Try reading a page of it from the book yourself and time it. You could read the whole thing in an hour, but a dramatic reading would be much longer.

And she thought it absurd to let others butcher her work. So I didn't think it was that far fetched after hearing what Ruddy said. If they had agreed on HER shortening it then why didn't they then make the movie??

Whatever. John's invention, is what you mean. Ok. I'm just saying, it wouldn't have taken much to show it. A greenhouse during one of the interminable driving-and-scenery scenes.

Yep it's absurd to think that Rand would have wanted to keep the entire speech in a movie.

Christ almighty!!! Unclealready!!! Me and my terrible rumor starting that the world is hinged on. Ruddy never mentioned a length...it was implied by their parting ways. Good NESS. Unhand me...

You said that Ayn Rand held up the movie from being made because she wanted the whole speech in the movie. Does it make sense to you that Ayn Rand would want or demand that a speech be read for 4 hours in a movie that lasts a few hours? It's ridiculous. It's not even remotely plausible.

That claim is contrary to anything Ayn Rand said or Ruddy said in his previous interview in which he described how they had agreed on how much the novel would have to be cut back and what the story would be. The studio would not give her control over the script regardless of speeches or anything else. Ayn Rand did not want or demand a 4 hour speech. It had nothing to do with holding a movie up for decades over reading a 4 hour speech in a movie.

This is what Michael Jaffee, the NBC producer who was working with her on the agreed on project, with her in control of the script, said about constructing the story for the movie:

"The principle issue was that you were not going to be able to make a movie of Atlas Shrugged and include everything from the book. There just wasn't enough time; it would take thirty hours. She, in fact, sat down and read the entire John Galt speech and timed it. It was four hours and twenty minutes or something, so she knew you weren't going to take three nights on TV to read John Galt's speech. So she said, 'You have to find a dramatic equivalent for that. But I am going to edit that speech for you, so don't worry, and I will get that speech down to three to seven minutes. I'll have to do it; no one else is equipped to do that.'"

"I was always fond of talking about reducing the speech because everybody says, 'Oh, everything's sacrosanct.' Well, things are sacrosanct, but she was smart and thoughtful about what things to make sacrosanct."

There was no split over her "wanting the whole speech" and no such demand held up the movie for decades. The key issue in the negotiations was always final approval of the entire script, which she insisted on and got in the NBC project until Silverman came in and killed it because he didn't want the project. Jaffe: "When Fred Silverman took over the network, he hated the project, so he cancelled it."

Whatever Rudy said in the Prophesy film you shouldn't be helping to spread the story that Ayn Rand prevented the movie from being made over such a preposterous accusation as her demanding a 4 hour speech, or anything remotely like that, in a movie.

ewv, a page of script dialogue runs an average of about one minute on the screen. If Galt's roughly 60 pages of text fit onto one script page per "book page," it would have added about one hour to the movie, and for just about all moviegoers today, it would have been too long.

Personally, after about two hours, I can go into 'left-brain overflow' with just about any kind of inputs. And I've got some OCD!

Holy hell. You're like dog with a bone. Sigh. The rant that ruddy goes on is about not wanting a long speech. He wanted her to relinquish creative control because he wanted a shorter speech. She wouldn't let go' he said I'll wait til you die then. She said I'll put it in my will that you can't have it. He said I'll get someone else to get it for me. The end. We're you there? We're you the word counter? Are you ruddy? Why are you so hung up on this? Rand wanted control of the speech and wasn't going to compromise. Can I slap you now?

No not the motor. It's a source of energy, with many invisible applications, including oranges. :-)

You aren't responsible for what someone else said, but what he said is not true and you should not let him mislead you.

TheMysterian said "I think Ayn Rand's insistance on including Galt's entire speech was a major factor that kept the movie from being made for so long" and you agreed with him, saying "Yes she did".

It would not be possible to read a speech for 4 hours in a movie. The idea is preposterous, and so is the accusation that Ayn Rand held up the movie demanding it. None of it is remotely plausible. Does it make any sense to you? This is how malicious, anti-Ayn Rand rumors are started and spread and you shouldn't be misled into having a part of it.

There were several attempts to produce AS with different major producers and the key issue was always over control of the script, not including a 4 hour speech. The final deal that was in fact underway for a miniseries with NBC required that if Ayn Rand did not approve the script after working with them on it she would correct it herself. The project was was well underway but was killed in 1977 when Fred Silverman took over NBC and cancelled the project because he didn't like it. It was not over including a 4 hour speech in a movie.

Likewise for a previous major promising agreement she thought she had in 1972 with Albert Ruddy, who very much had wanted to produce AS. She publicly announced that she had sold the rights while retaining the right of approval of the script, stating that "for almost fifteen years, I had refused to sell Atlas Shrugged except on condition that I would have the right of approval of the film script". Ruddy reneged on the agreement. Ayn Rand did not walk out because they wouldn't include a 4 hour speech in a movie.

