Tag: Atlas Shrugged

The worst trilogy of all time? No, you have to remember things like The Scary Movie franchise exist. Or soon to be Planes trilogy.

Now, weirdest and strangest trilogy of all time? Yeah, probably.

After all, I don’t know of a single trilogy that replaced every crossover character between every film. I don’t know of a single trilogy to say they would only continue to make more movies if their previous ones made enough money, then, you know, make them anyways despite it not occurring.

I don’t know of a single trilogy to make only one part a musical. That is not true for this one, but it almost happened.

So here we go. Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt?

“Who is John Galt? — Kill yourself!”

Part three, if you have been following along, starts with Dagny Taggart (Laura Regan) surviving her plane crash. She has now landed in a magical fairy tale land where all these big incredible thinkers have been living in secrecy! And she is now one of them!

Just kidding, she is here by accident. But this is totally where John Galt (Kristoffer Polaha) is. He wanted to stop the motor of the world, or some shit, and he wanted the government to get off of his nuts. And since they wanted to control his brain and his industry, so he fucking left. He wanted people to make money off of their creations and get some sort of super capitalism, away from any government shenanigans.

While this is going on, all the government works are falling to shit and everyone in America is sad.

And yeah, some terrorism level shit happens. People want the John Galt philosophy to come true, Dagny just kind of wants John Galt’s penis.

Some torture, and then another shitty ending.

With other fine actors like, Greg Germann, Larry Cedar, Joaquim de Almeida, Peter Mackenzie, Stephen Tobolowsky and Rob Morrow.

That’s right, this movie has a romance plot line.

Man, I wish this would have been a musical. It would have probably been less cheesy than the actual film itself.

Like, this movie ended up having a narrator. It wasn’t a person from the movie talking, it was just a straight up omnipotent narrator, with a powerful voice, and it really broke any narrative that the characters were creating. Show me, don’t tell me. The narrator made me laugh every time and it was extremely off putting.

Outside of the annoying narration, the story felt…over acted? Overly dramatic? Maybe just overly stupid. Yeah, let’s go with that. If I was supposed to feel any emotional connection to John Galt or Dagny I got nothing (And the actor changes / delay between stories didn’t help). It might work in the book, but this slow trilogy isn’t a great format for it.

I think this trilogy was made for people who really like the book and no one else. It really didn’t make a lot of sense without the book knowledge. If I have some free time, I might finally Audiobook this one. Maybe. But the trilogy was one of the worst and thus hilarious attempts at telling a serious story I have ever seen.

Never again. Never again.

Holy shit, they made the movie.

I watched Atlas Shrugged Part I, the first part of a planned trilogy, and got almost nothing out of it. It was weird and confusing, a bunch of business stuff, all of it over my head. It also made about zero dollars.

What I do know about Atlas Shrugged is that its end message is that Capitalism is the best, and the Freer the Marker, the better the world. Right? Well, sticking true to that point, the creator of the film said they would only make Atlas Shrugged Part II: The Strike if Part I made enough money to cover the cost of Part II. Well, the free market said no to that, and that we did not want this trilogy to happen.

But here we are, with Part II out and in our faces. Not only did they make it anyways, they replaced THE ENTIRE ORIGINAL CAST WITH NEW PEOPLE. That is completely unheard of. Everyone character who is in both movies has a new actor or actress. I guess it makes sense. The first one bombed, replace all the people. Still an odd circumstance to happen for a movie.

Something sexist about cleavage and laying down rails.

At the end of the first movie, more laws and taxes were put in place in Colorado, so an oil tycoon decided to set fire to his fields, saying he left it as he found it, and now he is on strike. Oooh, guess where the subtitle came from? Well, he disappeared, but no one cares.

Dagny Taggart (Samantha Mathis) is kicking ass. Her John Galt line was a success, and her knew partnership with Henry Rearden (Jason Beghe) lead to a new metal that is lighter and cheaper than steel. BIG SUCCESS. Despite government interference, every thing is great for them.

