I think B is the most important, and all the others must be excellent to accomplish B in the best possible manner.

A. Please, Please Please! Bring back the cast of AS I. I was sorely disappointed when I went to see AS II and saw a completely different cast, who IMO were miscast in their roles, not at all what Ayn Rand would have wanted. Where is the strong woman character that typified the Ayn Rand model? Taylor Schilling filled the shoes of Dagny Taggart with flawless perfection! Please bring her back and I have to agree with Nomark that no matter what the message is, if you fail to fill the theater seats with nothing more than Conservatives, you have failed to get your message across and will forever be "preaching to the choir"! Emotion is what stirs Liberals; even Jesus knew that best because he was the greatest storyteller! Go straight to the heart; it is what will get to Liberals every time and remember they have a short attention span for the most part so playing John Galt's speech in its entirety (even thought this was Ayn Rand wanted originally and why the movie was never made while she was alive) will lose most of your audience, including Conservatives! A longer movie is fine as long as it moves right along. Learn from the long, action movie trilogies like LOTR and Star Trek that people can't wait to go see! I am sure you want that with AS III as well. I am one to tell you that I won't waste my money on seeing AS III if the cast from AS II return for III.

B. Getting the message right. A,C,D & E are a waste of resources if B fails. BTW, I liked the cast in AS1 better.

B.
Take some literary license and make it relevant to the present.

B

B. Get the message right! It would be nice if you could have the same cast, but get the message right.

A. Casting.

The Hank Rearden in Part Two is so shallow it took away my respect for this role. Very disappointing! Bring back the Hank Rearden player of Part One!

Dagny and others in Part Two are OK. Make sure the John Gault player in Part III is an extremely charismatic/effecting person otherwise it's hard to explain the change of heart of Dagny from Rearden to Gault.

I dissagree completely. Shilling and Bowler were stiff and mechanical almost to the point of amateurish. The new cast has made the characters human something sorely needed. The new cast are very good choices.

Capitalism the unknown ideal--to get the point across that-capitalism is freemen exchanging in a free society--not stepping on or carrying one another-unless by choice as parents to child

It seems imperative that Atlas III link the kind of starvation and suffering that happened in Russia to us and our American moocher benefactiors - people need to know in their gut where we are headed and who is taking us there. It is a difficult link to make without the novel and passion for freedom that only comes from being informed. Remember we are speaking to people who are too busy surviving to get informed. People with little education who start a family in their teens don't have the luxury to spend the time. Worse, many who have the time are brainwashed before they get started. The link has to be dramatic and leave the audience horrified. (It would be better if Galt was not saved. Ayn Rand was too optimistic. Part IV may needed.)
Read more at http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/4d...

wait-what the heck? ESPECIALLY in the third one when you find out he has feelings for her? You cannot be serious! Last time I checked any color of Man has the capacity for reason and to love

F & E: Story and Momentum/Flow. A solid script can make or break a film. I feel the director wasn't all bad, though someone with more "clarity" (for lack of a better word, even though it still doesn't sound right its the best I could think of on short notice) behind the scenes would not hurt.

I am surprised at all the comments and how the vast majority have apparently missed the fact the story itself is more of a love story than anything. Rand herself said the very thing. The ideology and political stance she wrote into the story is not lost but the shear focal point is the love story aspect.

I understand the Producers of the project have made this into more of a political laced film and less of a love story and I don't hold it against them in anyway, however a political film comes with a certain cloud that many will have varying opinions on.

My recommendation to the Producers is to focus on the overall structure and flow of the story for film 3. I realize the difficult nature as a writer myself what deadlines can do in rushing a story to completion.

As an aspiring filmmaker myself, my team and I have often discovered a well flowing story can help to sell it when a low budget prevents big time actors, locations, and FX whether old school or computer animated.

That is my 2 cents for what it'd be worth.

These are great suggestions. Having read and re-read Atlas many times over the years my only struggle was that some of the characters and scenes were not as I had imagined them - but I was able to make sense of it. Others who had read Atlas only once or not at all were confused. Fortunately for them I have the DVDs so they can watch until they understand :-)

Message:
The book has many messages. If there is one overall message, *the* message, it is the whole of Rand’s philosophy. But in telling a story in the book, the film will convey *a* message from it and get that message right. (If it’s not conveyed correctly, *that* story isn’t in the book.) So, first in planning Part III, the producers need to be very clear as to *exactly* the message they want to convey by the end of it, presumably drawing together all three parts.

Casting:
If Galt is going to talk philosophy, the actor who plays him *must* be able to speak philosophy conversationally, unlike the wooden delivery of Galt’s lines in the first two parts. Stiff delivery makes the lines sound laughable. Hire a voice-over actor if necessary.
I agree that Miss Schilling and Mr. Bowler were more attractive leads, although they are both too young. At the height of the story, the main characters are 35 (Dagny Taggert) to 45 (Rearden), experienced in the world and no longer wunderkinds, a significant detail.

Other:
Galt needs to make a speech but the burden of it can be conveyed painlessly in the scene where Dagny Taggert meets the people in the valley. Each can say something out of the speech in explaining why he quit. This would also show the ideas at work in different lives, different circumstances and from different perspectives (as could have been done with the story of the 20th Century Motor Company). And if the scene comes early enough in the movie, it might be used to recapitulate key parts of Parts I and II, which I think the viewer *must* have if he is going to string together all three films released over such a long period. (Part II would have benefited from explicit recapitulation of Part I.)

B. - This is the most difficult but critical part but if you lose the meaning then it is just another senseless movie.

B. Getting the message of Atlas Shrugged right.

In I and II you presented the movie goer with the characters without identifying them, leaving him to guess. If one hasn't read Atlas Shrugged this is a hard task.

I suggest that in addition to a "Cast of Characters" that each character, as he comes on the screen, have his name printed under his figure for several seconds.

Also, for that same movie goer, there would be a brief statement if what the movie was all about, and a brief summary of what happened in Parts. I and II.

Even I, who has read the book several times, found it difficult to know just who is who.

JimWright

B. For me it is drawing the parallels in AS and what is happening in the world today, Ayn defined and predicted the course of events and it is all coming true. Given next year is the mid term elections my hope is that some of the "useful idiots" will get the message. I agree that Galt's monolog is the cerebral part of the book and Twentieth Century Motors is the practical part of the book. My fear is that the entire monolog will put the audience to sleep. Bullet points might be the way to go. Twentieth Century Motors can be made real and something with which people can identify.

I think A is important so you don't have to work to remember who is who for each movie, but B is the most important because why produce something that is ultimately meaningless if it's done wrong?

Getting the message right! None of the rest matters if the message isn't accurate.

getting the story right is about 95% for me How that gets done is secondary

A-E covered. # 1 Prioty is promotion of the film and the idealogy. Spend some money on theater distribution, online access to the film and DVD, Net Flicks, etc. Take out radio ads on conservative talk shows. We know the radio shows are not always Atlas oriented but they reach mostly like minded folks. Let actors interview on radio and TV. Supply copy of Ayn's book wth DVD. Get book republished with new forwards. debut film on college campus. Thanks and good luck!

Totally agree. Bring them back!

Bring back the original Cagney and Hank. I'm sure the two cast members in part three are nice folks...but I believe the originals were the right folks for the fit. The actress in part two did not seem as confident as Schilling. It has been a downer watching the movie for the second time...they just don't fit the parts. I'd love to know why you switched!