book was written long before that existed, but not the movie.

Disappearances

All through the first two movies the great innovators and captains of industries are recruited to this utopia. And they all go immediately. There is a pianist who goes off part way through a performance!

None of them say no, say because they have commitments to their family. None of them even stop to pack a bag. None of them ask to take a look at what they might be getting into.

This is portrayed as a strike. These are people going on strike for... well, not sure what really.

Workers

In the Utopia of the third movie, Dagny is shown a mine, and says how it would be more efficient if they used a railway to transport the ore, and starts working out a route for a narrow gauge line, all of which is perfectly reasonable - but why had no one thought of that before? It is 2017, this is not a great innovation! And yet on the back of this wonderful insight, she if offered the job of building the railway.

Who exactly is going to build it though? Is she going to build three miles of railway on her own?

Indeed, who is mining the ore?

The only people who are here are the innovators, not the actual workers. Has someone failed to think this through?

The Evil Government

The straw man government is obviously corrupt, but also immoral and none too competent either.

Anticipating greater unrest, the state science institute began developing crude but lethal crowd control devices.

Obvious the institute is too dumb to create the wondrous technology of the utopia - like a narrow gauge railway - so only manage "crude" devices.

Railroads

In this world there is a single line that crosses the states from one side to the other, and this passes through a tunnel that gets blocked in part 2. It is single track, so presumably not that busy. And yet, in part 3, the blockage seems to have a huge impact on the nation.

Also, oil prices have sky-rocketed, which is why railroads have become important again. So why are the trains diesel? Surely electric trains with nuclear power stations would made more sense?

And this railroad is appalling! Crashes and breakdowns are routine. The tunnel collapse was because they sent trains into it from both ends, despite it being single track.

They manage to find a stream engine to pull a failed train. That might have made sense when the book was written in the fifties, but not in 2017!

Casual disregard for the poor

Francisco d'Anconia is a rich playboy-type who sabotages his own companies so the nasty rich people lose money. That is a fine sentiment, if rather odd, but what about the hundreds of people at these sites who lose their jobs? Or perhaps even get injured in the explosions?

Oh, wait. They are poor, so do not matter.

Directive 10-289

The government introduce this directive, that saying all businesses must stay static, no change in staff no change in production. And all consumers must buy what they did last year.

What happens if someone dies?

Anyone who bought a car last year is legally obliged to buy another this year. And if you did not buy one last year, you cannot buy one this year. If you car breaks down, you cannot replace it. In fact, I guess you cannot even get it repaired if you did not do that last year.

Did no one think this through?

Romance

This is the most emotionless romance I have ever seen! The guy is not even seen until part 3.

Galt the Hero

Of course by the end the people are clamouring for John Galt, because that is easy to do when you write the script. All he does is make a speech...

The Cast

To save money, each movie has an entirely different cast. It would cost too much to have any actor appear in another movie, as he or she would demand higher wages.

This is most apparent when comparing the ending of 2 and the start of 3, both featuring Dagny crashing an aeroplane in the utopia. With different actors, the scenes are entirely different.

Even the scenery goes through some dramatic casting changes. Towards the end the so-called Taggart Bridge is clearly the Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland, and yet elsewhere is a rather elegant concrete bridge.