Btd and I just got our annual royalty check, and it certainly could have been fatter.
We noted how things kind of fall apart after John Galt's speech and how Eddie gets short shrift out in the Arizona desert. After all, giving your train passengers up to a wagon train has to be a bit deflating.
Btd wrote that beautiful coda about how the world rebuilds after Atlas has shrugged. I was touched by Eddie's arrival at a walled village that was building itself back after the fall.
It's unfortunate about the Arabian Dance. The Met's production of "Samson and Delilah," which I have on DVD, had an incredibly salacious Bacchanale, full of implied hetero- and homosexual acts, and the salaciousness was fine there. But not in the Nutcracker, dammit!
A movie that has been denounced as a total dog was Kevin Costner’s “The Postman”. I guess I must be a weirdo because I liked it. It showed a Dystopian America that longed for order and freedom after a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
However, I really really TRIED to watch the third installment (on you tube) of AS the Movie and I did not even get past the plane crash at the beginning. It was worse than a TV movie!
Now, rereading AS with your commentary, I see that it would have been very difficult to realize Book Three in a movie format. The “science” has been totally superseded by the reality in which we live. Orwell was actually more prescient in 1984, as he envisioned hi “telescreen” which is now fulfilled as Facebook and built-in cameras on cell phones which are always “on” whether we realize it or not. Also, Orwell’s invention of “Newspeak” is a new reality called “Political Correctness”.
In my very humble opinion, the ONLY way “Book Three” could have been realized on film would be be in a retro, 1950’s Sci-Fi style, like “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” or even the Art-Deco Chic of “Forbidden Planet” translated to depression Era New York City. By making the sets and costumers 21st Century, they killed it! But the first two movies were set in the 21st Century, so they were stuck with it. (sigh)
Anyway, I recommend your book to fellow FReepers.