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"Atlas Shrugged" Movie

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who plays what character does not interest me near as much as what ideas make the movie(s)? AS is an idea novel. it changed me, not from the specific characters, but from ideas. sure i have an idea what each character would look like, but i really don't care. yes i know the concepts are filtered through the characters. but which ideas transalte to film? Which just get cut for time? what speeches are too long? What are the borderline scenes? what scares me is that the people that make those decisions will shape the concepts of objectivism to alot of people. alot, alot, alot of people are going to go see a movie with jolie, add pitt to the mix and now you have a blockbuster on your hands before production starts. the responsiblity of deciding what makes the final cut, is so much interesting to me then who plays dagny. yes, it's important. yes, i wish it wasn't her. but, my stomach hurts when i think of all the way this could good bad, real bad, terrible, nasty bad; and i am not talking about the acting. does any one know who is on the short list of directors? or another critical decision makers are, besides the people that own the rights to the movie.

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but, my stomach hurts when i think of all the way this could good bad, real bad, terrible, nasty bad; and i am not talking about the acting. does any one know who is on the short list of directors? or another critical decision makers are, besides the people that own the rights to the movie.

I nominate this sentiment for the "what we're all thinking" award. (at least those of us that are worried)

I mean compare Starship Troopers the book with Starship Troopers the movie. They managed to twist the political message into almost the complete opposite. Oh, and it was really dumb, too.

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I mean compare Starship Troopers the book with Starship Troopers the movie. They managed to twist the political message into almost the complete opposite. Oh, and it was really dumb, too.

I would be very interested to find out how the Starship Troopers movie affected sales of the Starship Troopers book. Does anyone know how to find that out? I googled for a while and couldn't come up with anything. But I did find legions of sci-fi fans saying things like, "if you want to start a fight at a sci-fi convention, say, 'I liked the movie adaptation of Starship Troopers.'"

Edited by Bold Standard
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I'd like to see Adrian Brody as Ellis Wyatt. I've only seen him in Peter Jackson's King Kong and felt he was the only performance in the film worth applauding. In my mind he's the spitting image of how Wyatt first enters the novel: "He was young, tall, and something about him suggested violence, though she could not say what it was, because the first trait one grasped about him was a quality of self-control that seemed almost arrogant. (pg. 81)"

As well, im' curious how the music of Richard Halley will be composed. There's been little music I've heard in my lifetime that evokes the emotions that the descriptions of Halley's music do. :D

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As well, im' curious how the music of Richard Halley will be composed. There's been little music I've heard in my lifetime that evokes the emotions that the descriptions of Halley's music do. :D

I doubt Halley's story will be well-covered in the film. Being a musician, I'd love an unedited scene based on the private performance he gave for Dagny, though.

There are a few composers that could handle the job of writing Halley's Concerto. John Williams isn't the greatest original composer in the world, but he's an excellent imitator. Given a few pieces to work from, an obvious late-Romantic period influence, and some careful direction, he could do it. Jerry Goldsmith would also be one of my top choices.

I'm sure there are also more than a few young, "undiscovered" neo-Romanticists out there as well. Many schools are starting to graduate "film composers" who are trained in styles from every period, not just trained in modern "anti-music".

As far as casting the part of Richard Halley, my firm choice would be David Hyde Pierce. He's a great actor, but most importantly his pre-theater training was as a concert pianist. Pierce is an excellent player, and could handle shooting scenes where the playing doesn't have to be faked or hidden (mercifully).

Another good pianist is Kelsey Grammar, and - as a cute nod to the professional rivalry between the academic Niles Crane and advice-radio host Frasier - I'd cast him as Mort Liddy.

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  • 4 weeks later...
:lol: This is the second Atlas Shrugged movie thread that I have crashed simply by saying that one of the characters could be black.

It's not as if Tyra Banks is nothing more than a pretty model, she is very smart and runs her own company.

I would otherwise agree...(I think she's gorgeous), but she is an otherwise bad actor. And certainly not for that movie.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Angelina Jolie? :worry:

Not my ideal choice. As for the score why not Phillip Glass? His Akhenaten Opera for instance would be a great example of what kind of score he could write - remember in the book he, Halley, is an innovator not a conformist like most other Hollywood composers.

Edited by deviadah
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Angelina Jolie? :worry:

Not my ideal choice. As for the score why not Phillip Glass? His Akhenaten Opera for instance would be a great example of what kind of score he could write - remember in the book he, Halley, is an innovator not a conformist like most other Hollywood composers.

