For at least the second time, Andy demonstrates that he fundamentally does not understand that stories should sometimes surprise. With a single line, Squealer renders the most heartbreaking moment in the novel completely impossible in this adaptation.

sorta-good line, but it depends on the context of a bad story change: Snowball convinced the animals to store grain for the winter, and Napoleon drove her out by reconvincing them they should eat it all now. (Honestly the slow path to evil might be the least worst written thing in this movie)

yeeeeepp

oh for fuck's sake

phew! For a moment there I thought they were gonna do a scene that is actually in the novel

she drives a cybertruck

(cont'd) which sounds reasonable even after it strikes you that there is still NO WAY in which a wing is a leg. Serkis, adapting the story for the modern world, doesn't seem to think a decadent, double-talking, tyrant-defending press could be of any relevance today. Squealer is just a dork.

Alcohol is called "naughty juice" throughout, which I thought was just a cloying running gag, but it's to do with certification isn't it? It's also presented as the worst, last-straw betrayal of the animals' trust by the pigs, far worse than stealing the fruits of their labour. America is weird

Good joke count: 2

oh my god this movie actually contains this line

oh dear god he's quoting the Lord of the Rings "war machines" music for the animals pulling the water wheel into place. As if Andy's very presence isn't going to give me a hard enough time enjoying LOTR from now on

I regret to inform you that there is a slapstick learning-to-walk montage.

Less than halfway through and they're already ruining the punchline. He doesn't even say "stand on our own two feet", which would at least have been a working quip. oh christ there's gonna be a slapstick learning-to-walk montage isn't there

(cont'd) Quipoids that are SHAPED like something witty, but poke them & they crumble. e.g. "It's time for this little piggy to run all the way home" would be a quip. Not a great one, but you get it. THIS, however, fundamentally neither knows nor cares what quips are, except "baddies say them":

Orwell may have been one of the greatest Left thinkers of the 20th century, but among his notable flaws are casual homophobia and the fact that he never did a "going to the mall" montage

Snowball's windmill, which is now a watermill which is the kind of change I don't mind about at all, has been changed from the last attempted democratic project of Animal Farm to a Sinister Plot for reasons that are unlikely to become apparent

oh my god it's worse than "he put fart jokes in Animal Farm". He can't even WRITE a fart joke.

I... I suppose I never really thought about how the other animals milked the cows when I read the book

OH MY FUCKIN GOD

oh heck no it's got a commissioned rap soundtrack (are lumberjacks particularly notorious for going down?)

Andy is totally "down with" the kids' lingo! (repost because I screwed the threading, sorry)

Wait I assumed this bit was a frame device set after the Animalist regime became corrupt and we were gonna do a flashback, which would have explained why e.g. animals can already read, but apparently Farmer Jones is still in charge

Grudgingly, this is actually sort of a good joke (irrespective of whether good jokes actually belong in Animal Farm, that is):

The boar Napoleon, of course, represents Josef Stalin,

Benjamin the donkey is the most mysterios character in the book, thought by some to represent Orwell himself. Serkis's understanding of his complex ethics and enigmatic aphorisms are summed up in Benjamin's first line:

We had a good movie like this. It was called Chicken Run. (This exact running joke was the worst thing in it, though.)

OK here the hell goes. I am watching Animal Farm (2025), at least until I can't stand it any longer. 2 minutes in and Andy Serkis is voicing a black rooster who talks in 1970s white-person's-idea-of-Black-jive-talk.

Like the time Al Green wore all green

My answer: No. 'Generative' (imitative) AI is a crock of shit. If you can't be ashamed of even asking this question, you could at least be ashamed of not providing a straight "No" answer.

I drew some fan art #silo