Atlas Shrugged: The Best Film About Asperger's Ever?

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WOW. This is the best film I've ever watched, uplifting, life enhancing and life changing ,and it's only the first part of the novel. I understand everything now...I'm no longer all alone in the world. All the main characters behave just like me. A brief synopsis; socialism takes over the world and many influential millionaires disappear, go and strike and start dismantling their companies...but it's so much more. Having Asperger's syndrome I can really relate to this film since all the heroes have it too. Beware though: if you watch the film or read the book you'll never flirt with socialism ever again.

They have Asperger's Syndrome? Is that mentioned in the movie? I don't remember any reference to it in the novel.

It's not specifically mentioned, but they are all misfits, lonely, and very much living in their own private worlds...yet contributing so much to society, but get no recognition...just persecution This.pretty much sums up Asperger's syndrome as I understand it and experience it.

Watch the film or read the book and you'll more likely never flirt with Ayn Rand ever again.

Jory; I notice from your profile that you're diagnosed with Asperger's. I'd like to know what your experiences are, and in what way the film conflicts with these? Don't you think the main characters have AS? Don't your agree with my experiences and understanding of AS? What do you want to contribute?

Asperger's doesn't enter into it. Rand was simply an awful writer with ideas more suited to selfish sociopaths than real people. I would feel embarrassed if anyone ever compared me to one of her characters.

Well I can relate to the characters in Atlas Shrugged...obviously I don't have their money or social status though. What's the problem with having a particular skill and using it to the best of your ability, and at the same time helping others? Not being motivated by money or power, but just the recognition that you're good, or even the best at what you do, and you want everyone to know about it? That's what motivates me; that's why it's so difficult for me to be accepted by society.

Not being motivated by money? That's all Rand cared about. People who follow her philosophy worship the dollar symbol. (Literally. One of her more famous fans got buried with the symbol on his grave.) She refused to do anything to help anybody unless there was something in it for her, specifically money-wise. And she was a psychopath according to any definition of the word. She wrote a book about a guy who commits a terrorist act by blowing up a building just to prove his point, and he was portrayed as a hero. Rand sounds nice for about five seconds, when people try to turn you onto her by going on about how she represents using yourself to the best of your ability and all that, but when you actually start reading her, you realize just how screwy she really is. I'm glad you're finding characters to sympathize with, but I've got a laundry list of movies with good Aspie characters that won't rot your brain like Rand will.

I know very little about Rand so I can't comment. What I do know though is that it's money that gets you noticed, that gets you access to the people and resources that you require. If John Galt would have had the money, power and resources to develop the engine, he would have done so and therefore greatly benefited mankind. Money in itself isn't evil; it's what you do with it, and your motives that are important.

Agreed. It's just too bad that Rand's motives were completely and utterly selfish and destructive. Don't defend her or her writing or anything based on it. She was the kind of person who would throw you off a building if someone paid her five bucks to do it.

Watch Mary and Max if you want a good Aspie movie. Watch Adam. Watch Mozart and the Whale. Watch anything else.

I've not seen the films you've mentioned, but I've read reviews. They seem to be about people and so I'm not interested. It's only facts and ideas that interest me; and there are certainly a few radical ideas in Atlas Shrugged.

I completely adored the abridged (by Ayn Rand I believe) copy of Anthem I read. Me personally, I hate socialism, hate everything like that. I consider myself quite libertarian. I really did identify a lot with the character in Anthem. But uh, Ayn Rand, she personally took things too far, and she made Objectivism her own religion of sorts. But, I agree with a lot of her points and all, just she went from constructive hate to plain hatred in the end. She got to the point where she was so "Laissez-faire" that she started even hating the concepts of charity. But, not to derail this topic too much. I do like Anthem, maybe I'd like Atlas Shrugged.

Anyway, my favorite dystopian novel BY FAR has to be Brave New World I identify very much with the "savage" character in that book. Both in my upbringing and general life. It's uncanny how true that book is nowadays. Really, "O Brave New World!" I recommend that book a lot, relatively short read, too, like 200ish pages.

Nonsense. Among the people who went on strike were very successful folk. A musician who is finally accepted by the public, a leading industrialist, a successful applied physicist, a respected judge of the law and many others who superficially had a good future but were ultimately doomed in a society governed by altruism.

ruveyn

Agreed. There are some aspects of Objectivism I do agree with, but overall, it is a repulsive philosophy, appealing only to those who want justification for either money-grubbing, or else moral absolutism.

And Atlas Shrugged is easily one of the worst, if not THE worst books I have ever read. Not because it is badly conceived of, but rather because Ayn Rand fails to understand that a book must be entertaining first and foremost, and put its philosophy second. If you want a better example of how a philosophical novel should be written, read Solaris. Written, ironically for those of you who support Atlas Shrugged, written by a man living (at the time) in an Eastern Bloc country.

Almost all of the characters are repulsive and boring, with the 'heroes' only distinguished from the villains by the smallest of margins, the arguments against altruism are, at best, highly exaggerated, and the book itself is tedious and filled with more padding than every story of Doctor Who put together. Including The War Games. The book itself is fit only to be riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000-style. Which I intend to do, one day.

So, in short, Atlas Shrugged sucks more than Charybdis, melon-farmers!

You're thinking of Fight Club.

Nope, this:



Anyone who thinks Tyler Durden is the hero of Fight Club has some problems. And is probably a big Rand fan, too.