It's really not an issue of "conformity" or "non-conformity". It's an issue of writing Objectively good music. In an era where good music was the norm, conformity would be just fine, and non-conformity would be garbage. Actually, many movie scores are the last places today one can find glimpses of really beautiful music a la the Romantics of the late 19th Century. A lot of trash there too, but at least one can hope.

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Heres a new idea: make two seperate versions.

Most people wouldn't have the time to sit the extra 3+ hours in the theater. I admit I would be bored, I actually skipped past the speech when reading, then returned to it after I finished. It would be cool to do this with a movie. In the DVD version, there could be a choice, the shorter or longer cut. The longer cut would be more or less the whole book, and a viewer could watch it in sections if they lack time. The theater version would be, obviously, the shorter cut. Parts of Galts speech would be cut, as other things would be, but that way more people would be interested in the longer version. AND more people would go to the movie, as opposed to being deterred from reviews and friends complaining about the speech.

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I disagree. It's a common misconception that modern filmmakers shoot extra scenes specifically for the DVD release. DVD sales still account for only about half of a picture's total net. All those 'deleted scenes' on DVDs were shot with the intention of being included in the final cut of the film, but for one reason or another (usually executive producers' or distributors' desire for a shorter, and thus more marketable product) are deemed less relevant to the picture and are omitted. No one goes into production saying "we're going to shoot this scene specifically for the DVD." That decision is made much later, usually after the film has premiered in theatres.

To shoot the entire speech would be disastrously costly. And besides, what on earth are you going to show for two hours - a bunch of people sitting around staring at a radio? Two hours of reaction shots? A two-hour montage graphically dramatizing everything mentioned in the speech? The latter is the only one that would hold viewers' attentions for more than five minutes, and filming any more than five minutes of this sort of material would easily double production costs.

If I were the producer of Atlas Shrugged, and didn't have a well-written screenplay containing a shorter version of the speech, I would have my Galt actor record, audio only, the entire speech as a scratch track, for use in editing. The editors would lay down the parts they want, and then we would re-record all the parts they used, in order to make it sound fluid. If any 'complete' version of the speech ended up on the DVD, it would be that scratch track. But there is no reason to believe the screenwriter hasn't already done the editing. In this case, if the entire speech is to show up on the DVD, it will certainly be audio only, and it will likely have been produced after the film release, in preparation for the DVD release, and on a very, very tiny budget. There is no way to incorporate the entire speech into the film without destroying the film.

-Q

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Angelina Jolie? :)

Not my ideal choice.

Take a look here for my own ideas on various characters in AS. Note that I've selected the actors based solely on how I picture the characters' looks in my own mind, with no regard to acting ability, what kind of person they are outside of acting, or any other consideration whatsoever (including, in one case, whether or not they're still alive!).
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Take a look here for my own ideas on various characters in AS. Note that I've selected the actors based solely on how I picture the characters' looks in my own mind, with no regard to acting ability, what kind of person they are outside of acting, or any other consideration whatsoever (including, in one case, whether or not they're still alive!).

In that album, who would be which character?

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In that album, who would be which character?
The descriptions are the actor's names, the image names are the characters. If for whatever reason you can't see the image names, let me know and I'll post a list here.
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In that case... I agree with all of them except Mr. Thompson(although I do like the coincidence of his last name). You hit the rest right on my head.
That's the one I'm least satisfied with. Now that I think about it some more, I have a better idea. I'll put it there in a few minutes, once I've found a picture that I like.
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Take a look here for my own ideas on various characters in AS. Note that I've selected the actors based solely on how I picture the characters' looks in my own mind, with no regard to acting ability, what kind of person they are outside of acting, or any other consideration whatsoever (including, in one case, whether or not they're still alive!).

I don't think the new Mr. Thompson is held up to this same standard... His looks don't match the character nearly as well as his character does.

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I don't think the new Mr. Thompson is held up to this same standard... His looks don't match the character nearly as well as his character does.
I might at some point come up with someone who better matches my mental image of Mr. Thompson. My image of him, by the way, is rather fuzzy, just like the character's looks are described in the book. Bush is actually pretty close, though (in looks - I definitely agree that his personality is dead on for Thompson).

Don't forget, these are how I see the characters. YMMV. :D

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Actually, many movie scores are the last places today one can find glimpses of really beautiful music a la the Romantics of the late 19th Century. A lot of trash there too, but at least one can hope.

I couldn't disagree more. Most of my favorite modern music comes from movies.

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I couldn't disagree more. Most of my favorite modern music comes from movies.
Then, you actually agree with KendallJ. From the part you quoted, he meant movies were still the last place remaining to find good music, not that they were last place to look.
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