Creators are begging for money on Kickstarter
http://www.avclub.com/articles/atlas-shrugged-producers-turn-to-kickstarter-for-h,103253/
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The market has spoken, people don't want to see another poorly made film.
Exactly. the first movie made back $4.6 million with a budget of $20 million, and the second film (budget not listed) made $3.3 million. I read a story that when the first film came out, the producers had to agree to pay some theaters to keep showing their film, which would seem in and of itself a betrayal of free market principles. Concerning this kickstarter campaign, I think Korey from spill.com has it right--this is just a marketing campaign. They're only trying to raise $250,000 out of a $10 million budget. It is absurd to think that they were able to raise $9.75 million on their own, but absolutely need another quarter million to make the film. Their press release just confirms that this is all PR, with classic Right-wing "throw red meat to the rubes" tactics, setting themselves up as the oppressed tellers of truth struggling against the awful liberal elites who are trying to shut them up. Even with Fox News pimping out the first movie hardcore, they still lost over $15 million on it, even more when you account for marketing and distribution costs, and the fact that theaters keep half the receipts. Sorry folks, it's all of America that wants to shut you up. Oh, and let's not forget to mention the delicious irony of these crusaders for self-sufficiency and personal responsibility asking for handouts to make their movie.
Most Rand followers tend to fall into two categories: First, there are the young twenty-something college kids who have found, at what may be the most selfish period of their lives, a belief system telling them that selfishness is a virtue. Second, there are the rich pricks who latch onto the whole "I've got mine, screw the rest" message of Rand. Many people in this second category were born on third base, but you'll be hard-pressed to convince them that they didn't hit a triple. share
[deleted]
I never grow tried of trying to educate those that have such vitriol towards the works of Ayn Rand yet have never taken the time and least of all the effort to immerse themselves in the philosophy.
1. Ayn Rand was not against people giving of their own free will. She was against forced giving and the idea that you are morally obligated to give.
Charity is fine if someone chooses to give. The giver earned their money and can do whatever that want to with it if it brings them pleasure.
Being forced to give at the end of a gun that's immoral. (i.e. Taxes in order to prop of the welfare state)
2. Yesterday on the Wilkow Majority Producer Harmon Kaslow mentioned the campaign and very frankly said that it was to get the conversation going in advance to the movie coming out. Also stated there are people that want this movie to get made and are willing to help. So why not allow those people to put a little skin in the game? $100,000 in two days... That's not too shabby!
3. John Aglialoro bought the rights and he wants to make the movies The free market doesn't say you can't make the 3rd one because the first 2 weren't monumental successes. No it says that if it's a great product and the market is ready for it then you will be rewarded.
4. Atlas Shrugged was not a blockbuster they day it came out in 1957. However it's sales have increased throughout the years.
I could go all day but some of us have jobs and aren't paid to be professional trolls commenting anything of conservative nature all day.
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[deleted]
You really should grow tired of trying. I've read many of her books, some volumes of the Objectivist, and 2 biographies of Ayn Rand.
Rand was a snake oil salesman. All her philosophy has been regurgitated from people who came LONG before she did, like Aristotle(Anthem) and Nietzsche(Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead). She didn't reinvent the wheel.
And if you read her biography, look at the times she was active in, and see what she had going on in her personal life as she was writing, you'd clearly see her for the David Koresh of her time. She wrote a philosophy to keep her self out of McCarthy's cross hairs, and to feed a line of *beep* to her husband in order to destroy not only him as a man, but to destroy the marriage of Nathaniel Brandon as well.
Her philosophy can, and will, never work because of the most basic of all philosophies... Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
By the end of her life she was a pariah among the very people she called followers. Nathaniel Brandon in particular went out of his way to make sure he could do whatever he could to stem the poison she spewed.
