Atlas Shrugged, the movie

This is a reply to a message from an old friend found on facebook about the recently released movie, Atlas Shrugged. In lieu of my own critique, here's my response:

My friend,

It is good to hear from you again. Thank you for sharing the link about Atlas Shrugged. I've always liked your intelligent perspective. You're the kind of guy that can actually make me shut up and stop to think. And that, my friend, is no easy task. You are amazingly talented and very culturally connected and those are a few of the things for which I admire you. 

There seems to be a lot of very critical people out there about the Atlas Shrugged project. I'm not interested in the cinematic or literary critique comparisons. Any brain dead person with the ability to speak or type and who has both read and watched the movie can point out all the things that were different they don't like until they are out of oxygen. It was a skill we all learned on Sesame Street. "One of these things is not like the other! One of these things just isn't the same!" Those brain dead critics can be found at just about every single piece that started as literature and subsequently turned into a film. They did it with Lonesome Dove, Harry Potter, numerous Stephen King novels, and countless others. 

The Ayn Rand literature is much too massive for most average folk to consume. So is much of Stephen King's. However, when it is put into a more digestible format, more can hear the same ideas. In my humble opinion, that's the goal. To get other unexposed people exposed to these ideas. 

Tonight, I took a long time friend to the film tonight who didn't know of the book, nor the movie. She had zero expectations. At the end of part 1 of the movie, she gasped in dismay and said out loud during the audience's applause, "You can't end it now!" Before we stood from our seats she said she wants to read the book and see the other 2 parts. Mission accomplished. 

If that was my friend's critical reaction, mission accomplished. I am happy and will gladly pay more money again to take another similarly uninformed person. All in effort that parts 2 and 3 get made and get those ideas distributed. If movies are what America consumes and this is an idea worth America's consumption, I don't care if they used the Simpsons as cast, nor what some waste of flesh critic says is different about 1 set of ideas distributed differently. Any fool can do that, and most do. 

I hope to hear stories of you taking someone (or several) similarly uninformed individuals with zero expectations to see the film. I'd be interested to know their unbiased reactions and if they'd be interested in seeing parts 2 and 3, or even read the book. If you do, please share! 

All the best,