Episode 125: Odd Animal Farm Adaptations (with Adam LeClerc)

[00:00:23] Speaker A: Come on, Adam, do it. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Cock a doodle. [00:00:25] Speaker A: Do. That was not. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Oh, God, I am not. [00:00:31] Speaker A: I need to get into headspace of talking about all three. [00:00:34] Speaker C: If you aren't already aware, readers, you are now in the throes of the Animal Farm. The Manor Farm, formerly the Manor Farm. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Welcome to the foreword to Andy Serkis's adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm, the official novelization narrated by us. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Odd Trilogies with Logan and Andy. I'm Logan so. [00:00:57] Speaker C: And I'm Andy Carr. [00:00:58] Speaker A: And Odd. ODD Trilogies. We take a trio of films where they're t cast and crew thematic elements are just numerical order, and we discuss the good, the bad, and the weird surrounding each film. And boy, this is gonna be a weird one. This is one that was actually not our creation. In the process of us figuring out what we wanted to do for 26, our guest today came with us with this idea. Guest, introduce yourself. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Hey there. My name's Adam and I'm to blame for this. Sorry. [00:01:27] Speaker A: No, honestly, this is perfect for the pod. [00:01:31] Speaker C: Longtime listeners, would that Adam is a seasoned veteran of the podcast and a good friend of both of ours and also a history teacher. So his understanding of world history lends itself to such wonderful allegories as George Orwell's Animal Farm and as such mediocre allegories as the adaptations of George Orwell's Animal Farm. [00:01:56] Speaker B: It makes it a little bit more frustrating. [00:01:58] Speaker A: Yes, because today we are talking about the ODD Animal Farm trilogy, which is, if you've ever heard of our odd, insert name here, trilogy. Usually we take three adaptations of the same source material and we discuss how they did, as well as just how much time has passed between the book, as well as when these books, when these movies came out. In this case, it's 1954's Animal Farm, 1999's Animal Farm, and 2026's Animal Farm. Cause the thing is, is the reason why you brought this up is because you just saw the day of or the day prior, the trailer for the most recent Animal Farm. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Like, have you seen this shit? [00:02:38] Speaker A: I hadn't. That was the first time I had seen it and I felt like I was having a stroke. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's not great. [00:02:45] Speaker A: It was rough, but yeah, this is probably our first odd, you know, three adaptations discussing in a while. And also this is your fourth or fifth episode, Adam. [00:02:57] Speaker C: Yeah, at least I was. [00:03:00] Speaker B: I have been there. [00:03:02] Speaker A: Bionicle. [00:03:03] Speaker B: Bionicle. The Hobbits Plan of the Apes. [00:03:06] Speaker A: Another Circus. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, dang. Yeah. You're right. [00:03:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Hobbit, Planet of the Apes. [00:03:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Bionicle. [00:03:15] Speaker A: I think that's it. [00:03:16] Speaker C: And then I feel like I talked [00:03:17] Speaker B: about the Hobbit with you guys at one point. [00:03:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:20] Speaker A: You were on the Hobbit. [00:03:21] Speaker B: Oh, the Hobbit. Well, you did do the Hobbit. [00:03:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:23] Speaker B: I'm a fake fan then. [00:03:24] Speaker A: No. [00:03:24] Speaker C: And then I think you. Were you on our Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes review. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:28] Speaker C: Not a trilogy. [00:03:29] Speaker B: Yeah, we recorded that all at the same time, if memory serves. And I was, you know, hyped up the fresh viewing on that. [00:03:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. So I think this makes number four. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Makes number four. And there will always be one in the back because you've, of course, have constantly pushed the animated Lord of the Rings trilogy. [00:03:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:47] Speaker A: We'll do at some point, maybe when Gollum comes out, because now another really [00:03:52] Speaker B: circus hit coming in. [00:03:54] Speaker A: They're really excited for the Gollum film after Animal Farm. [00:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:57] Speaker A: But in case you don't know what Animal Farm is, it is a novel, kind of satirizing as well as taking the idea of the Russian Revolution and Stalin's rise in Russia came out in 1945. But using a Farm as a way to satirize it and use it as a metaphor and is a book that all three of us had to read in school. [00:04:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:19] Speaker A: That's why we're aware of it. [00:04:20] Speaker C: I don't know if they're still teaching it in schools. [00:04:23] Speaker B: I'd have to imagine. [00:04:24] Speaker A: I feel like it's. [00:04:25] Speaker C: I mean, Lord of the Flies is banned now, so. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Wait, really? [00:04:28] Speaker C: Yeah, a lot of school systems. [00:04:31] Speaker B: It's all the pig stuff. [00:04:32] Speaker C: Well, there's a lot of pig stuff. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:04:36] Speaker A: And it's just not, you know, it's two on the nose. God forbid we have some. [00:04:39] Speaker B: And there are gonna be some wet noses. We talk about, you best believe. [00:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:44] Speaker C: But, yeah, the original novel was. I think. I don't know if it was officially subtitled, but on the original manuscript it said Animal Farm, a fairy story, kind of associating it with children's stories. I think that was Orwell's intent, was to create this allegory specific for children to understand the dangers of corrupting totalitarianism. [00:05:09] Speaker A: What better way to talk to children? Like, to dumb down the ending every single chance you get. [00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And, I mean, that'll be a consistent problem with Orwell, unfortunately. [00:05:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:20] Speaker B: But I think that alone is almost a betrayal of Orwell because he was so intentional with how he. [00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:29] Speaker B: Put this story together. And plenty of people are like, oh, gee, it's like beating you over the head with it. And like, I think it actually has a pretty unique voice as far as, like, deconstructing this, especially when it's aimed towards young people. [00:05:44] Speaker C: Right. Well, and there are some, Some topics that, you know, if you're going to commit that idea, that critique to a novel, especially for children, like, you have to go there. You have to commit to the bleak depiction of it. The. The repetitive nature is part of it. It's reflective of what was happening in Russia at the time. And that is, you know, kind of how like fascist doctrination works is, you know, repeated behaviors over time until people don't remember any different. [00:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:23] Speaker C: And that is basically the kind of the central thrust of. Of the novel. [00:06:29] Speaker A: Propaganda. The use of the other as a way to kind of instill fear into the masses. All these different kind of aspects that I feel like if you're a kid and you're reading this and you don't get it, that might even be better in terms of having conversations with adults about why these things make you uncomfortable or why, like, why are the pigs doing this? And it's like, well, yeah. [00:06:48] Speaker B: And I mean, I remember. I believe I. Or I'd be misremembering. I. Pretty dang sure. I read the book before school. [00:06:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:57] Speaker B: We had a copy at my childhood home. And the COVID was kind of in like a Soviet style, that Benjamin the donkey and who. What I could only assume was Napoleon. [00:07:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:13] Speaker B: And I was just interested and I was like, okay, wait a second, what is this book? And I look at the back and it's like, you know, animals talking and forming a society and all of this stuff. And so, you know, being a little animal loving kid, like, I was, I mean, I was very interested in it. And even I remember checking it out, even though, you know, obviously the political allegory was lost on me. [00:07:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:37] Speaker B: The message was crystal clear. Yeah. I mean, and I think each one of these adaptations doesn't trust the audience in some ways. [00:07:50] Speaker C: Right. