It’s kind of ridiculous how long Andy Serkis has been trying to get an animated version of George Orwell’s satirical allegory Animal Farm made: The first industry reports of the project (which was set up at Netflix for a minute, before they dropped it) date all the way back to 2012, when it was still being touted as Serkis’ feature directorial debut. (He’s since directed five films, most recently Venom sequel Let There Be Carnage, with his Lord Of The Rings film The Hunt For Gollum still on the way.) Now, though, the first glimpses of the animated Animal Farm have finally begun to roll out, and they’re certain to delight scholars of Orwell’s work who are also absolutely massive fans of Seth Rogen doing improvisational riffing during a voice take.
Rogen is, of course, playing Orwell’s tyrannical boar Napoleon in the animated adaptation, making for what we’re fairly sure will be mainstream film’s most vocally chill Joseph Stalin allegory ever. The first look released for the film also features a falsetto’d Gaten Matarazzo as “Lucky,” who appears to be an original character for the film, and who gets manipulated by Napoleon into viewing him as a father figure—while receiving some rhetoric about how animals should stick within their species groups. (We don’t get to hear Rogen’s take on “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” here, although the script feints at it for a second.) Kieran Culkin also appears as the film’s version of Orwell’s Squeaker, who, in this scene, is less a collective stand-in for state propaganda, and more a vehicle for mild social awkwardness comedy.
Serkis has never been shy about the fact that he intended to soften Orwell’s often-bleak fable a bit, the better to get kids watching. More than a decade ago, he told reporters “We are not going to handle the politics in a heavy-handed fashion,” instead making a more “emotionally centered” version of the story. (At the time, he was also taking about the movie as a heavily motion-capture-based project: That seems downplayed in the clip, although Napoleon’s facial movements definitely have some Rogen-esque touches to them.) Animal Farm is set to have its world premiere on June 9, at the Annecy International Animal Film Festival.
I fear to even look at the trailer.
And I know this is kind of borderline for N&P but it's hard to argue that anything related to George Orwell's vent fic about how much he hated Stalinism isn't political, although it sure as hell sounds like these guys are going to try.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
Zaune wrote: 2025-06-09 07:13am
And it's not looking good.
[snip]
I fear to even look at the trailer.
And I know this is kind of borderline for N&P but it's hard to argue that anything related to George Orwell's vent fic about how much he hated Stalinism isn't political, although it sure as hell sounds like these guys are going to try.
Y'know, I have mixed feelings here. I read Animal Farm when I was very young, with no concept of history, let alone Russian history, and it did resonate with me as a story that shaped my worldview in some ways. The sheer injustice of Boxer's fate, despite his steadfast loyalty, made Little Me want to fight the pigs wherever they rut. If a softened version could have the same effect on a larger number of kids I'll give it a pass.
"Do I really look like a guy with a plan? Y'know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it! Y'know, I just do things..." --The Joker
Elfdart wrote: 2025-06-13 10:40pm
They should've adapted John Reed's sequel/spoof Snowball's Chance.
The book they mentioned written in 1880 was way before Stalin (but of course during the time of Tsars), so it seems that any similarity between it and 'Animal Farm' is minimal.
RE: "Orwell finished ‘Animal Farm’ in 1947, but he doesn’t refer to the Nazis or the Japanese. There’s a lot he might have added to the mix.”
Of what relevance are these to a story set in a specific farm setting commenting about USSR? Just because it was written in final years of WWII doesn't mean that the Japanese and Nazis have to be included; indeed it would diminish the theme, as it was about USSR's internal matters, not its external affairs.
TVWP: "Janeway says archly, "Sometimes it's the female of the species that initiates mating." Is the female of the species trying to initiate mating now? Janeway accepts Paris's apology and tells him she's putting him in for a commendation. The salamander sex was that good." "Not bad - for a human"-Bishop to Ripley GALACTIC DOMINATION Empire Board Game visit link below: GALACTIC DOMINATION
Elfdart wrote: 2025-06-13 10:40pm
They should've adapted John Reed's sequel/spoof Snowball's Chance.
The book they mentioned written in 1880 was way before Stalin (but of course during the time of Tsars), so it seems that any similarity between it and 'Animal Farm' is minimal.
RE: "Orwell finished ‘Animal Farm’ in 1947, but he doesn’t refer to the Nazis or the Japanese. There’s a lot he might have added to the mix.”
Of what relevance are these to a story set in a specific farm setting commenting about USSR? Just because it was written in final years of WWII doesn't mean that the Japanese and Nazis have to be included; indeed it would diminish the theme, as it was about USSR's internal matters, not its external affairs.
If the plot, characters and dialogue are as similar as is claimed, it's still a rip-off. Just because they take place at different times doesn't change that. For example, A Fistful of Dollars was an obvious rip-off of Yojimbo, even if the former takes place in the Old West and the latter in Feudal Japan.