Why are you harping on me about something I saw in an interview? She wanted the whole speech, the director said no way, they had a split over it and that was that. Go watch it for yourself. I'm just the messenger... sheeshorama.

oh, through John's motor, you mean? Well, I suppose, but it would have been nice if they'd showed it.

Energy from static electricity in the air.

Speaking out against Ayn Rand with exaggerations and worse? Yes. It happens all the time.

There were several attempts to produce a movie with different people and there has never been any indication that she wanted the entire AS Galt's speech read in a film which she saw as a way to "show" and "not philosophical teaching". Creative control over what was used from the speech in what way is not a demand to put that whole speech on film.

I don't remember if any of the attempts at a movie reached the point of directing shooting, let alone anything near the point of Galt's speech where a director, as opposed to pre-production planning, would argue about it. You would have to know the context before accepting an accusation like that from an angry detractor.

The various short speeches are another matter, and maybe she did not want someone taking something out she wanted included. She had good reasons for what she wanted included, based on both her philosophical integrity and Hollywood experience; unlike the typical directors with different goals and standards. I haven't seen the script she wrote for the first third of AS; that would tell us a lot about what she was doing with dialog from shorter 'speeches'.

WTF?!?

I want to know how they managed to grow oranges in Colorado!

Well the director who was working with her was pissed off about it and the interview was with him so maybe he's full of shit and speaking out against himself....??

If that film said that then it tells you a lot about its accuracy and confusion. It was "independently produced" in favor of Ayn Rand, but not produced by those who know the most about her life. In none of Ayn Rand's own writing is there any indication that she wanted or thought it would be practical to put the entire Galt's speech into a movie. She understood and spoke of the difference between a novel and a film.

I believer there is a part in "The Prophecy of Ayn Rand" that talks about this very topic. She was giving the green light to have AS made into a movie. Yes, she wanted creative control which included the entire Galt speech or she was going to walk. And she did.

winterwind, The ASIII Gulch and Dagny's reaction impressed me the same as you. It's amazing how we fear the unknown, changing where we live, how we live, what we eat, what we do, who we leave behind. Would it not be wonderful to literally go to the Gulch and get a fresh start? I'd go in a minute, especially today.

After her experience with the Fountainhead movie she wanted total editorial control over an AS movie, not the entire speech in the movie. She insisted on Roark's (shorter) speech being in the Fountainhead movie, not Galt's in AS, which she knew was much too long for a movie, and not the right approach.

In a 1980 interview she said the movie (in the form of a TV series) "will make the ideas more vivid. More dramatic. Literature, a book, is very abstract art, probably the most abstract art. And a television show would be the perfect vehicle to concretize the meaning of the book's events. Not philosophical teaching so much, as the overall, what I call, 'sense of life', the basic abstraction of the book. To tell people what kind of world it would be. not tell them. Show them."

So she saw a movie as complementing the book, bringing out the basic sense of life through illustrating it in action, not a different form of presenting the book.

At the cabin she could not sit back and 'peacefully' absorb scenery. She had to be productive at something and was depicted as taking on all kinds of projects, like building paths requiring moving large rocks, etc.

We understood what you were saying.

There is a lot more to opposing the viro movement, previously known as the Ecology movement into the 1970s, than EPA regulations. The viros regard 'nature' as an intrinsic value higher than human rights and values.

The viro movement arose in the violent collectivist New Left of the late 1960s and 1970s. See Ayn Rand's article on the Anti-Industrial Revolution in her anthology Return of the Primitives (formerly the New Left and the Anti-Industrial Revolution) where she nailed the essence of the movement long before most people knew what was going on.

The viros have been ideologically inspired by the Ecology movement founded by an Hegelian inspired biologist in 19th century Germany. It reified 'ecosystems' into organic wholes and envisioned a society ruled by bureaucrats called 'scientists' whose permissions were required even for what we regard as normal activities of human life. They were obsessed with man's impact on 'ecosystems' and opposed industrialization. The back to the land movement of the early ecologists was incorporated by the Nazis and the early Green movement.

The viros today are using the power of the National Park Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Forest Service, and more state agencies than you can count to deny private property rights and impose progressively more government land 'ownership' for preservationism and social controls.

The 'environment', is your surroundings, i.e., everything. They are an ideological movement for collectivist control of the environment, i.e., everything, and therefore everyone. Normal people can appreciate scenery without going berserk and becoming ideological nature-worshiping, misanthropic nihilists posing as concerned only about 'pollution'. The viro movement is much worse and much deeper than abusive EPA regulation.