Too bad the people aren’t having fun. The 99.97% or whatever are protesting in New York, times never change. Well, famous people keep missing. Nice pianists, for example. Dagny’s brother, James (Patrick Fabian) is running the company now, so he is rolling in the cash. Getting dates with random clerks (Larisa Oleynik, most famous for being Alex Mack from The Secret World Of Alex Mack, woo!) and stuff.

Well, long story short, Dagny finds some weird engine thing, somewhere. Most of the scientists are now disappearing, so she finds the last one available (Diedrich Bader) to figure out how to make it work. It could be even better for the future of energy, since gas is $40 a gallon! Maybe.

Longer story short, government hates everything happening. They make it so corporations can never change ever again. They have to sell to everyone. They cannot sell their business. They cannot change their CEOs. They must remain stagnant, and nothing will change, and no more patents. This is pretty intense. Dagny throws a fit, is losing her scientist, and really wants to find out who the hell John Galt is.

Ray Wise plays the Head of State, Esai Morales is Francisco d’Anconia, and D.B. Sweeney plays John Galt. Ah, that’s who he is!

When Diedrich Bader is your last hope to figuring out science stuff, you are totally going to get fucked over.

Here is one benefit of Part II over Part I. I actually could understand (mostly) what the fuck was going on in Part II. Part I I watched, read the synopsis of, and still found myself pretty dang lost. That’s a problem, and I would say Part II is a better movie because of that reason.

But it is bad. The CGI shows that the movie was made on an extremely low budget.

I also think it was probably too detailed and close to the book, but thats without knowing the book. I am sure this didn’t have to be a trilogy, and because it is split up into parts, it is “okay” to leave you with a cliffhanger ending like they do. Really it just annoys me.

Despite all this, I still want to see the trilogy get finished. First, I wont read the book ever. Or the plot synopsis. Second, I am excited to see the entire cast replaced again, which looks entirely likely. Third, there is a chance part III will be a musical. It is an old source, but fuck it, its the same guy in charge.

Come on. Shit on Ayn Rand’s grave and make her book’s movie (against the will of the free market) into a musical. Do it.

A TRILOGY!?

That is what I exclaimed, earlier today. I knew that someone was doing Atlas Shrugged into a movie, but when I saw Part 1 was out (and didn’t know it was out yet, wow), I just assumed it was two parts. But three?!

Well. Maybe. Apparently the movie tanked. I am not even sure if the second one has begun production. Apparently the director said he’d only do it if the first one made enough to finance the second.

An important scene in the movie. Riveting.

Yes, I have never read the book. So lets see if I get the plot correctly. This is sometime in the future (2016?) and oil is scare and expensive. Like, $40 a gallon. So people take trains a lot more now. In Colorado, there is only one train company left and even it is falling apart. Fun by the Taggarts, (Matthew Marsden and Taylor Schilling, our hero).

People keep disappearing. Some after quitting highly lucrative jobs, despite the payment they would be receiving. They ask “Who is John Galt”, which is a question that is not worth the time to find an answer, or something. They later invest in a new type of steel for their tracks, which turns out to be successful. But then uhh. More shit happens? Dagny Taggart sleeps with some Henry Reardon guy (Grant Bowler) and they discover a new engine that will make their trains even more kick ass.

Then uhh. Some more laws are passed. And an oil field is on fire. Also, Patrick Fischler is in this movie.

But yeah. Then the movie ends. I can say that the ending definitely is the height of the climax, but that heightened sense of danger or excitement is missing throughout the rest of the movie.

Maybe I didn’t get it. In fact, that is probably true. Someone who has read the book is probably typing furiously at how dumb I am. But maybe the movie requires you to have read the book to understand what is going on?

It doesn’t help that this movie is only 1/3 of the actual story, and I have no idea where it is going. I do know that there is a community of people with certain ideals. And John Galt is real.

I also know this movie was lame.

Here is a picture of 50 Cent!