Actually, the phrsse "Power corruots, and absolute power corruots absolutley" is not the most basic Philosophy. Its not even really True. it was a truism of Lord Acton, who I am not disparagign nor am I sayign all his ideas were bad or wrong, but the idea that Power in itself corruots has been legitimately challenged. Power, in itself, does nothing, its how we use it which determiens anything. Power has no inherant ability to corrupt us, nor to make us better, but a the Same Time, the coruses we choose o take with that power may corruot us. Still, its our choices, not Power itself, that corruots.
I was always fond of the saying "power does not corrupt, it allows our true self to emerge."
I'm so far out of your league, if your's were to explode I wouldn't hear it for 3 days.
I like that, though I'm not convinced it's accurate, as I'm just as apt to believe that power can change us just as readily as it can liberate us.
I donโt need you to tell me how good my coffee is.๎. ๎๎ฌ
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I always thought of 'true self' as usually as a negative thing in that saying. That it was fear of pain, punishment and reprisal that truly keeps our id in check.
I'm so far out of your league, if your's were to explode I wouldn't hear it for 3 days.
I always thought of 'true self' as usually as a negative thing in that saying. That it was fear of pain, punishment and reprisal that truly keeps our id in check.
I'm sure it is presented as a negative- but only because, as the saying goes, power corrupts. But there are plenty of examples of powerful people doing good. That's not to say they are not corrupted, but then again, what is corrupt to one may not be corrupt to another.
And then there's the duality: A person may be a dickwad as they run a company, but in their personal affairs, the are kind, generous and loving- a separation of the business and personal.
There are things that Bruce Wayne would never do, but Batman will.๎
I donโt need you to tell me how good my coffee is.๎. ๎๎ฌ
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true, i don't think you could ever catch bruce wayne prancing around in gray tights.
batman, on the other hand....
true, i don't think you could ever catch bruce wayne prancing around in gray tights.
no, he was more like this: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbk6b6tW5M1qmz9g3.jpg
I donโt need you to tell me how good my coffee is.๎. ๎๎ฌ
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oh my.
my perception of bruce is forever changed/damaged/obliterated.
ZAROVE,
Bravo! Your incoherent post has conveyed the unthinking, pedestrian nature of Rand's philosophy perfectly.
Ayn Rand was a sick sociopath. Good riddance.
So, if your circumstances changed drastically through no fault of your own, and you found yourself poor and perhaps unable to feed yourself or your family, you wouldn't want someone to share with you? If that's the case, maybe you need to rethink your priorities.
share1) You're making a childishly simplistic argument. The state isn't taking money by force, they're keeping the country running. It's the Republicans and conservatives who hand out tax cuts to the rich that take money from others to enrich the already wealthy. Besides, many of the rich prosper from what taxes do like provide healthcare and a safety net for minimum wage service employees toiling for Wal-Mart or McDonalds which leaves them with cash that they don't have to pay to assure that their own workers aren't on the streets despite working 40 hours a week. Oh, and what about subsidies for agribusiness and the oil companies? If you look at state and local taxes the rich actually pay much less than everyone else has to dole out.
You're not forced to give, you're made to pay your fair share, which the rich haven't done in years. Some companies get away without paying any taxes at all. How many times has someone yelled out "Dammit, the government took my money and all I got for it was a bridge, utilities, schools, fire fighters, cops, and a safety net. Stupid government crooks!" The real moochers are those who get so much from Uncle Sam and do all they can to put their profits in tax shelters. Oh, and you can thank Wall Street for annihilating our economy and then getting bailed out because of their pull on those 'Free Market Republicans' from the Bush administration. Did you see that happen in Canada where they have proper rules and regs and a more equality based system of governance? Nope.
Then lets talk about what gets taken by force from private interests. For instance, Churches don't pay taxes so my tax dollars have to make up for the slack whether I believe in their god or not. If I want cable or private utilities in many places they have a monopoly and can overcharge with wanton disregard. Do you really think a small time mom & pop cable or utility service will come around and provide competition?
2) Pure and simple, the idea of libertarianism isn't popular and it simply doesn't work. You'll just wind up transforming the country into Somalia. The movie isn't popular and neither is the ideology behind it but since rich *beep* love it we're forced to deal with it, just like tax cuts for the wealthy despite being proven to do nothing to stimulate the economy.
