Steve Reviews: Animal Farm 

1945 - Manga 1954 - Anime 1999 - Netflix adaptation

As soon as the hogfather pig died of a heart attack, I got an ad of someone flipping burgers and I lost my mind. I couldn't stop laughing.

The ending of the book is extremely haunting. After seeing the pigs walking on two legs and wearing clothes, the other animals go back to check the rules because they were sure that wasn’t allowed. There they find “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” which is the last line of the book.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but Snowball always seemed like he actually had good intentions for the farm and the animals. His mistake was not realizing what Napoleon was up to and how easily exploitable their system was

The good ending was...added. The original just has the abused citizens of animal farm looking over their new overlords remarking their resemblance to the old farmer in a way that "they couldn't tell the difference". The book ends there.

I didn’t know that Soviet Union got an anime adaptation

13:50 the pig really said 😭😭😒😭😭 LIKE THAT WAS MY FAVORITE THING EVER

The ending- In the book, the ending is literally that pretty much everyone is dead, now theres only really Benjamin, Clover (Another Horse), and a few others. Napoleon randomly goes dictator mode, along with another pig, Squealer (Squealer is Napoleons little, lets say, controller I guess. In the book, he is EXTREMALLY persuasive and is constantly convincing the animals that everything is a-okay.) Everyone is now miserable. They all understand whats going on, yet they have so little power, they have to just deal with it by now. The pigs break that whole moral conduct, and now Napoleon is drinking with other farmers, playing cards, showing his full dictator side by now and it's shown that the animals really are overworked, despite Squealer constantly saying they're doing way better than in Jones day. The book ends with the animals unable to tell whos who, human to pig, and an arguement breaking out about cards. The ending is sad. The ending is cruel and not happy at all. That's the point; the ending should not be happy out of a book based off of Dictators, Communism, and Oppression. The book was never supposed to have a happy ending as having one pretty much destroys the point of the plot; dictators are powerful and will silence you and force you into your place. Just my view on the book!

You know it's bad when the *_raven_* looks away.

It is not your farm... IT IS *OUR* FARM

I read the book for the first time last week, not for class but just to read it. The book is good, and has no happy ending. The animals continue to be brainwashed. Its more realistic honestly, and it's a great parallel to real events and how real people think. I love that the hard workers were represented by Boxer, the communists were represented as Pigs, and the obedient military was the dogs. Very literal, I love it

I love how Steve forgets boxers name half way in and starts calling him buster.

The donkey gets thinner and thinner after Napoleon takes over, nice detail.

>Animal Farm >Kid’s film Pick one, you can’t have both.

It's because they killed off the female dog. I don't remember her name, but she was the mother of the puppies that were taken and turned into soldiers. I feel like she played an integral role in the readers understanding throughout the book 📖.

the boxer plotline disturbed me so much in both the book and movie but imo its worse in the movie cause you see it all happen and seeing boxer scream and cry while he’s getting pulled away to the glue factory. Absolutely traumatized me

Fun Fact: Animal Farm is actually the first British animated film. *looks like the began on a dark note*

This isn't a kid's film. The book (which is FAR more widely known and recognised than the films btw) is a political allegory of the Soviet system. George Orwell was always highly political in his writing; this isn't a children's story. Each of the characters represents an historical figure directly.

I must say, the pigs slowly blurring the line between man and beast was essential and I am glad it was implemented in the movie.

They actually explain the whole "wings count as legs" a lot better in the book.

The book doesn't have a happy ending. It just ends all depressing with Napoleon as a horrible dictator. It's so depressing when it ends. Edit: I cant believe so many of you like this comment. You're welcome.

Funnily enough in France it's illegal to name your pig Napoleon 🐷

I always thought it was creepy how napoleon in the book was always able to keep the rest of the farm from overthrowing him and going back to snowball after he's kicked out. He keeps using him as a scapegoat for multiple misdeeds (which never happened) and slowly over the book change who snowball was from a true animal hero who attacked Jones and lead the animal charge to being a traitor to Jones and helping the humans fight, leading the human charge. It's creepy because he does it so well by slowly blurring that line with the animals forgetting all the specifics of the tale and eventually getting it warped due to that. And if anyone questioned it, like say Boxer? Death, as we see. Napoleon knows that to keep control, he needs to build trust and upkeep all his lies. And in the book and movie, he really does that well.

Fun fact: Snowball didn't get killed, he just got chased off and when the windmill got blown down (not by dynamite, they left out the bit out in the film) they blame it on snowball

>Implying Animal Farm was ever meant for children. I'm so disappointed.