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Because it doesn't. If I could get that as a kid being like, oh, dang. Yeah. No, like what you were saying, like, why are the pigs doing this? And all these things. It's these basic questions. So if it could catch my eye. And I barely read for pleasure as a kid, that wasn't like an encyclopedia of like, you know, dinosaurs or some shit, but like, it really grabbed me. And I remember being really kind of upset by it too. I mean, the power of it was. [00:08:19] Speaker C: Was. Was palpable even Then, well, yeah, I mean, that is the beauty of it as a book kind of aimed toward younger audiences. Like you said, the political allegory as overt and deliberate and obvious, at least to an adult or, you know, a person who understands that era of history at all. As obvious as that is, it's irrelevant ultimately to like what it's saying. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:48] Speaker C: Which is, you know, ultimately how totalitarianism. [00:08:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:54] Speaker C: You know, beats people down and any system, any ideology can really be corrupted by that or be betrayed by people who are self serving. I think the, you know, what, what we'll get into here with these three, especially with, like you said, trusting the. Not trusting the audience is indicative of, I think, how the book has kind of been broadly misunderstood a lot over the years. I mean, oh my God, it is [00:09:26] Speaker B: not from every side. [00:09:28] Speaker C: From every side. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:30] Speaker C: I would say, like the one I see the most in just how the book is described as. People call it an anti anti communist allegory, which I don't think this book, the point of this book is really that communism is the root of all evil. [00:09:45] Speaker A: No, not at all. [00:09:46] Speaker C: You know, Orwell was a socialist. [00:09:49] Speaker B: Socialist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:09:51] Speaker C: Obviously there are differences between communism in practice and socialism and in ideology. But, you know, clearly he was about a government that, you know, treats people with equity and provides for its people. So it's not that he, you know, is rejecting the base tenets of far left politics and economic structure, but rather that he saw what happened in Russia and saw how wickedly that. That, I guess, administration, regime, regime corrupted the original, the promise ideas. The Promise. [00:10:35] Speaker B: And I think that is one thing too, that will keep Animal Farmer around long after everyone has kind of forgotten about these adaptations. And who knows, maybe one day there'll be a truly great adaptation of this book, but this book will stay on because it is. That's the beautiful thing about, I think allegory is that it can show this huge concept or this huge saga of humanity or whatever and you really can boil it down to, oh yeah, and Jesus is a lion and his name is Aslan and all that. And as blunt as it can be, you are able to understand the frustrations and the sorrow and the joys and all these other things that people felt specifically in this instance as like socialist individuals and socialist adjacent individuals being either drinking the Kool Aid of Stalin's rise or being just devastated by the, you know, the promise that has just been murdered in this experiment. [00:11:43] Speaker A: The realization of the corruption is so deep at this point, like, what do you do next? Which is why the ending in the book is so profound in that way where it's just when you get that moment of I can't tell pigs and people apart in the farm animal community, and it's like, what the fuck do we do next? And then to have it kind of end on just that note is a great conversation piece by itself. While I understand that changing it for a adaptation, I can understand to a degree that in a devil's advocate way, I do think as someone like. As. I think we all agree, as some people who enjoyed the book, it does take the bite, regardless of how good the quote unquote replacement ending is. [00:12:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:27] Speaker A: It ultimately will just objectively take the bite out of like the profound nature. [00:12:30] Speaker B: Well, and I'll. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Some of those moments. [00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I'll save some of my thoughts for each one of the endings. But one thing that I want to even just bring up now is how much those first two adaptations, the 54:1 and the 99:1, are very much rooted in their time in history. [00:12:50] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:12:50] Speaker B: So the book, you know, is written. A lot of these wounds are fairly fresh. Some of them are a little bit older. You look at the 54 one and it's like Cold War is in full swing. Oh, God. Yeah. You look at the 991 and the Soviet Union is gone. [00:13:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:06] Speaker B: And now this one. What the hell do you even infer of it? But I mean, each. They are. They are all very much for better and worse. [00:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:14] Speaker B: Their. Their products of their time. Which I guess going. Yeah, yeah. [00:13:18] Speaker C: I mean, when. Yeah, when you put it like that way. Not that I necessarily would want. I would. I kind of wish there was an Animal Farm for every decade. Like, see how it was reinterpreted as, you know, for better or for worse. [00:13:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, for sure. [00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, to add on to the fact that it's. Of its era with each adaptation. Each adaptation tells it in a different way in terms of the original. The original film being fully traditionally 2D hand animating with a narrator doing all the voices and narrating through the book in some way, shape or form. And then you have the 99 version working with Jim Henson's creature shop to make some truly horrifying, but also really fucking cool. [00:14:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:01] Speaker A: Like just puppets. [00:14:02] Speaker C: Puppets. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Animatronic animatronics. [00:14:04] Speaker B: The age of Stan Winston and all these other titans of the industry. It was like, hey, you want a gorilla that can talk with, I don't know, one of those little Nintendo gloves? Sure, whatever. We'll make that for you. Anything was Possible at that point. So, like. Yeah, no, if we're gonna do a live action one, now's the time to do it. [00:14:22] Speaker A: And then the 2026 film looks like Norm of the North. So there's like three different. I mean, there's three different approaches to it that even though two of them are animated, they're completely different animation style. [00:14:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:14:34] Speaker A: And just designs overall. And it's just fascinating. I mean, knowing that it's 45. It is fascinating the fact that when they got the first film into production, it was probably like what, seven, eight years after the book came out. So not even a decade. [00:14:47] Speaker C: Right. [00:14:47] Speaker A: So the book was out that they go right into the shortest film out of the three of these. [00:14:53] Speaker B: Yep. [00:14:53] Speaker A: Probably the most easily digestible, both in a good and bad way. Even though the. The 2026 one doesn't do anything. We'll get to that when we get to it. But at least with like being like 72 minutes, going straight through the book, trying to, I think, hold back a lot of those horrifying moments, yet does find time with its animation style to be horrifying. [00:15:17] Speaker C: I think the animation itself is in many, many places horrifying. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:22] Speaker C: I mean, it's a grotesque looking movie. I mean, like, wonderfully animated. [00:15:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:28] Speaker C: The designs are. So I rewatched the ending of it last night just to, like, refresh myself, and I was reminded how, like, all the character designs are so sharp and pointy. Like the. The hooves are so long and pincer. Like their ears are like antenna. Their eyes are like slits. