I read the book Animal Farm recently, and I realized it's one of the most awesome and brilliant books ever written. I was so excited I decided to rent the movie....
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AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! AHHH!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!! AHH!!! WHY?!?!


They ruined the book!!!

• Old Major looked horrible, I've made better puppets out of socks.
• It was 1999, the CGI rat and ducks in some parts shouldn't have looked that horrible.
• The movie should have been called 'PETA Farm', they removed most of the political meaning and focused on the animal abuse and such.
• The movie resembled a kids version of Princess Mononoke more then it did Animal Farm.
• Horrible acting. The voice overs were laughable, it was like a High School play, maybe even worse.
• They changed the brilliant ending in the book to this cheesey cliche ending. "The leader has fallen and hope has been restored!" *cue sunrise after a long rainstorm*

Some books should be left on the page, this was one of them. George Orwell must be spinning in his grave right about now.

I never even knew that there was a movie. But, with your account of it, I will probably never see it. The books usually are superior.

I've read the book, thought it was better than average. Had no idea there was a movie.

There was an older, animated version of the movie that we watched in sixth grade social studies. I remember it being pretty good, but I was only 11 at the time and had never heard of the book before.

I saw the movie in 10th grade and read it the same year. I liked the book, but year the movie was laughable...

What exactly is awesome or brilliant about this book?

It's just a really well-written piece of political commentary. I have no want to see the movie. At all. I loved the book too much.

What exactly is well-written about it, and what's it politically commenting on?

Is the movie longer than the book? Usually a movie isn't as long as the book, and that book only takes an hour to read, which would make for a reasonably short movie.

No, they drag it out with gratuitous sex scenes.

Wasn't the movie simply made-for-TV and not actually released in theatres? I believe this to be the case.

It's talking about how unwise it is to simply take everything leaders hand down to you. For example, the pigs end up in actuality dealing with the "evil two-legs."

What's well-written about it is that I simply found it to be a captivating piece of writing.

It's a book about communism. And it's really well written.

It's more about Stalin than communism.

Yeah, I read it back in 8th grade. !984 is far superior in my opinion though. Nevertheless, Animal Farm is a decent novel, and Orwell is a master of political satires.

Obi Kwiet is right, it is representative of Communism. It's possible to read the book without looking to deeply into any of these, but you're really missing out on the author's intended message if you don't. This book is not only poking fun to some degree at Communism, but is also serving as a warning of what can happen to a society which is held at bay by one, omnipotent dictator and a totatlitarian state. Napoleon is, of course, representative of Stalin, while Snowball represents Trotsky. Stalin beats Trotsky to power, and thus all the other animals are led to believe that Trotsky (Snowball) is a traitor.

Orwell also reiterates a common theme which occurs in 1984 as well: If we have nothing to compare our present situations with, we don't relaize whether they are good or bad. In the animals cases, they are brainwashed into believing that everything is much better than the old days, while in fact the pigs (or Soviet hierarchy) are living lifes of luxury and power, while the common animals are forced to work unendingly and live in abysmal conditions. But the animals are like lost sheep, and just follow along, not realizing the lfe they are being cheated of.

All in all, it is a very deep, and though-provocative book with some politcal issues worth consideration, regardless of what side of the owrld you're on.

Yes, indeedy. I love also a fantasy novel by Terry Goodkind, as it is an amazingly well-written satire of Communism and Socialism in general. "Faith of the Fallen". Granted, it's the sixth in an ongoing series, and if you don't read from the first, you could get lost, quickly, but it's amazing still. I'd suggest the other books simply because they're awesome in their own rights (or is it rites?)

Poor Boxer.

Orwell himself was a Marxist. Animal Farm is a commentary on Stalinist, not Marxist ideology.

Yeah, he even fought in the Spanish Civil War against the fascists.

sniff

Considering it is all animals, I think I'll skip this one out.

There's an older cartoon version of it that you'd do well to check out, but you're right, nothing can ever do that book justice except itself. I learnt nearly everything I know about the politics of Communist Russia from that book; an absolutely fantastic parallel commentary.

1984 is meant to be a corker too - I saw bits of the movie and read some of the book, but sadly we never got to finish it (this was back in Year 8 English when I was all of 14 and you never get tested on the texts!)

Umm... Movie? Why is it that I KNOW it sucks?

never heard of it.....

I couldn't stand this book, but that's just me.. (I've only liked one book that HS teachers ever crammed down my throat, and it's certainly not Animal Farm).