Review of Animal Farm (1954) by Thomas W — 19 May 2013

Why would you want to make a violent, adult book an animated film? If you saw the trailers of the 90s adaptation, you would see why this could not be live action. Even with a softer PG depiction of the tale, this film is still very harsh and violent like the book. There is blood, murder, tyranny- the theme of Animal Farm does not change at all.

I have heard alot of people BITCH about this film, that it has ignored much of the original story or something like that. Look, most film adaptations are not a cut and paste, word for word copy because a book works as a book, not as an animated movie. The scenes and characters they removed or changed do not ruin the film. The POINT of Animal Farm is the message it sends, and that is intact.

Another controversy of the film is the addition of an ending that did not exist in the book. This ending does make sense, and in a way is justified by the beginning scenes. It completes a cycle and in a way there still is no clear outcome of what is going to happen. For those who don't know, in the book the story just ends without any closure, making the audience imagine what will happen. This ending still creates an uncertain future but shows more hope.

I'm going to have to mention some spoilers if I continue. Basically this film does well adapting the personalities of the characters. Now only the pigs and humans speak, much of the talking is done by narration. However this makes sense as the pigs are supposed to become more humanlike throughout the film and their ability to speak and think makes them superior to the other animals. Snowball is audacious but also his motives are never truly revealed. Squealer is a total bitch, which fits his book character. And Napoleon is still a corrupt tyrant, willing to kill anyone he wants and unwilling to give a fuck when others are worked to death in his camps.

I honestly don't think a better depiction of Animal Farm could be made. This film expands the target audience and animation allows the idea of talking animals to make more sense than say live action or cgi. At the same time this film is pretty serious in its tone and could get boring for those not interested in the politics or history it references towards.

Just remember the important message of the film:

If a tyrant is to be dethroned, don't replace him with another tyrant.