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:50] Speaker C: And yet everybody also moves very fluidly. So they all kind of look plant, like. And it's kind of gross and like. And I think unnerving. [00:15:58] Speaker B: Yeah. The way that they animate, just movement in general is fantastic. I mean, the scene with. At the beginning of the film where old Major who's, you know, the. The. [00:16:10] Speaker C: The prized pig. [00:16:11] Speaker B: The prized pig who's totally Lennon, but also Marx and a lot of other kind of. [00:16:16] Speaker C: He's the ideology at the heart of the rebellion. Yeah. [00:16:20] Speaker B: The way he's animated because, you know, he's just this massive blob of lard in his jowls. [00:16:26] Speaker C: And you can practically, like Jabba the Hut. Like, he kind of flows out. [00:16:30] Speaker A: God, he's like a beanbag. Yeah. [00:16:33] Speaker B: And the way that he moves is just like. Oh, man, you. It's like he's fighting against gravity constantly. Like, oh, this dude's about to die at any minute now. There's no way he's making it to the end of the movie. And of course he doesn't. Yeah, he has to die. But a lot of the motion in general, too, of just how the animals move, you know, that has a great payoff in the way of, like, I love the way they make the pigs move when they finally start to walk. [00:17:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Because it's. It's awkward. [00:17:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:06] Speaker B: And creepy. But I think most of the versions do that pretty well. But 2D animation lends itself completely differently. [00:17:17] Speaker A: Now, again with the 2D, is that I wanted to look up which company did the 2D animation. And it's Hallis and Bachelor, if I'm saying that correctly. This is like their third project, I think by the time this comes out, and they're defunct by 86. [00:17:30] Speaker B: Like, I can't imagine. [00:17:31] Speaker A: I think, looking just like a quick Google search, it says the last things they did was a episode show, a series of the Osmonds animated, and the Count of Monte Cristo in 1973. [00:17:42] Speaker C: Wow. [00:17:43] Speaker A: And that's the last thing, apparently, according to Wikipedia, all horror stories, basically. But it's fascinating. Yeah. When you watch the style, you're like, this isn't Disney. This isn't Bakshi. This isn't anything you're kind of aware of. What is this? And it actually works in its favor because it gives Animal Farm that uniqueness that it needs, I think, to really stand out there. And, yeah. I mean, it is nice that of all these, the first one we watched was the shortest one. [00:18:10] Speaker B: Very nice. [00:18:11] Speaker A: It was very nice. [00:18:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:12] Speaker A: It is unfortunate when we get to the 2026 button, which is like 100 minutes and it feels like 200. But, yeah, I do think. How do we feel about the fact that it's done in a narration style where it's just one man doing all the voices? [00:18:28] Speaker B: I. Because I think it's of the era. I mean, again, because I can't. I can't on it too much just because, I mean, look at. Look at something. And I know it's a little. It's some years later, but it reminds me of the OG Grinch. [00:18:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:44] Speaker B: Kind of, in a way. Because isn't it mostly Boris Karloff doing, like, all the voices? [00:18:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:51] Speaker B: Except maybe Cindy, who. I don't know. [00:18:54] Speaker C: He might. [00:18:54] Speaker B: But maybe. Yeah. [00:18:56] Speaker C: Sounds like a falsetto. [00:18:57] Speaker B: He's a. He's a hell of an actor. But it's very much of the era, I think, in that time. And the story, if I recall correctly, does not have a, like, you know, a centered. Oh, we are seeing it through their eyes character. It really is sort of this eye in the sky. [00:19:19] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:19:20] Speaker B: And I think narration lends itself well to that and it also makes it more digestible. I feel like a lot of the ideas are. And again, full disclosure that we need to. I can't believe we haven't said this yet. The CIA did fund this movie part. [00:19:36] Speaker A: Oh, no shit. [00:19:37] Speaker C: Yeah. I actually didn't know that. [00:19:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:19:39] Speaker A: It's literally right there. [00:19:42] Speaker C: The executives, the two executives who, like, basically put the film in motion were undercover agents for the CIA. [00:19:51] Speaker B: Like the Psychological Warfare Department. [00:19:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:53] Speaker C: And so they basically pushed it through along with. I mean, there was a huge kind of wave at that time of the CIA secretly funding or putting people in place in various arts industries to promote anti communist art. Yeah, boys. [00:20:12] Speaker A: I'm shocked. Yeah, boys. [00:20:15] Speaker B: The CIA would do that. [00:20:17] Speaker A: Don't let my voice deter you from my surprise. [00:20:20] Speaker C: The CIA. This is also not surprising, but the CIA was, like, terrified of, like, artists and animators. Just broadly as, like a blanket rule. They were like, oh, these animators are, you know, leftists. They're probably, you know, and inevitably it [00:20:41] Speaker B: pushed a ton of people further away. I mean, if you look at a lot of 2D animation out of Russia or out of the Soviet Union, pardon me, during its existence, there's some pretty damn good animation across the board. And it's fantastic. And yeah, I think when you. When you know that the CIA partially funded this. Yeah, it does give it a bit of a layer of ick. And I would say that it doesn't detract too much from the story, though, save the ending. But it does detract because it obviously detracts from the ending. And we'll get to that. But, you know, a broken clock is right still every once or twice a day. And it's like, yeah, Stalin sucks. [00:21:29] Speaker C: People read the book, it's itself, and come away saying, oh, this is an anti communist, you know, anthem, a conservative anthem, if you will. And so it's like, yeah, okay, you can still tell the story beat by beat, basically true to story and, you know, still achieve the effect that the CIA was looking for. So, yeah, there's not a ton in here that's like egregious, divergent propaganda that fades away from the. From the spirit of the book. But it, I guess the ending, which we'll get to like the imagery, the totalitarian imagery is a little bit more. [00:22:09] Speaker A: It is interesting, though, how with that in mind and just in general with how the adaptation is, it is fascinating how I think the worst interpretation or like the most Evil meanest version of the farmer is this one. He's like awesome. He's. He's. His design is horrifying in the best way. [00:22:26] Speaker C: Looks like a zombie. [00:22:27] Speaker A: He does. [00:22:28] Speaker C: Stubs the zombie. [00:22:29] Speaker B: Very. Remember that Solomon Grundy. [00:22:32] Speaker A: He also looks like that Scooby Doo. That Scooby Doo monster who was green and always had a hunch. [00:22:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:37] Speaker B: Creeper. [00:22:38] Speaker A: But he's. He's gray instead of green now. He's. Honestly, his design works the best. I think for one of the best moments in the book that everyone. Which is when the pigs and people look the same. And instead of it trying to be like a general people, it's like all the pigs look like him. [00:22:53] Speaker C: Right? [00:22:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:54] Speaker A: And it's like. That's fucking terrifying. His horrifying gray skin. He keeps looking at me. [00:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think a lot of the humans are really ugly in this. [00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:05] Speaker B: The human designs. Like Pilkington. Is it Johnson is the name or farmer? [00:23:11] Speaker C: Jones. [00:23:11] Speaker B: Jones. Jones. That's it. Jones. All of them. They're very, very like ghoulish figures. And I mean Pilkington even looks like a pig. Like they actually have him very much with the upturned nose. I think the versions of this story and this one does a fairly good job. I think the 90s one does the best. But however nasty and foul and like uncomfortable, you can make the farmers or farmer the better. [00:23:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:43] Speaker B: Because in the allegory, you know, he's obviously the czar and you know how terrible. How terrible things have to be for the Soviet Union to be a preferable alternative to tsardom. I mean, that's what it was. And so I think that is communicated best with Jones in this one. Just because. Yeah, he looks like a goddamn monster. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. He. It's. Again, the designs are great across the board, I think are just kid friendly enough, but also still intensified when it needs to be. And I think, I mean it keeps all the big moments from the book. Like even with the ending the way that it is, they still have the boxer scene. They still have majors big. You'll speech as he's dying. You've got the actual revolution itself. The. The second battle. You have the windmill. Windmill. You got it again. It's not a long book. I think it's a novella. [00:24:47] Speaker C: I don't remember how many pages it is. [00:24:49] Speaker B: Maybe like 200. [00:24:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:50] Speaker C: The audiobook is less than three hours. [00:24:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And it just. It gets all the points across it. It's a. It's. It is a solid enough adaptation. And then it really just depends on how you feel about that ending. [00:25:04] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's not the worst ending of the three. [00:25:07] Speaker A: No, no, no. [00:25:09] Speaker C: It goes the extra mile to. I think this may be arguably the most clear indication of its era. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:22] Speaker C: Because the ending. So where the book ends, just for frame of reference, as we talk about the rest of these movies, the book essentially ends with them looking in the window and seeing the. The pigs and the far. The humans talking and they can't tell them apart. And they're like. It's like, okay. They've become man. [00:25:42] Speaker A: It is deliberately a sad ending. Yeah. [00:25:44] Speaker C: And that's basically where the book leaves you. It's grim. And what this does is it shows that scene wonderfully. [00:25:53] Speaker B: Very well done. [00:25:54] Speaker C: It's a beautiful little like, transformation where the pigs are morphing into humans. And then Benjamin, the donkey, Boxer's best friend. [00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:06] Speaker C: Who is kind of. He's kind of highlighted into a more central role in this movie. [00:26:14] Speaker B: He's really interesting in the book too. Cause a lot of people have even thought, like, is this kind of just Orwell. [00:26:21] Speaker C: Sure. [00:26:21] Speaker B: Because he is a more or less passive observer. Often. [00:26:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:26:27] Speaker B: He doesn't like donkeys. Live a long time. [00:26:29] Speaker C: He doesn't really do anything about anything until what happens to Boxer. You know, Boxer gets murdered essentially. And then he becomes even more bitter than he already was. But at the end of this movie, after we get the Hume or the pigs morphing into man sequence, Benjamin then goes and basically rounds up the entire farm and they march on the farmhouse [00:26:56] Speaker B: and you're basically storm the Bastille. [00:26:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:59] Speaker C: The ending shot is basically like, here comes the cavalry. [00:27:02] Speaker B: They knocked down the goddamn wall. [00:27:06] Speaker C: That last shot is literally just them marching toward the camera, which the POV of the pigs and man. And so it is a little bit this battle cry of like, oh, you know, the Soviets, the Red scare will be stopped. You know, we're going to end this. We're all going to rally and defeat this. [00:27:26] Speaker B: Or inspiring. If this snuck into the Soviet Union. The CIA's MO in this is like, oh, well, it'll inspire everyone to rise up and what. And it's like, you tone deaf idiots. [00:27:40] Speaker C: So it has a little bit of a. I don't even know if I want to say triumphant, but kind of that. It softens the ending a bit by rallying the entire farm against them. Whereas in the book, by this point, it'd been years of them being beaten down so badly that by the time they recognize that the pigs are just as bad as the Men, there's like nothing they can do. [00:28:01] Speaker B: They're too broken. They're starving. [00:28:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:03] Speaker A: It's. [00:28:03] Speaker B: What are they going to do? [00:28:04] Speaker A: The story works at its best when you really dive more into that gray area. The fact that it's like Napoleon is a piece of shit and is an antagonist in the book and is in these movies, but like you understand in certain versions of it why he becomes the way he does. And ultimately when he. He just. Absolute power corrupts absolutely to see how bad he gets. And it's funny because, like it is. It also depends on. Yeah. Your design of him because he is a full blown Scar esque design in this. [00:28:37] Speaker B: If you didn't know he was the villain as soon as you saw him, you aren't paying attention. Yeah, yeah. [00:28:42] Speaker C: Charcoal gray face. [00:28:44] Speaker A: It's this fascinating thing how I think all three of these. Which. The next one I think is, I guess, the most. Not happy ending. Ish. But still has those qualities to it in the most. Like I think what you said, Adam, the most 90s way possible. How you could end this in a happy way. [00:29:00] Speaker B: Well, and. And the deal with like the ending of the 50s one, you know, as we're talking about is I feel like it's one of the ones that is. Is such a betrayal of the ending because, I mean, it is 1954. [00:29:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:21] Speaker B: It is rough to be in the Soviet Union. It is so many broken promises. And I mean, that's what the ending of the book is, that it's written in a time where you're in the thick of it still and thick of Stalinism, even with the book. And if you don't plop that down, it loses the bite of its era. Whereas I feel the 90s one reflects the times better than maybe even the 50s one does. [00:29:53] Speaker A: Sure, yeah, absolutely. [00:29:55] Speaker B: For better and for worse. In a few ways, actually. [00:29:57] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I mean, it's kind of something where I think a lot of my. I mean, all those issues I think are very valid and I agree with both of you, but I think the big one for me is the fact of how fast it gets into that new ending. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Oh. Out of nowhere. [00:30:10] Speaker A: It is like barely 30 seconds, I think, between the pig reveal and Benjamin going full jackass. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:17] Speaker C: I mean, so close to being just like the book in that the pigs morphing into man. Happens like 30 seconds before the movie's over. And in that 30 second span, Benjamin rallies the farm animals. Is like, hey guys, we're gonna go kill them. We win. Yeah. And then it just ends. It's very abrupt. [00:30:38] Speaker B: Which is also frustrating in the sense that one of the things that a lot of these adaptations have a rough time handling is the buildup to the revolution. One of the things that's so important, I think, about the book is that it does show. No, there is a lot that goes into this and it builds up over time and it's unplanned, but it's planned in many ways. And I think if you are. Which this 50s one does an okay job of kind of building up. It gives a little bit of room to breathe of like, oh, well, here's major, here's animalism and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you have that build up to the first revolution and saying, yeah, this takes work to be able to, you know, get Jones if you just be like, okay, well, it's just, it's even easier to get rid of Napoleon. We just knock down the walls of the palace and drag them out. It feels so like unbalanced in that way. [00:31:44] Speaker A: There is, I think accidentally the energy of the only reason why Napoleon hasn't been pushed out of power is because you're too lazy to do it. [00:31:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:53] Speaker A: And it is kind of like, well, you're kind of missing the years of being beaten down to the point where you kind of see nothing and propaganda. [00:32:03] Speaker C: I don't know if any of these movies, I could be misremembering the 90s one, but I feel like all three of them feel like they take place in a much shorter time than the book. Because in the book it's like years pass. I mean, they build the windmill twice because it gets blown up once and there's, it's like at least a three year period between like the first windmill and when they, you know, discover the pigs playing poker with man. [00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:32:35] Speaker C: And in the movies, particularly this one, it doesn't feel like that much time passes. [00:32:41] Speaker A: Oh yeah. The third one, talk about the seasons, but it's not. Yeah, it doesn't feel like the actual time has passed. [00:32:47] Speaker C: Yeah. But yeah, I mean that the, the first, this first one is like I think 90 a pretty solid. [00:32:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:32:58] Speaker C: 4 kids adaptation of the book. Like it gets the point across. It. Yeah. I mean it makes some concessions here or there to be a 70 minute film. And yeah. With it all being narrator driven rather than like character driven, you lose a little bit of the, the flavor of the different characters perspectives. [00:33:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:18] Speaker C: But until that kind of misguided ending, or not even misguided, it's very guided, deliberately deviant ending. I think it does A pretty good job. And again, that. That horrifying animation style kind of goes a long way. [00:33:38] Speaker B: And it does allow itself to get dark beyond the animation. [00:33:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it does, because. [00:33:42] Speaker B: So, for example, you know, the character who is obviously Trotsky, Snowball, who, you know, does most of the. Does a lot of the heavy lifting in the revolution. Napoleon knows Snowball is better than him. [00:33:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:57] Speaker B: As Stalin knew that Trotsky was better at him and a better, like, theorist and all of these socialist thoughts and Marxist thoughts. But in the book, you know, like