Don’t talk about the anime if you haven’t read the manga

I love the fact that the pigs became the very thing they hated, and seeing the pups turn into huge hound dogs was pretty dark. Especially when the donkey in the movie looks at the window and sees the pigs wearing suits and walking on two legs

Somewhat fun fact: George Orwell himself described his story as “an animal fable” as if it were just a fun fairytale

It's almost like it's based on an Orwell novel

Cant wait for Netflix live action adaptation starring Amy smucher as napoleon.

Can we take a moment to reflect that Steve's doctor is Dr. Jones, and the farmer ALSO has that surname?

10:07 Chickens: Rebel against the pigs Napoleon: orders the dogs to kill the cat for no reason

If Peppa Pig was communist

ANIMAL FARM WAS NEVER MEANT FOR CHILDREN!!!!! IT WAS BASED OFF A GEORGE ORWELL NOVEL. A TYPICALLY DARK ADULT CENTRIC AUTHOR WHO SPECIALIZED IN POLITICAL/SOCIAL COMMENTARY. IF YOU LET YOUR CHILD READ/ WATCH HIS WORK THEN THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM NOT OURS

6:04 animals in minecraft taking damage

7:57 replace “Napoleon” with “Stalin,” “Snowball” with “Trotsky” and You’ve got yourself a documentary

*ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS*

No-one: Any animal on Animal Farm: *C O M R A D E*

I remember watched this film on Taiwan's TV once about 1989-90. I was shocked when Boxer was taken and Benjamin chasing the wagon part, I was hoping that something would happen to save that poor horse as what would happened in most Disney's films. Few years later I had chance to read the book in 9th grade literature and suddenly remembered the film I watched as kid. Great book and film, too bad that is not well known in Asia.

The crow needs therapy after seing death for the 10th time

Fact : it’s illegal in France to call a pig Napoleon

Based on a book by George Orwell? Oh I'm sure it's all sunshine and rainbows from the same author as 1984.

When the hogfather pig died, i got an ad for the wendy’s baconator and couldn’t stop wheezing

“The animals looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but it was already impossible to tell which was which” I GASPED AT THAT

I remember reading this my freshman year of highschool- Even younger dumbass me knew how much this book screamed "COMMUNISM"

Random farmer: Uses a gun like a club Me: *He a little bit confused, but he got the spirit*

Fun fact: Orwell's real name is Eric- the reason why he changed his name is that he didn't want ppl to know his true name or identity and he also wanted to start fresh when he started writing articles.

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

Animal Farm is not all bad... It makes eating bacon much more satisfying.

I noticed something. As we first see the pups that Napoleon adopts, they are white, innocent pups that have pure souls. But as we see the pups grown up, their skin turns black and dark, corrupted by Napoleon’s dark intent, and the dogs are left to work for Napoleon not knowing of the pure life they could have had.

1:50 Considering this was based off a book by George Orwell, that is painfully ironic.

“Go watch something more upbeat, like Care Bears” I was expecting him to name literally any horror film

The first pig was Carl Marx, snowball was Lenin, napoleon was Stalin, the farmer was the tsar, the neighbors were nazies, the banker was America and the west, the crow was the Russian Orthodox Church, the chickens were the rest of the Soviet blok, the dogs were the kgb, the windmill represented the same things as in the movie but mostly industrialization, the horse was the Russian people, the pigs were the bourgeoisie, all the alcohol represented Stalin’s vodka plants, and yes the book was a fairly comprehensive history of the Russian revolution.

I love how my high school decided it was a good idea to have us read Animal Farm without any sort of grasp on important concepts like... communism... and politics...

Did you know? In France is illegal to name your pig Napoleon.

So funny story, this was the first actual book my 7th grade class read. Not only did we read the book, that would be too nice, we also watched the movie 15 minutes at a time(once per day) and did a DBQ on it. This was the same year that we researched the horror genre and read multiple short stories with murder in each one.

Steve: The animals begin to build Snowball's- Napoleon: *UNGODLY SCREAM* Steve: I mean, Napoleon's windmill Me: (○-○)

Not sure why’d you expect anything less from an adaptation of a George Orwell book

We’re currently reading the book in school and so I had to come back and watch this video.

