Considering the book was written by George Orwell in 1945, the message of the story is not hard to get. The story of the farm animals parallel directly to the rise of the Soviet Union not too long before the book was written. The film as well as the book is about animals at a farm who feel oppressed by the humans, until one pig called Old Major encourage them to start a revolution. When Old Major dies the pig called Napoleon (voiced by Patrick Stewrat)continues the revolution and start his new era of equality among all animals, or what he calls Animalism. However it does not take much time before Napoleon gets corrupted and creates a dictatorship.
Old Major is Stalin, a man with some good ideas for a revolution which was destroyed by the takeover by Stalin or in this case Napoleon. Even though communism in Russia was the inspiration for the book due to it's relevancy at the time, this story will always be relevant. For this story was very old even when it was written. And it amazes me how powerful this story can be even today.
I have not seen the cartoon version from the 50's, but I doubt they can have the same impact as this movie. Being a real-life film it feels much more real. And normally talking animals movies are kinda cheesy, not this one. The story was serious all through the end. It was well made, and well acted by the few humans in it. The message comes through clearly, and the horrors of dictatorship and hard labour (almost slavery) is portrayed frightenly well. Had George Orwell seen this, I think he would be proud. I give this film a 9/10.
Old Major is Stalin, a man with some good ideas for a revolution which was destroyed by the takeover by Stalin or in this case Napoleon. Even though communism in Russia was the inspiration for the book due to it's relevancy at the time, this story will always be relevant. For this story was very old even when it was written. And it amazes me how powerful this story can be even today.
I have not seen the cartoon version from the 50's, but I doubt they can have the same impact as this movie. Being a real-life film it feels much more real. And normally talking animals movies are kinda cheesy, not this one. The story was serious all through the end. It was well made, and well acted by the few humans in it. The message comes through clearly, and the horrors of dictatorship and hard labour (almost slavery) is portrayed frightenly well. Had George Orwell seen this, I think he would be proud. I give this film a 9/10.