"She Runs a Railroad? You Mean Like Amtrak?"
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There are two-and-a-half reasons why I suspect an epic Atlas Shrugged trilogy in the tradition of Lord of the Rings would probably flop. And no, Angelina Jolie is not one of them.
1) The industrial-technological gap.
Yeah sure, you can still read Atlas Shrugged — a novel obviously if not explicitly set in the 1950s — for the first time in the Twenty-First Century (and you should if you haven't already). But does that translate to the big screen, or even television for that matter? Let's face it: it's about a woman who runs a railroad (before commercial aviation!) and a guy who owns steel mills (back when there actually were steel mills!).
There were no computers in Atlas Shrugged — so is there is to be no Bill Gates analogue who is fined by Eurocrats for trumped-up antitrust violations? No biotechnologist who is roadblocked by the FDA? No Sam Walton whose stores keep getting zoned out of towns? No discount airline entrepreneur who is blacklisted from the local airport? No Martha Stewart or Oprah Winfrey censored by the FCC?
You either modernize the capitalists (in which case you butcher the original novel), or you don't (in which case you're just remaking Tucker). Neither option is desirable.
2) No super-villains.
A common observation (criticism?) about Atlas Shrugged is that all the antagonist bureaucrats and other looters are quite miserable, decrepit and impotent little dysfunctionals who are smaller-than-life caricatures. There is no Ellsworth Toohey in the book, and there is certainly no Sauron, Palpatine or even Lex Luthor. The bureaucratic machinations of Wesley Mouch and tepid sniffles of James Taggart are unlikely to keep people coming back for second and third installments.
2.5) No special effects.
Enough said.
I'd go to three movies. So would you. But that does not "another LOTR" make.
(Via Marginal Revolution.)
1) The industrial-technological gap.
Yeah sure, you can still read Atlas Shrugged — a novel obviously if not explicitly set in the 1950s — for the first time in the Twenty-First Century (and you should if you haven't already). But does that translate to the big screen, or even television for that matter? Let's face it: it's about a woman who runs a railroad (before commercial aviation!) and a guy who owns steel mills (back when there actually were steel mills!).
There were no computers in Atlas Shrugged — so is there is to be no Bill Gates analogue who is fined by Eurocrats for trumped-up antitrust violations? No biotechnologist who is roadblocked by the FDA? No Sam Walton whose stores keep getting zoned out of towns? No discount airline entrepreneur who is blacklisted from the local airport? No Martha Stewart or Oprah Winfrey censored by the FCC?
You either modernize the capitalists (in which case you butcher the original novel), or you don't (in which case you're just remaking Tucker). Neither option is desirable.
2) No super-villains.
A common observation (criticism?) about Atlas Shrugged is that all the antagonist bureaucrats and other looters are quite miserable, decrepit and impotent little dysfunctionals who are smaller-than-life caricatures. There is no Ellsworth Toohey in the book, and there is certainly no Sauron, Palpatine or even Lex Luthor. The bureaucratic machinations of Wesley Mouch and tepid sniffles of James Taggart are unlikely to keep people coming back for second and third installments.
2.5) No special effects.
Enough said.
I'd go to three movies. So would you. But that does not "another LOTR" make.
(Via Marginal Revolution.)
Posted by Kip on
13 July 2006
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