3) Yeah, sure, some millionaire can make the movie but it's still like some hardcore Marxist-Leninist claiming that communism works after the Soviet Union fell.
4) Ayn Rand died a pariah while on Medicare and Social Security. Her ideals would've died off if it wasn't for spoiled wealthy brats born on second acting like they hit a triple propping it up. It strokes their egos and if it wasn't for people like the Koch brothers forcing cash strapped universities to teach 'Atlas Shrugged' in class it'd be dead in the water and the ideals it buoys would've been chucked into the dustbin of history long ago.
Wrong. To quote Atlas Shrugged: "there is only one word forbidden in this valley: 'give'"
shareMany people in this second category were born on third base, but you'll be hard-pressed to convince them that they didn't hit a triple.
That's not nearly the worst of it. Those people I can understand. They are bubble-dwelling, stunted people, and/or it's simply mechanical greed. But what I can't fathom are the lowly underlings that idolize them, when they have nothing tangible to gain by it. This is the vast majority of the followers and enablers, not the people that were born on 3rd base.
Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else?share
There is nothing wrong with donations towards a project. People give of their own accord if they feel strongly enough to keep a project going. On top of that a lot of businesses/projects take awhile to become profitable. The fact they lost money on the last two does not bode well for the success of the third though. From what I've heard the book is way better. Frankly, I agree with a lot of the principals of Ayn Rand and I don't come from money and I'm not twenty something (btw most twenty somethings I meet are more socialist than anything else). Despite what you might believe I'm not opposed to helping others, but I believe that you help others by giving people the opportunity to help themselves. I wasn't always like this and I used to believe that if I could help somebody who was in a bad way I should. However, life isn't that simple. Most of the time the person would put themselves right back into the bad position I helped them out of and wouldn't appreciate what I did for them anyway. I'd feel like a sucker and a lot of times they'd feel like a burden, especially if I helped them out repeatedly. I lost a few friendships this way.
shareMy dad taught me early on that charity is also a trade- that I am trading my goods/services for the positive feelings I get for helping someone. No one is charitable when it will make them feel bad. And if it does result in bad feelings then that avenue of charity will stop.
So a person gives in trade for good feelings. And the person receiving the charity has a responsibility to those funds/services to make that deal equitable for the giver. If the hungry person buys food with my dollar, the trade was a good one. If the receiver buys heroin or hookers with the money I gave them, it makes me feel bad and I won;t give them any more money.
You'll let your roommate slide on rent if they are in a hard way. but if you find them later on stuffing dollar bills in the g-strings of strippers, it won;t take long to cut them off and kick them out of the house.
"De gustibus non est disputandum"
#3
Not arguing with you and the free market isn't against charity. The problem is that people choose to give to a charity, a kickstarter, whatever, it's their choice. Also movie makers have always begged for money, or look for someone to fund them, with a kickstarter you have the freedom to make the movie you want without being obligated to anyone. Plus charities tend to be run more efficient than any government bureaucracy. As far as the roommate analogy goes the problem with our welfare system is not only do they keep helping the roommate, they create a system of dependence to where they are punished if they try to ever become self-sufficient. For example, there are people who don't work because they'll make the same money being on unemployment or welfare. I know some!
shareBut at the same time the welfare dept does provide the avenues (working in conjunction with unemployment offices) to get off and out of the system which, as I understand it, can be very liberating to those who do so. I admit, if I were a single parent out of a job, it would be very difficult to get off and out of the system- especially if I had no education or practical work experience that employers desire.
And with the ability to only earn as much as welfare provides, there really is little incentive to go seek out something which is already provided to you- and possibly even losing some aspect of the benefits in the process.
"De gustibus non est disputandum"
#3
I definitely agree with that. I'm not against helping people but I believe you should empower people to help themselves. Germany's model, I consider a good concept. Whether the free market is better is hard to tell. We don't have a free market system. We have corporatism.
shareCorporatism. I'm still trying to figure out how a board of directors - well alone the shareholders- can be OK with a CEO making multiple millions of dollars a year, taking away from the value of their shares of stock.
