They ruined Animal Farm...

This reminds me that, for a high school assignment, I wrote a short 1,000-word sequel to Animal Farm, briefly covering the Farm's nuclear standoff with the West as dramatized by Cuban Missile Crisis, and then the Farm's relationship with the Middle East (I mashed Iran and Afghanistan together into one neighboring estate). I didn't have time to go into the Farm's Chernobyl disaster, and eventual collapse. As a millennial American who enjoys following our crazy politics, I think one could make a pretty darn interesting animal-powered retelling of the past 30s years of our national history, from the Clinton Administration to today. You'd have two rival pig families wresting power back and forth, with 9/11, the Iraq War, Trump's victory over both party establishments, the pandemic and Biden, followed by Trump's return providing plenty of narrative fodder along the way. But, an author would obviously have to pick a partisan side to sympathize with if such a sprawling story were to have any kind of emotional coherence, which would unavoidably mark it as a work of propaganda. There'd also be the problem of where to end such a tale. The lack of an ending works for Orwell's book as an indictment of Stalinism, with no relief in sight, but the regularity of American elections ensures that the political push-pull, with constant promises of imminent course corrections, never ends.

Thank you for this. I live under a rock and did not know this movie had been made. Looks like I’m not missing much. Coincidentally, I am reading and loving Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit now. (It’s been on my shelf for a few years and I finally got to it this month :)) I highly recommend it if you haven’t already read it. She’s an excellent writer and makes it a pleasure to learn and understand more about Orwell’s personal, political, and relational context. I’m always fascinated to learn how writers’ lived experience shapes their work. Anyway, thank you for another excellent video. Keep ‘em coming. So happy to support.

Hollywood seems to have lost the ability to tell stories. This is especially true when it comes to a younger audience. To be fair, kids have been treated the sloppy way since the Grimm brothers' tales. I've sort of gone a bit off topic here.

The warning I took from the book is even with the good intentions of revolution, the greedy and powerful hungry will rise to the top. To your point, the revolution itself isn’t a footnote but a primary feature. I think it’s an important lesson even today, as people talk about over throwing governments through bloodshed, Animal Farm reminds us of the dangers that lie on the other side of that fight. That being said, there is an interesting moral dilemma because the animals may have died of starvation were it not for their rebellion. Desperation leads to action, so I’m not throwing shade on hardship that has lead to rebellion thoughout history, but the lesson for me was to beware of the glamour of a revolution. It is not to be idealized and fetishized.

I haven’t seen it, and now won’t at all. Animal Farm and 1984 are two of my favorite books. I have a zero tolerance policy on adaptations missing the point of the art they’re based on.

I'd love to see you do a video on what it means for a story to be "ruined" or "desecrated" by later treatements. Some say, "Nobody's forcing you to go see the sloppy film adaptation of your favorite book," or, "The original still exists; it's not like they burned all the copies, chill out." Why do we care if a work is given a poor treatment? Does it matter?

Talk about the end of history. Well I'm glad to know I don't need to watch this. What the hell was Serkis thinking???

To quote a very old BIC banana TV ad, "I like your face." I approve.