I recall Animal Farm as a nice lite read just on the downside of middle school, still just barely young enough to appreciate the fantasy fun and frolic. Those were solid Cold War days (the October crisis just fading backward in the rear view mirror). And even a kid could sense the allegorical symbolism of animals behaving like humans. I always thought of Animal Farm as a perfect predecessor to 1984, which showed up in my life a couple of years later, 'round about grade 8. Which led to high school wanderings through The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London. My main beef with Orwell at that time was that there just wasn't enough of him. Other than John Wyndham, there weren't enough other distractions from that particular era. I always suspected from the get-go that Orwell utilized the natural affinity that kids have for animals to create a kind of primer in authoritarian tyranny, easy to understand and translate into real-world terms as we grew up.

*Animal Crossing: New Horizons,* *the Rated R version*

Steve: So, the animals start to build Snowball's- Napolean: *REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE* Steve: I mean Napolean's windmill.

Coming back to watch this video again! My senior class is doing a theater production later this year of Animal Farm, and I’m so excited. This video introduced me to Animal Farm. I read the book two years after watching this video, and absolutely loved it. Thank you Steve :3

The scene where boxer is taken away and benjiman is running after him makes me cry every single time

The book was way darker and more depressing

Snowball was such a good guy. I genuinely loved him. He was so kind, and he genuinely wanted to help out the animals.

well the story was supposed to be creepy and sad because that was the way that the USSR was. With the working class (the animals) being slaves without even knowing it and the people at the top (the dogs and pigs) reaping all the benefits and at the same time keeping the working class from moving up.

''The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which.''

"Oh GOD! Make it stop!" *Old Major dies* "Thank you."

Old Major = Karl Marx Napoleon = Joseph Stalin Snowball = Leon Trotsky Boxer = working middle class Squealer = Institutional Propaganda/managers Moses =Institutional Religion This whole movie has communism written all over it

This used to be required reading in American schools . It is playing out in America right now in 2023.. This story has played out in history over and over again.

I will say, the book does a wonderful job showing how Napoleon and Squealer (his right-hand) use propoganda to get the animals to believe everything they say. The animals don't just accept it; they are threatened by the dogs, given the idea of the old farmer coming back if they don't listen, and are blatantly gaslit over, and over, and over again. It's also noted that the large majority of animals can't read, and don't have good memory - which is why Squealer's gaslighting works so well. In the book, Squealer also trains the lesser educated, blindly loyal sheep to bleat "Four legs good, two legs bad!" every time someone wants to disagree with Napoleon, ensuring that his opposition's voices are literally never heard. By the end of the book, they are taught to bleat "four legs good, two legs BETTER!" as the pigs start walking on their hind legs. But this is comparing two completely different mediums. I think the movie loses the layers of symbolism the book has, but it still gets the message across. Plus all these extra details would have likely driven the movie way over budget.

See but here’s the gag: they didn’t actually revolt in the original book so it was even more depressing

Steve: You sickos Me: *Hold on, this whole operation was your idea*

3:12 So nobody is going to talk about old major lip syncing?

As someone who loves this channel to death, and just re-read animal farm in a whole day. I felt like a lot of context was missing and that the singing specifically by the animals was called "beast of England" was was a crie of wanting rebellion. And this was used many times throughout the book. There was a reoccurring theme of the sheep never being able to shut up about it, and the same with "4 legs good, 2 legs bad" which later they are indoctrinated from the pigs as "4 legs good 2 legs better" which I found was interesting. I also felt like the book conveyed a better way for boxer the horses death. As the scene of them explaining how he was desperately trying to kick his way after finding out he was going to his doom was sad. I enjoyed the fact also how they explaining not many animals could barely read or write and the ones who couldn't were the easiest to do so with. I though have never seen the movie. Think that a lot of things could have been used, also including that in the book the ending only ends with the pigs talking with humans. And the other animals looking into the windows and saying "I looked at the man, then the pig, man then pig. And all I could see was they looked the same" which I felt was a very sad yet great way to end the book. What confused me also is how young the donkey appeared in the movie, and how he was explaining as grump and never willing to help. Along with how the crow and the cat seemed to cease to exist for a certain amount of time. Where was Mollie the horse in all of this? Something I did also like a lot though was that they added the commandments into the movie as they are accurate. Also major (the old hog) abruptly dying was funny to me since his death in the book was 2 week later, and unseen by everything else. The best part of the movie in my opinion even if I have never seen it. Is the lying look from the pig, as explained in the book there is a line of the pig talking about boxers death named squealer was "suspiciously glancing from left to right" and they did it perfectly honestly. Again though I have not seen the movie so I can't take my own ideas super serious, but in all honesty snowball was the best and better leader and deserved better. It was interesting to since in the book he was shot and scathed on the back. Overall I think they stayed pretty close to the book and gave it an actual ending, yay!