"De gustibus non est disputandum"
#3
If CEOs didn't perform well most wouldn't be able to command such a high salary and would be out of work. The pay gap is pretty ridiculous though. Sadly it will probably become even wider once robotics becomes even more the norm. The fact so many received bonuses during the bailout though is *beep* though.
shareSo the movie that cost $20m and made $3.3m is a failure. Is the movie that cost $100m+ and made from what I can figure $27m is a success? Cloud atlas is as unwatchable as this
shareI loved the first two films, loved them!!!! Looking forward to the next, just wish I could afford to help them out. "The market has spoken, people don't want to see another poorly made film." B. S. Like in the movie, all the brilliant people are in the minority while the rest, like at the wedding party of the second movie, or Reardon's anniversary party in the first, people are simply too immature to adjust their expectations according to the context of the film's whole bigger picture, like budget. Most people who fault the movies like you for what you fault it for probably don't even side with the film's message (It's too mature and requiring more life's experience for you to grasp). Fantastic series and am looking forward to the finale.
shareThe film's message? Well, the "message" of Ayn Rand was "me, me me & mine, mine, mine, rich people are good and everyone else is lazy and bad". The low budget is not an excuse for the failings of this movie; just see what good writers and directors have done with small budgets. Kevin Smith made Clerks for about $28,000. Darren Aronofsky made Pi for $60,000. And they didn't have to betray free market ideals by paying theaters to keep running their films because the theaters were losing money on them, like the makers of this film did. Also, what are your thoughts on your homegirl (Rand) railing against government benefits, and then taking advantage of those same benefits when she got older? What good is a set of principles if the person who thought them up couldn't even stick to them?
Here's a good tidbit:
Rand also believed that the scientific consensus on the dangers of tobacco was a hoax. By 1974, the two-pack-a-day smoker, then 69, required surgery for lung cancer. And it was at that moment of vulnerability that she succumbed to the lure of collectivism.
Ah, karma.
I just rewatched the two movies and absolutely loved them and had no problem with them whatsoever, nor their message. This is an important message, obviously you don't grasp or see it, try again in another decade, you can't make a 4th grader grasp 8th grade math, they just can't. I'm gonna read the book when I'm done reading up to the Star Wars ~Thrawn Trilogy, then I'll tackle Rand's book, another year or so. I would never have encountered the matereal without these movies and I appreciate it. There is importance in this video work beyond money, but I hope they'll make it back in the future. I could answer your challenges, but if you can't grasp the points made in the movies, especially at the trial in the second movie, then you're not ready yet to grasp it, maybe not your fault, we are all at different levels of comprehension and this is mature stuff, opposite of the political correctness teachings of our day. Greed can be good.
Greed can also be ugly. It was greed that led to the financial collapse of 2008. It was greed that led GM to avoid recalling cars that they knew were dangerous and would probably kill people. It is greed that leads companies to dump their waster into rivers and streams because it's cheaper than cleaning it up. Greed that led the the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory tragedy, and the more recent deaths after the Savar building collapse in Bangladesh. Greed whispered in BP's ear and told them they didn't have to stay up to code with all of those pesky safety regulation prior to the Deepwater Horizon spill, and whispered the same thing to the operators of the Sago Mine before a dozen miners lost their lives. Anyhow, I'm off to live my life espousing a set of principles, only to betray those principles when it really matters. Just like Ayn Rand did.
p.s. I've never understood why so many Christian Conservatives (like Paul Ryan) love Rand. She hated religion just as much as she hated Communism.