Trotsky, he is driven into exile out of the Soviet Union because of Stalin. And in the book, they just say that he's run off. [00:34:18] Speaker C: He is. Yeah. [00:34:19] Speaker B: They kill his ass in the 50s one, which. And it's. It's a grim scene because, you know, the dogs chase him off into the brush and then you just hear a squeal and stuff like that. None of the other versions do that. [00:34:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I think he just runs off in the 90s 1. I don't really remember how that's handled in the newest one. [00:34:41] Speaker A: I think it's just push. Yeah, Snowball's pushed out. [00:34:45] Speaker C: That's about it. [00:34:45] Speaker A: Like, it's. It is. I think there's always an implication on those other two that he has been killed, but it's not as deliberate or as over, like, on the nose as [00:34:55] Speaker B: the 50s, because, I mean, that's the thing. Trotsky is exiled. Sure. But. And he. He's not assassinated in the Soviet Union. He's assassinated in Mexico City. [00:35:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:07] Speaker B: And I think if you. You can kill Snowball and it's just as effective because that's. We know that's eventually what they did. [00:35:16] Speaker A: I was wondering why the cornfield he ran into in the 50s one had Mexico City written on it. [00:35:22] Speaker C: Why was it. Why is it all Mexican street corn in the field? [00:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, the. The. The. The Midlands of England famed for street corn. [00:35:32] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and I. I would agree that, like, you know, for trying to keep time down and keep the story simple and. And while also committing to that darker tone, I think killing Snowball more explicitly in this one works. I do think it's a little bit of a shame. And this isn't unique to the 50s adaptation, but all three of them kind of skip the whole concept from the book of using Snowball as a scapegoat for, like, the rest of Napoleon's rule, because it's literally. [00:36:07] Speaker B: I mean, again, I'm gonna be saying this a lot or things like it, but that's literally trotsky like, he's we scholarship on that man who was just incredibly influential and very important to the Russian Revolution and the Civil War. He. I mean, he was just completely scrubbed. Stalin was famous for that. Just removing people from photographs and all this. So, like, what we could know about the man from the outside even looking in for years was unknown. And he really was the only time he came up in textbooks and all that. I mean, he was the boogeyman. He was like, oh, you know, this is the wrong form. This is a malignant form of our ideology. And yeah, maybe, yeah. Most of these versions barely do that. Whereas Napoleon's constantly blaming everything. [00:36:59] Speaker C: He gets blamed for all sorts of shit. He even becomes like a vessel for like demonstrating disloyalty among the existing animals in the book. He, like Napoleon will his. He and his dogs will basically coerce people into confessing that they have been working with Snowball this whole time and communicating with him. And then he'll execute them, like to make an example out of it. [00:37:25] Speaker B: And the 90s version, I think does that the best. The 90s version. And it doesn't do it fully, but it goes into that state, that oppressive, like state. [00:37:37] Speaker C: The rewriting of history. [00:37:40] Speaker A: They mostly use Snowball post his exit of the story to just every so often when Napoleon makes his next move, instead of it being him constantly talking about it, it's the big Napoleon moves where he goes, yeah, and we have to do this because Snowball made us do this. And it's I think all three of those adaptations, I think, of course, the 2026, when I only remember, I think one time they bring up Snowball. But after Laverne Cox is pushed out. Laverne Cox is snowball the 2026 in [00:38:08] Speaker C: all three of these, actually. [00:38:09] Speaker A: That would be crazy. [00:38:11] Speaker B: Wow. [00:38:11] Speaker A: Could you imagine Laverne Cox to doing the Maurice Hedman like constantly making pig noises? In the 54 one, I think it's Gordon Hurth or Gordon Heath as the narrator. And then Maurice, I think. [00:38:25] Speaker B: Yeah, before we go to Maurice Denham, [00:38:27] Speaker A: that is the animal is the animal voices. And then Gordon Heath is the narrator. [00:38:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, how did it take that long to mention that? In the 50s version there is so much and not a lot of the. The other two versions don't really do this. There is just constant reminders of which animals are talking and the way that they talk, which obviously is in every single one of these. But this one is like people, not people. Pardon me. The animals are all screeching and squealing after they Say something. And hee haw. And embraying all of that. [00:39:05] Speaker A: He's going hard denim. Denim. Maurice is. He is. Every single line that he is saying as an animal, he will just. They'll put two or three squeal. [00:39:16] Speaker B: Yeah, [00:39:19] Speaker A: yeah. Major is probably the old Major's the one where it's like dead pig or dying pig. That's also like wheezing and squealing at the same time. [00:39:29] Speaker C: CIA approved Chuck Jones or Fritz Freeling. [00:39:33] Speaker B: The animation is kind of Warner Brothers adjacent. Now that you mentioned. [00:39:37] Speaker C: There's a little porky in there. [00:39:39] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, it's that porkies. [00:39:41] Speaker A: There's a few pig porkers, as they're called. [00:39:45] Speaker B: Pork here, that pork there. Pour pork everywhere. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the 50. Yeah. This version, basically, inadvertently. Clearly the CIA was not having this as the full intent, but basically making for the next few decades the easy day off. In class after reading the book, I [00:40:00] Speaker B: was thinking about that. [00:40:01] Speaker A: It's not. You get everything across. You spend a class watching most of the film, and then the next class you finish it and you go, why do you think they ended it like that? And then it's like. It's just. It's an easier. It's an easy approach to just like, having people be engaged, but also feel like you're not gonna bum them out twice in a row going from finishing the book. [00:40:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:20] Speaker A: And then you can go like someone be like, I like the movie ending because it's nice. [00:40:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:24] Speaker A: It's like, well, understandable. I guess that's why they probably did it. [00:40:28] Speaker B: I mean, you can if you. If you really want to. I don't know who's losing sleep over this, but if you want to have a progressive angle at it, it's like, yeah, okay. It's them being like, hey, you have failed the revolution. We will do it again. I mean, I think Orwell would maybe appreciate that level of it. Who knows if he ever saw this. I don't even know if he was alive in 54. [00:40:51] Speaker C: He died in 50. [00:40:53] Speaker B: Dang. Okay, so you never got to see it. [00:40:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:55] Speaker B: Because, you know, he was. I mean, being a socialist, I sure he would have aligned with some of the, like, forever revolution ideas where it is like, this is not a, oh, one and done thing. You need. Yeah, you need to protect it and you need to constantly be bettering it, otherwise it will become that. Now, obviously, the CIA does not have any interest in making a progressive. Hey, do it again. [00:41:23] Speaker C: Another Marxist revolution, or really even pro revolutionary. [00:41:27] Speaker A: It is crazy that Orwell put the CIA in his will, [00:41:33] Speaker B: all the rights to my. [00:41:34] Speaker A: My novels to at least one version in the 50s. [00:41:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:38] Speaker B: This British socialist who was like, I love this. Yeah. [00:41:43] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, it's. It is very much so. Yeah, I can. [00:41:46] Speaker B: It's fine. [00:41:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it works. And it really got us, I think, in a good palette cleanse to be like, all right, the next two. We. We had. We had a feeling where this trilogy would go after watching the trailer for the 26th one. And we were glad to have the buffer of probably the one I had seen before. I don't know, was this the one? [00:42:06] Speaker C: I had seen at least bits and pieces of it. Or maybe we watched it in school because I recognized scenes of it. [00:42:13] Speaker B: I. I had seen my brother watched it in school, but I didn't watch it in school. So I was always curious about it. And, you know, early YouTube had just, you know, slices and 240p half scenes. And I remember the trailer was there and I was like, this looks insane and terrifying. And I was young enough, I think, when I watched the trailer for the first time, that I was freaked out by, like, the animatronics. [00:42:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:42:40] Speaker B: Which I think works pretty damn well. And adding to the atmosphere of it. [00:42:46] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. [00:42:47] Speaker B: But I had only heard bad things for the most part about this. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:42:52] Speaker B: No, yeah. Like, people hate this movie. [00:42:55] Speaker A: Fascinating. [00:42:56] Speaker B: I don't get that now that I've watched it. I really don't. [00:42:59] Speaker A: I don't. Because I remember this was, I think, at a certain point, because we all went to middle school at the same middle school. And I remember there were certain teachers who liked to show the 54 film after reading Animal Farm. And there were some teachers that liked to show the 99. [00:43:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:43:14] Speaker A: And I think I was on the floor where most of the teachers liked to show the 99:1. And it was just like, you know, I remember the 99 one. At least at the time we were watching it. Some teachers, even though they liked the 99 one, they would skip an added scene in the 99 one, which is the farmer having sex with Pilkington's wife, [00:43:31] Speaker B: which was missing what was missing from the book. You know, Orwell made a mistake by not being the cuckold. [00:43:36] Speaker A: Crazy how he did like a STEPHEN KING S. 20 pages on just the intercourse alone on that. But yeah, the 1999 Animal Farm just immediately out the gate. The mood, the lighting, the approach to using Jim Henson's Creature Shop to make these truly. I mean, if you looked at this and you immediately went, that's not A real pig. I think that's perfectly fine in this [00:44:01] Speaker B: situation because they got to talk. [00:44:03] Speaker A: They got to talk. And they also have to be identifiable and multiple different ways. I think, you know, with Major's design looking like a beanbag chair from the 50s version, but even bigger. And his snout is, like, stockier. [00:44:18] Speaker B: Exactly. And this is the only version that I think very clearly follows Orwell's instructions on the physical descriptions of each pig. He tells you the breed of pig that they are. And I mean, as insane as Major looks in this, which he. If. If you don't know what he looks like, pause this. Look it up. It's insane. [00:44:44] Speaker A: That's not a Volkswagen Beetle. That is Major. [00:44:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's an animatronic pig. Man, is the anime. And there are actual pigs that look like that. I mean, they. They honest to God look like that. Their noses aren't that wet. No pigs. [00:44:57] Speaker C: Oh, my God. They're all like. [00:44:59] Speaker A: The wet is dripping. [00:45:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:45:02] Speaker A: But I mean, the lighting again. Yeah. The lighting to the puppets are great. It's the first adaptation to have a full cast. [00:45:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:10] Speaker A: Kelsey Grammer, Ian Holm, Patrick Stewart, Julia Louis Dreyfus, who we thought was the dog. [00:45:17] Speaker B: She's not the dog. She's the vain. [00:45:21] Speaker C: The show horse, Molly. [00:45:24] Speaker A: But a great cast behind it, a great visual design that I think. [00:45:31] Speaker B: I mean, I'm hitting this mic pretty hard, boys. I'm sorry there. Revolution [00:45:38] Speaker A: before I die. Make sure to hit the mic. And it goes for, I think, any more. Like, even though the novel was meant to introduce these ideas and talk to this to a younger audience, this is a much more mature, I think, approach to that story because of, like, the depths of characters, the intensity of the characters, the shots, and also, surprisingly, the amount of depth and time put into Farmer Jones. Not as a huge piece of shit, like, as an actual person. [00:46:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Just his life. [00:46:11] Speaker A: He's still an asshole and he still cheats on his wife. But, like, they actually spend a lot of time with him. Pete Postawaite, who's a phenomenal actor who's passed away by this point, but. Or by the time we're talking about it now. [00:46:25] Speaker B: I mean, he's been gone for almost a decade. [00:46:27] Speaker A: 2014, 2015, I think. But he's. I think he's a great choice for Farmer Jones. [00:46:32] Speaker B: He's so good. [00:46:32] Speaker A: He gives a nice. A bit of levity and a nice bit of empathy to a character that usually we, I think, internally see from the 50s version, just like an evil piece of shit. [00:46:42] Speaker B: Which. Can I put on my history hat a little bit here. [00:46:44] Speaker C: And this completely. [00:46:45] Speaker B: Say again, can I put on my history Happy. [00:46:47] Speaker C: Sure. [00:46:48] Speaker B: And this is complete speculation on my part. But you know how I said. I think these all really reflect the time that they were made very clearly. I think after the fall of the Soviet Union, you have a lot more Romanov apologists. And they're like, well, you know, all these people be going up against the wall and stuff. I'm joking, of course, I'm being callous. But, like, you know, Anastasia, the Don Bluth film, is in the 90s. Like, all these things where it's like, well, I mean, these were humans too. And I mean, make no mistake, they were. [00:47:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:24] Speaker B: But I think. And again, I have nothing to back this up, but I almost feel like there might be a bit of Romanov apologists. [00:47:33] Speaker C: Sure. [00:47:34] Speaker A: Just. [00:47:34] Speaker B: Or apologism or whatever. Jism. Some jism. Some jism. Injection. [00:47:39] Speaker C: Farmer Jones jism. [00:47:40] Speaker B: Which. Which is injected into Pilkington's wife. [00:47:45] Speaker A: Does he call him Miss? Does she call him Mr. J? [00:47:47] Speaker C: I think J. Because I started doing my Harley Quinn voice while we were watching it, which [00:47:53] Speaker A: is what it was missing was someone doing a Hollywood. [00:47:55] Speaker B: But I feel like it. It's no coincidence, probably, that Farmer Jones is most humanized in the 90s version. This culture set in the Cultural Revolution and the culture wars and all these other things that have happened now. And people are like, well, yeah, no, you know, he. The czar was bad, but he's still a. [00:48:16] Speaker C: Still a guy. [00:48:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:48:18] Speaker C: Did he suffered? [00:48:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Family? [00:48:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. Destroyed. [00:48:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:22] Speaker B: And I mean, if you have a good actor and you give him enough to do. [00:48:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:48:26] Speaker B: I think it shows Jones in this one, which no other one really does. Well, as far as the adaptations go, actually showing him being a victim of, you know, rampant capitalism and greed and stuff like that. He isn't just a, you know, a slave master who. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Who. [00:48:45] Speaker B: Who oppresses the animals. He is a slave himself, too. To the system. [00:48:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:48:51] Speaker A: It's less of an excuse and more of just like an insight kind of thing. [00:48:55] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like, oh, makes sense that you'd be a piece of shit drunk. [00:48:58] Speaker A: And it honestly would have been worse had they gone to the point where they gave him a redemptive quality. But they don't. [00:49:02] Speaker B: No, they don't. [00:49:03] Speaker A: He's just. They gave him a sad ending like he deserves. [00:49:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:06] Speaker A: But at least they gave a little bit of insight to feel like, you see. I mean, this is. This is worth the adaptation. Right? Like, see. [00:49:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Something different the puppets and Pete Postoid as Jones. This is enough. Right. [00:49:19] Speaker C: I will say the film, I think gets a little carried away with the Jones subplot in that. [00:49:28] Speaker B: The Red Lion. [00:49:29] Speaker C: The Red lion in his home. [00:49:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:32] Speaker C: Shacking up with Pilkington's wife and all of that. It's just like, why do we need these weird. [00:49:38] Speaker B: It's too much like, it's too much [00:49:39] Speaker C: sex comedy and screwball comedy. [00:49:42] Speaker A: It's because it's. It's more mature and it fills in the runtime. [00:49:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:49:47] Speaker A: It's not another 70 minute film. [00:49:49] Speaker B: And I imagine part of it too is they were a bit nervous already about how much time the animatronic animals were going to have. [00:49:57] Speaker C: Are they going to be bored? Are people going to be bored with just puppets on screen? [00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah, and