I actually very recently finished reading the original book. It's actually surprising how different it is. For example, the cat doesn't actually die I'm pretty sure, and the book actually ends on the much lower note of the farm having gone through a loop and the pigs being exactly like farmer Jones. By the way, the "creepy song" at the beginning is a very important song from the book called 'Beasts of England', they just used animal noises instead of english lyrics. The animals did speak.

Actually the creepy song is really them trying to sing " Beasts of England "

I’m happy I watched this back in 2021 in about November, because now I’m learning about animal farm, so I basically know a lot about this already. Thanks!

The book is really good, and managed to portray a real issue very well

Did you really say that the movie is more well known than the book? The book has sold over 30 million copies dude.

11:18 My initial thought was, "Where did they get the red paint?" and then, ".... Oh."

Probably my favourite adult animated film ever, so glad you did a review of this

Him "ah as for the rest of you still here you sickos" me laughs in evil

The moment where the slaughter truck took Boxer away always left me in tears, he was my favourite character throughout the movie. :(

Steve: why when we brits get involved in animation, it’s always about animal cruelty? Me: well, when you consider that peppa pig is a psychopath, yeah.

Just knowing that an animated Animal Farm exists makes me wonder what an animated 1984 would be like. Now that would be something I’d pay good money to watch

The book's ending has a meeting between the pigs and the humans where they agree to put aside their differences because they both have "lower classes" to keep in line. The film's ending would have included this but the CIA told them to take the men out and only focus on the pigs. Their reason was that if the animals overthrew both the humans and the pigs it would be unclear what the political message was, and they feared it would be seen as an endorsement of anarchism.

there's a joke in X-Men, where guards mocking Beast for reading kiddie book "Animal Farm".

Man: *okay I have this loaded gun, what can I use it for? Oh I know, a bat!*

4:58 to be fair boars/pigs will fight even when morality wounded that why the Black knight from monty python symbol is a boar

8:14 well if we consider the book canon, then yes he is, actually

7:08 The exact phrase the pig uses in the book is that the wing "is an organ of locomotion, rather than manipulation", which works well enough for me.

Animal Farm isn't aimed at kids though. It's aimed to a more adult audience.

Huh. I remember watching this at my grandma's house when i was 12 - 13 and I really enjoyed it. The wierdest part is that my grandma was kinda overly protective and she'd seen it many times before so I have no idea why she showed it to me... Like I said before I remember enjoying it and I didn't think it was that bad, but the strangest part is that I got scared / traumatised really easy at that age so I really have no idea. Edit: Just finished rewatching it, It really wasn't as bad as you made it out to be.

It's interesting that you point out that even the moments that should be happier seem to have a creepy or ominous feeling, like when the animals are singing. In a way, that feels appropriate to me, as the things they're celebrating aren't great things to celebrate, since they lead them to destruction.

We read this book in my freshman year and, I’m not gonna lie, I actually enjoyed it. Yes it’s dark, but George Orwell had a thing for historical satire, and I found that compelling myself!

“They looked from man and pig, than from pig to man, and saw no difference.” I recently read the book myself and have been obsessed with everything surrounding it. I found that last line to be open ended, which helped the message. It offered a choice, it offered free thought. To come to your own conclusions. The animated version felt like what was expected. Starving animals don’t put up much of a fight, but a hundred of them will certainly take you down. A hundred starving slaves can kill a small group of slaves. The live action movie is the worst by far. It focused way too much on a single animal (Jessie), who (spoilers) dies of old age in the book without much fanfare. In the book, the puppies are take in plain sight, Napolean giving a half assed excuse, but the animals forget swiftly. In the movie Jessie constantly begs with them to no avail. She’s the main star and she won’t let you forget it. The ending is “Well we left and the elements took care of the pigs.” Which just suggests inaction is the answer. Animal Farm doesn’t need a main character. It’s not about the individuals, which is why the live action really rubbed me the wrong way. It’s about all the animals as a whole. The whole country/community. Anyway the animated movie gave the book justice. It gave the ending we expected the book to have after that chilling last line, and a satisfaction required of a visual media.

I actually read the book and didn't even know it had two film adaptations it was a good book.

Pig: painful screams Steve reviews: im sure he's fine