Helping usually hinders those helped who could help themselves if they weren't helped and allowed to come to an end of themselves without intervention, then you'd see them rise up, get serious, and get a job, any job, get approval from bosses, move up, become responsible, move on to a better job, move up, etc. The evils of helping others, especially from government, creates what was described in the movies, moochers, entitled, demanding, etc all ugly. Read The Tragedy of American Compassion by Olasky, watch The Iron Lady with Meryl Streep. Pay attention to the details in these movies! See the ugly in the people. Obviously greed can be bad, why'd you even go into that! Self, me, mine has a place, and like this movie said, creates jobs, revenue into the economy... Read Total Recall, Arnold's biography... hard work, productive, worthy of ownership. Not the people described as recipients in the movie. Reardon nor the others were guilty of the greed examples you went off the deep end describing, the ones in these movies were ethical, safe, responsible, what the movies preached: dignified. Stay in the context clearly stated in the movies because you haven't been maturely interpreting it like I said you hadn't. God blesses a certain kind of greed, and curses the common form of mooching and looter. She may not have been a christian, but she knew the truth, and therefore the christians could side with her.
shareBut how does society protect against the "bad" greed? How do we ensure that the understandable desire to make a profit dos not become the desire to make a profit at any cost, even the lives and safety of one's workers, the population at large, or the environment? Perhaps safeguards should be built into the system? Regulations maybe? If you admit that there is such a thing as bad greed, then you must accept that there must be a system in place to guard against it, and as the 2008 economic downturn (and the Great Recession that followed) showed, these people are not going to police their own, or make even a halfhearted attempt to restrain themselves. And save me the country club rhetoric about people helping themselves. As if right now in some poor inner city neighborhood, or in impoverished Appalachia, some mother is deciding between paying the rent or buying her kid's asthma medication, and the problem is she just never thought, "Hey, maybe I should try to rise above my lot in life." Yes, yes, very good for Arnold, a freak of nature who got famous (and the riches followed) by being a massive slab of muscle, or Mitt Romney and Donald Trump who, despite the scourge of being born to millionaire fathers, and with the pitiful education of a lifetime of private schools and the best universities, somehow managed to overcome diversity and become "self-made men". Not everyone is afforded the same chances and opportunities that they were.
sharePeople who won't go where the work is, who have kids without the ability to afford them (tying themselves down further away from where the jobs are), staying in appalachia, staying within the inner city,
"You'll never find your gold on a sandy beach
You'll never drill for oil on a city street
I know you're lookin' for a ruby in a mountain of rocks
But there ain't no Coupe de Ville hidin'
At the bottom of a cracker jack box"
not availing themselves of opportunities available... education is what you make of it, anyone can learn from their textbook with a bad teacher, and usually there are other teachers glad to help those who want it, and few do their homework... As for checking the bad greed, there are laws and police, anyone breaking laws will be cought eventually, and karma does exist. It's not a perfect world so you shouldn't expect perfect enforcement of imperfect people. But the system works for those who work hard and look for opportunities to advance, learn and study to be competetant in those fields toward where they're advancing, making contacts and relationships with people leading to more opportunities, and sacrifice needs and wants (ie sex--which inner city 'kids' don't) that will only hinder them or distract them. There is always God and chance, and He can hinder and restrain, bless and bless others, but generally, charity has an evil effect and determination, hard work, greed and selfishness has an incredible incentive to better furtherment, which trickles down to others, creates new jobs and opportunities. People are evil, they do not negate or disprove these truths. Everyone has a destiny to realize. Who are you, what were you meant to do, to become. Generally, how bad do you want it is manifested by the pains you take to get it.
Do you think it might have something to do with ignorance?
shareMost Rand followers tend to fall into two categories: First, there are the young twenty-something college kids who have found, at what may be the most selfish period of their lives, a belief system telling them that selfishness is a virtue. Second, there are the rich pricks who latch onto the whole "I've got mine, screw the rest" message of Rand. Many people in this second category were born on third base, but you'll be hard-pressed to convince them that they didn't hit a triple.
LOLOLOL!!!!!
Jealousy much? share
@Getalis
Mad because I talked smack about your boyfriend Ayn Rand. Wait, I mean girlfriend. I sometimes forget that she was a woman. I mean , she just looked awful.