they're great actors. I mean, again, the pub scenes for as unnecessary as many of them are. Guy who plays Pilkington, who. I've seen him around before and I wish I knew his name off the top of my head, but he's. Oh, dude, he's great. [00:50:17] Speaker A: Oh my God. [00:50:18] Speaker B: Because he's just like one of these sorts of people. Like, how long until those animals start sending their seditious thoughts and you like, oh, this dude, he's has. Has the pine. He's always a fiver for. You need more money. Alan. [00:50:32] Speaker C: Alan Stanford is his name. [00:50:35] Speaker B: The name like that. I mean, come on. [00:50:37] Speaker A: The snowball of his generation. [00:50:40] Speaker B: Pilkington is given so much in this. [00:50:43] Speaker A: He is. Yeah. I mean, again, it's, it's. I think it added a little bit. It might be in the book, but the part where he starts eating out of the bowl like a pig. [00:50:52] Speaker B: Oh, that's great. [00:50:53] Speaker A: That's funny. As I love making his Megan, his wife, like drink booze out of which. [00:50:58] Speaker C: Oh yeah. [00:50:59] Speaker B: So. So Pilkington, for those who don't recall, is another farmer. [00:51:02] Speaker C: Yeah. He owns another farm nearby and he's. He has economic interest in Jones's farm. [00:51:09] Speaker B: And I think one of the things that's fantastic about Pilkington and this is that, I mean, it's the best the character is in any of these adaptations because he's just given something to do. But I think he's gross again, like him drinking with Napoleon whiskey out of a bowl and then again, like you were saying, forcing his wife to drink out of it too. It speaks better than any other version that not only are the pigs traitors to their ideologies. I mean, Pilkington, these men are becoming pigs too. [00:51:46] Speaker C: Animals. [00:51:46] Speaker B: Yeah. None of you have Convictions. You just care about the making money. The bottom line here. And I think this version does that. Probably the best out of any of them. [00:51:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, again, it's. I. This movie is flawed. I do think there are some elements to it. Easy. [00:52:02] Speaker B: You don't like the CGI rat. [00:52:04] Speaker A: That's what I was gonna say. The easy punch is that even though I said the 2026 film is the CGI film, there is CGI in 99 and it has aged like Old Major has at this point, it is a rotting corpse of CG in a way that is like, I understand why you did this. At the time. It was popular at the time. [00:52:24] Speaker B: It's jump scare. [00:52:25] Speaker A: It is truly the rat is a jump scare. And then later, when there's a full propaganda, full cg, like kind of sequence. [00:52:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:35] Speaker B: That's all, like, wild put together with cgi. Because it seems like it's all assets that might. Some of it might be real. [00:52:42] Speaker C: Some of it is photography. A lot of it is cgi. It does the big zoom out of, like, the entire farm. That has to be cgi based on how it's laid out. It's like this looks like a picture from a storybook. It's not a real photograph. [00:52:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, it's also like. I think the Old Major's death is insane. [00:53:02] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. [00:53:04] Speaker A: But it's also very memorable. [00:53:06] Speaker C: Instead of Old Major simply dying because he's fucking old as shit. For some reason, this adaptation feels the need to make Farmer Jones directly responsible for Old Majors. [00:53:21] Speaker B: Because he's drunk as. [00:53:22] Speaker C: He's drunk as. Here's the ruckus. Because Old Major's giving his, like, kind of inspiring speech in singing the song in the barn. And all Farmer Jones hears is all these animals making noise and rushes outside drunk and trips and drops his shotgun or rifle or whatever it is. [00:53:41] Speaker B: It's like a double barrel. [00:53:42] Speaker C: Yeah. And it goes off as it hits the ground, fires through the barn and hits Old Majors, sending him flying out [00:53:50] Speaker A: the second floor of the barn. [00:53:51] Speaker B: That's the funniest damn part of it. For me. It isn't just like he collapses there and the animals are always stunned. Signs. No. He gets his ass blown out like the balcony. And then in 90s slow motion. And maybe barely even that. [00:54:07] Speaker A: They make a dummy crisp like the whole ass. [00:54:10] Speaker B: Old Major just falls in slow motion and face first just smashes into the fucking crap. [00:54:19] Speaker A: I will say this is also the first adaptation, I think, out of the three of these, which we'll get again in the 2026 one. Where there is a specific animal that we are following throughout the entirety of it. [00:54:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:31] Speaker A: Which is Jesse the dog. [00:54:33] Speaker C: The dog. [00:54:34] Speaker A: Which. The dog is, I think is a prominent part in the book as well. At least I thought it was. [00:54:39] Speaker B: The puppies are. [00:54:40] Speaker C: The dogs really exist as a character. [00:54:43] Speaker A: Okay, well, that makes sense, I guess, to like, bring it in. [00:54:45] Speaker C: It's really just puppies. [00:54:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a natural. Yeah, it's very natural, I think. And she works pretty well, I think, because she really is just sort of like, well, dang, this is bad. [00:54:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:56] Speaker B: And it's not too preachy because she still has her own interests as a character. She's friends with Boxer, she's friends with Benjamin. She has her children, her puppies, which are taken by Napoleon and made into his personal little, like, kill team. [00:55:13] Speaker A: Yeah. She's a great in betweener. Where she's not an animal that's gonna be eaten on the farm, but she respects Old Major and Snowball and the other edible. More edible animals than she is. [00:55:23] Speaker B: The more delicious of her. [00:55:24] Speaker A: More delicious of her. But she's worked like Boxer and Benjamin is. And so they're the good in between and is a solid choice. And as well as the. The dog aspect of her puppies being taken by Napoleon to be turned into bloodthirsty hounds that work for him, which Napoleon's played by Patrick Stewart. I don't know how you get any better than that for that. And Ian Holm as Squealer is also a phenomenal, almost, I think, a perfect choice. [00:55:52] Speaker B: He's the most, like, slimy that he's ever been. He's Chamberlain from the Dark Crystal, is what you said, Logan. It was like immediately like, oh, my God. Yeah. [00:56:04] Speaker A: Pigs need to work for each other, not for other animals. [00:56:07] Speaker B: The milk and apples, you know, is brain food, we think all the time. [00:56:12] Speaker A: I have a great filmography of propaganda. Here's our new as the Milk and Apples. [00:56:18] Speaker C: Milk and Apples. The way he fucking says it is so. [00:56:21] Speaker A: And Squealer looks so not gaunt, but he does look noticeably smaller than the pulley. [00:56:28] Speaker B: He looks like a pig called Squealer for sure. [00:56:32] Speaker A: Which I'll again, you can give all three adaptations, I guess, props in that form. Is that the one. [00:56:37] Speaker B: Squealer's great in every single one of these. [00:56:39] Speaker A: I mean, the design for sure, I think is like when you think of Squealer and you see all three of these designs. Yep, I can see that it is. Yeah. I think it's taking what made the 50s one good. And then taking that and adding Jim Henson animatronics, a more serious tone. And if. Whether or not it works for you, it makes sense. But like, just having more human aspects to, I guess, circumvent the possibility that the puppets are too cool, I guess, because I. I could go all puppet all day. I'm in the same. But I also understand that, like, in terms of budgetary, Was this a television film or was this. Actually. [00:57:14] Speaker B: I believe so, yeah. [00:57:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:57:16] Speaker A: Which again, I don't think the television film budget of this warrants the CG they use towards the end of it. [00:57:24] Speaker B: And believe it or not, there's a few moments where the CG actually ain't too bad. [00:57:28] Speaker A: No, there are times. [00:57:31] Speaker B: There was one moment that was pretty. I don't know if commendable's the right word, but it's. When Snowball's coming down the ladder after writing Animal Farm, that looked all right, right? It's. Once he got off that, it was like, ooh, yeah. But it was like, oh, I see what you're doing here. I mean, it looks akin to some stuff that you'd see, like in the prequel trilogy of Star Wars a little bit. And if you look closely in the background. [00:57:55] Speaker A: Yeah. It was crazy. They let Snowball step and poop and then he had to, like, scrape it off his CGI hoof. [00:58:00] Speaker B: Icky, icky goo. [00:58:03] Speaker A: No. Yeah. I mean, it's also like little choices, like making the windmill look like farm animals. [00:58:08] Speaker