IT'S HAPPENING: Atlas Shrugged Television Series
At the start of the year, Atlas Shrugged Producer John Aglialoro hinted at the potential for an Atlas Shrugged mini-series ( http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts... ). Last week, John made a trip to Hollywood and met with... some very interested MAJOR players.
How does a full blown television series sound!?
Yep. It's really happening. We can't say too much just yet, but suffice it to say, John's meetings in Hollywood were VERY productive and the groups we're talking to are incredibly enthusiastic and ready to move mountains to make it happen. We should hopefully have something official to announce within the next few weeks so stay tuned.
As the project progresses, we're going to be reaching out to you for your opinion from time to time.
This would be one of those times.
Keep in mind, certain people who are not active in the Gulch, but very interested in your opinion, will be reading your comments on this post.
Got it? Good. Here we go...
Should the Atlas Shrugged television series be a period piece set in the 1950s or should it take place, as Ayn Rand alluded to, "the day after tomorrow?"
P.S. Because it worked so well for us with the trilogy, of course we have every intention of changing the entire cast every episode. No. No, we won't.
How does a full blown television series sound!?
Yep. It's really happening. We can't say too much just yet, but suffice it to say, John's meetings in Hollywood were VERY productive and the groups we're talking to are incredibly enthusiastic and ready to move mountains to make it happen. We should hopefully have something official to announce within the next few weeks so stay tuned.
As the project progresses, we're going to be reaching out to you for your opinion from time to time.
This would be one of those times.
Keep in mind, certain people who are not active in the Gulch, but very interested in your opinion, will be reading your comments on this post.
Got it? Good. Here we go...
Should the Atlas Shrugged television series be a period piece set in the 1950s or should it take place, as Ayn Rand alluded to, "the day after tomorrow?"
P.S. Because it worked so well for us with the trilogy, of course we have every intention of changing the entire cast every episode. No. No, we won't.
Previous comments... You are currently on page 4.
This should be a smart, well-written, and nuanced series that captures both the philosophical diversity within the Objectivist community as well as the world that could and should be. Create a vision not a debate. Clearly, the debate is over regardless of whether anyone wants to admit it or not.
The story actually begins with John Galt leaving the 20th Century Motor factory. Rand achieved this by integrating flashbacks with technique so skilled that the reader barely notices. And the time before that--the history of those flashbacks-- is summed up in Galt's speech.
Any movie treatment worthy of the Atlas name must handle those flashbacks with equal skill.
I recommend hiring a professional Objectivist Philosopher--Peikoff or Binswanger--as an adviser for such a project.
flash backs to the 50's on important points
IMHO it should be done in the current time period in hopes that is can show people what is really happening. I'm not certain many people can translate a past time period to today. They have to think for that to happen and so many do not.
Perhaps this would be an alternate to the 20th Century Fox TV show or movie lead-in fanfare for the Atlas Shrugged TV series!
Definitly the near future. That was how Rand set it in her time, that is how it should be re-told now. Modern references will be much more powerful.
Sooo coool! I can not wait!
Atlas 2016
Ext.
Current era. Cloudy day. Early afternoon. City street.
Camera pans across an average-looking city street, stopping on the front entrance of a public school.
Cut to interior. Classroom. Plain environment, not current high-tech nor ghetto-dingy. Average.
STUDENT ONE
You gotta be kidding us! Read Atlas Shrugged?! It’s the friggin’ size of a phone book and how the hell is it relevant to our lives today? What’s in it that could possibly help me get a job?
TEACHER
Well, maybe you’re right. It was written quite a while ago, and a lot of things have changed since it was first published. But what if we could look at life today and see if we can identify current events or situations which just might have some roots in what Rand wrote over half a century ago. What if there were some relevance and we might learn from it?
Anyone here willing to give it a try?
[a mild smattering of agreement from the class…]
TEACHER
Ok, so much for overwhelming enthusiasm, but let’s give it a try and see what happens.
[Fade to opening scene of Atlas Shrugged, set in the steam-engine era as Rand wrote it…]
[When a teachable event takes place in Atlas, cut back to the classroom to have teacher explain the parallels and how Atlas foreshadowed decay in the US and around the world. Use media clips of recent events that parallel Atlas.]
And so on…
Making AS for TV or Netflix or whatever... What is the Goal or Objective of doing so???
Monument to AR?
Educate Millennials or their kids?
Change the World's Thinking?
Make a bundle of profit?
Promulgate free-market capitalist ideas?
Point out societal and economic failures today?
Show what the roots of those failures were?
"If you don't know where you want to go with this, you probably won't get there... "
(--- somebody smart, I guess...)
Agliagoro's movies were terrible- they showed that the man has no common sense, no concept, and no understanding of the philosophy whatsoever- and the casting was simply atrocious.The material in his hands suffers horribly in all aspects- and somehow we are to believe a miniseries would be better? No, please. Find someone else to helm this project, or else you will only do further damage to the property.
If Rand had written only a story, we should go with the original, set in the 1950s. However, her intention was a morality play, a philosophical lecture and world-changing idea piece, and as such it should be adapted for the present generation. The 1950s are not "period" enough, not historically ancient enough, to serve as persuasion and prophecy for today's society.
I think, therefore, that the ideas are the priority, and Rand's philosophical passion would best be served and preserved by bringing the story into today's political and economic reality, with today's technology. Cellphones, not rotary dials; computers, not punch cards; modern trains, not steam engines; current automobiles, not Studebakers and vintage cars; today's fashions and hairdos, not housedresses and Father Knows Best.
The world is perishing from an epidemic of bad psychoepistemology. Atlas Shrugged is a riveting story with fascinating heroes and villains that is a prescription for the cure. Rand used it as a delivery vehicle for her vision of a deteriorating world and the values that could save it. The TV series needs to be an equally bold vehicle for the philosophical message, for liberating today's humans from the irrational brainwashings that have suborned their consciousness.
It bears mentioning that every Star Trek episode was likewise a morality play about social problems, more readily digested in the form of a futuristic tale. So, I vote for the "day after tomorrow" format for the Atlas Shrugged series. Any Kickstarter opportunities?
I also think it will be necessary to re-structure the story, so that things which are revealed late in the book become clear to the audience in the early episodes. If you make the TV series only for people who "know" the book, you will limit your audience. Ideally the first episode (maybe the first two episodes) should engage people who are not already Rand fans.
Also take liberties with the story line, split Galt's speech into a broadcast with follow-up webcasts, showing growing public grass-roots support.
I would prefer to see an AS-style expanded story, keeping to the philosophy, but with new characters and side stories.
Although, Mad Men did very well for an early time period. If Ayn Rands- Atlas Shrugged (the book) is done for television the main characters would have to be flesh-out more and the action picked up more.
Load more comments...