Oh I don’t want them to change the moral. No the gist of the book remains the same no matter what. I just feel it would have given the movie a better feel to stay within the time frame of the book. I feel a period piece, particularly one depicting train travel, would seem more natural and enhance the message even more. Either way I hope the movie breathes new life into Ayn Rand’s message for a whole new generation.
The answer is-- both. To be exact, the action of Atlas Shrugged takes place in the near future, about ten years from the time when one reads the book. (Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 613)
Rand considered the setting of the novel to be shifting, regardless of when it is read, and therefore it has no specific time setting other than "near future."
Reinforcing this idea of a non-specific time setting, Rand comments in The Art of Fiction, saying that "Atlas Shrugged is of no period" (p. 163).
The airline industry has been destroyed by high fuel prices ($37.50/gallon), so the crumbling railroad system is the only viable means of commercial transportation.
Perfect !
Having read the book almost fifty years ago while still a teenager I think the year 2016 is perfect for it. The stage seems to be set for the real life version to take place in 2016 if not sooner barring a sudden awakening of the brain dead. As for the trains they may very well be the only transportation we have in 2016 if the current madness continues.
The main thing I remember from my reading of the novel is that those who spouted absurd nonsense had taken control of the government and all else along with it while those who still conversed in the terms of sanity were ostracized, condemned, called evil or not intelligent enough to understand life. Is this not exactly what I see going on today? Even Fox news is beginning to seem like a cartoon show. We have installed a complete loser with an unknown past in the presidency, he spouts random absurdities even as the leprechaun on the “right wing” news channel defends him and we are still asked to imagine that he is super intelligent even after he has demonstrated time and again that he is anything but. Maybe the movie should have been set in 2012 rather than 2016.