Animal Farm Compare and Contrast
Many books are made into movies whether people realize it or not. Some movies could be very well done, and others completely terrible. When the producers of Animal Farm made the book into a movie, they did not do as well as they could have. The book and movie of Animal Farm can be compared in many ways through their differences, similarities, and even why it contains the changes it does. Animal Farm was written to ridicule communism and the idea of a perfect world. The movie made it seem like a comical story of animals trying to run a farm, when it really is not.
The narrators of both are very different. In the book, the narrator is not a character and does not show any bias at all. That makes it very easy to understand the main idea. Whereas in the movie, one of the characters plays the narrator keeping the movie in only one perspective. Mollie, who represents the bourgeoisie, flees because she does not like the way things are going in the book. However in the movie, she sticks around and never leaves. The bourgeoisie did not like the idea of changing their ways in the idea of communism, and her role was not clear in the movie.
The windmill in the book gets knocked down and Napoleon blames Snowball for it, in the movie Frederick knocks it over which does not make sense because Frederick symbolizes England. Another big difference is how the wood deal in the book represented the Non-Aggression Pact between Russia and Germany, and in the movie there wasn’t really any such thing except for a meeting with Napoleon and Pilkington, and all they did was get drunk. That occurs towards the end, and then the movie ends with a scene of a new family moving into the farm house.
That family is John F. Kennedy’s and that really does not have anything to do with the book. The end of the book is a meeting with every other farm and Napoleon playing a card game. The card game represents the beginning of the Cold War. Aside from all of the differences, there are few important similarities. The similarities can also compare the two stories even though there are few. The seven commandments are a big similarity. Old Major mentions at the beginning of both stories some “rules” the animals should live by.
How they are written down is the same, including how they eventually get changed. The pigs start to develop human-like characteristics and that makes for a lot of fall out towards the end. The saying, “Four legs good, two legs bad”, is the same for both and even gets changed to the same thing, too. Squealer is a huge manipulator in both story lines. He convinces the animals that Napoleon does everything to better them and even covers up some suspicions the other animals have. Since Animal Farm is about Soviet Russia and their revolution, it contains a lot of historical satire.
The movie makers most likely changed many parts of the book so that it would be humorous for a younger audience, completely lacking the main points. The movie would have been a lot better if it was the same as the book and was animated. However, movie makers probably did not make it animated so that it would not seem child like. Even though they did not succeed at making the movie like the book, if it was animated it could have been more enjoyable. The differences, similarities, and why it contains the changes it does are all ways to compare the Animal Farm movie to the book.
Movies that are based on books should really be more like the book so that it doesn’t seem like two different stories. That could confuse the reader/watcher if they are not very similar. This movie should not be recommended if the reader of the book wants to watch a movie thinking it would be like the book because it is not very correct at all. The movie should be somewhat similar due to the fact that it is a historical satire. The book should be read though because it is a great example of what power does to people, and it is very historically correct on the events in the Russian Revolution.