C: It looks like animals built in. [00:58:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Cause it is funny in the 50s one where it's like. Yeah. In your brain. Yeah. You're thinking it's just like a standard windmill. And they're like, wait, these, they don't have thumbs. A lot of them. What the fuck would they be making? [00:58:19] Speaker C: Yeah. They build a perfectly artisan crafted windmill in the 50s one. [00:58:24] Speaker A: And it gets all the. Again, gets all the big moments, I think. [00:58:27] Speaker B: Really? [00:58:27] Speaker A: Well, my personal favorite version of the pigs and humans, they look the same. Very cool visual, using the window, the fucked up window, as a way to [00:58:36] Speaker C: kind of that old style glass that's not very evenly spread, so it's kind of morphing the image so that they [00:58:45] Speaker B: look pig to man and. [00:58:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And then even the ending with the changes, it is, I think. Yeah. Indicative of the idea of if we just wait long enough, Napoleon will die. [00:58:56] Speaker C: Yeah. This film adds an interesting little, like, epilogue, basically. [00:59:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:03] Speaker B: It starts with it, too. [00:59:04] Speaker C: Well, that's true. [00:59:05] Speaker B: And then it comes back to it. [00:59:06] Speaker A: You're probably wondering why I'm in The woods. [00:59:08] Speaker C: A framing device. And it's. And it's. Yeah, it's like years later. And Jesse and who? [00:59:14] Speaker B: Benjamin. [00:59:14] Speaker C: Benjamin. And is Molly in the woods too? I don't remember a few of the. It's a few of them. [00:59:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:21] Speaker C: They've just been hiding out in the woods waiting for Napoleon's rain to end. And he just fucking, like, I guess, dies. It's like a farm just fails. [00:59:32] Speaker B: And that is the most 90s part about this, is that it is like, okay, the Soviet Union collapsed. And I mean, again, as you said at the beginning, I teach history. And I mean, I. I talk to kids pretty consistently about. Man, when I was little, the whole Western world was just jerking itself off. And I don't use those terms, of course. Yeah. But, you know, it was jerking itself off and being like, hey, we are still here and the Soviet Union is gone and we have triumph. [01:00:00] Speaker C: Which one's better? [01:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah, Cold War. We win. [01:00:03] Speaker B: Win. It completely ignores the fact that state capitalism failed in the Soviet Union, not socialism so much. But the. And that part is I'm kind of fine with not. Not the whole thing overall, but the aspect of, oh, this dictator, this despot will die. [01:00:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:24] Speaker B: And it will collapse in on itself at some point. If it's built on this foundation, that's fine. What really made me just shocked and almost aghast was how it ends. Ends. Not just like the, oh, we're going back. New humans come to the farm and they are, you know, the most wasp, looking like cookie cutter Norman Rockwell ass. And it's like, there's new people and it's a new beginning. And it's. I get what they're doing. They're saying, oh, well, now, you know, Russia has democracy and everything's gonna be great for the animals. But it's like. [01:01:02] Speaker C: But it completely forgets the allegory of man, like, what man serves in the story. [01:01:08] Speaker A: Maybe this family will treat us right. [01:01:10] Speaker C: Yeah. If anything, like, the movie clearly doesn't think it is, but it's really almost a bleaker ending to be like, because here come the new wave. [01:01:20] Speaker A: We left it open just for them. [01:01:22] Speaker B: And maybe that aged it pretty damn well, actually, because, I mean, we have seen what's happened to Russia. And, you know, if that ain't the kettle calling the pot black, being an American. But it's like, you've seen what happened and, you know, the rise of oligarchs and things like that, like Putin. And that's what makes the newest one even more frustrating, is that there is so much you could update to keep it relevant to that core of like, okay, Russian identity politics. And I mean, not just identity politics, but the identity of being Russian and Soviet socialist. Whatever. But yeah, the ending, the last frame and just Jesse talking about, well, maybe it'll all be better now. [01:02:07] Speaker A: They smile. Nice. It should be fine. [01:02:10] Speaker B: That was some pun intended. Dog shit for me at the end. [01:02:13] Speaker A: Fair enough. Like, again, I think it's. To me, it is. I think, think the puppet aspect of it as well as the intense lighting and the more dramatic nature of it is something where it's like if I balances it out. Yeah. If I wanted to re. Watch any of these again, it would probably be this one easily. But yeah, it. I would. I say this movie is great. Not necessarily because again, it does still have, like he said the. With the ending as well as, like, you know, unnecessary stuff with Farmer Jones and the humans. Even though I like the cast of the humans, there is a lot more of them. [01:02:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:43] Speaker A: I think it's. I think it's a really solid adaptation. And I would say is my favorite of the three. [01:02:49] Speaker B: My favorite. Napoleon. [01:02:50] Speaker A: Yes. [01:02:51] Speaker B: Like. Like, no question about it. [01:02:53] Speaker A: And Kelsey Grammer, Snowball. He's good choice. It's a great choice. [01:02:57] Speaker B: Napoleon. [01:02:58] Speaker A: Look up what company did this one. [01:03:00] Speaker B: It's the only one too. [01:03:02] Speaker C: TNT is where it was broadcast. [01:03:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:05] Speaker B: This is links on tnt. [01:03:06] Speaker C: It was broadcast on tnt. [01:03:08] Speaker A: Apparently. According to man's Channel. Wikipedia. Lakeshore Entertainment and Hallmark Entertainment. Well, now it's House. It's a different Hallmark. I think it's now changed. Was an American company. Yeah. At least it might have been. [01:03:22] Speaker C: The Hallmark become Halcyon. [01:03:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Halcyon, which is still part of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, I think still like now to have that in mind. And then I'm just seeing old Major's body fall out of the window. [01:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:36] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean, I don't know before we get into the 2026 one, because there's. There's. There's a lot to unpack with that. That doesn't even have to do with the movie itself because the actual narrative is. We've now talked about it three times in a row. [01:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah. You know the gist. Animals revolt and become their oppressors and. [01:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's like the big thing about going from the second one to this third one is the fact that out of all three of these movies, at least for our generation, especially people who know way too much about the production process or just movies that we want to see, this one has had basically 15 years of like. [01:04:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:16] Speaker A: Not even gonna say hype, but just like a well of possibility as a [01:04:21] Speaker C: slow progress and different forms, different hands. Like changing hands. [01:04:27] Speaker A: Because as much as I think we would like to say that this movie was taking. The 2026 film was taken out of Andy Serkis's hands. [01:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:36] Speaker A: It still has his name on it. And this is a adaptation, or at least an adaptation he's wanted to do since he started doing the Hobbit films. He was doing, you know, Rise of Planet the Apes and all those films as well. He talked incessantly about doing an animal farm. [01:04:52] Speaker B: It was going to be a motion capture film. [01:04:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:56] Speaker A: And I would have loved that. [01:04:58] Speaker B: There's been this. I mean, I'll just say it. I love Andy Serkis as an artist, as an actor, as just a personality. Seems like. [01:05:08] Speaker C: As a rooster. [01:05:09] Speaker B: As a rooster. I mean, you know what? He does a pretty good job as a rooster. Doodle doo and all that. But I love Andy Serkis. I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I'm a huge Planet of the Apes fan. I mean, the man is basically just made for me to love in many ways. So it's with no pleasure that I say this. It's just a string of sadness with some of his movies. Because you look at Mowgli. [01:05:36] Speaker C: Yeah, that Jungle Book directorial efforts. Yeah. [01:05:41] Speaker B: That's bad and weird. [01:05:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:05:43] Speaker B: I haven't seen any of the Venom movies, but they're the Venom movies. [01:05:47] Speaker A: I mean, his is probably. [01:05:49] Speaker C: It's the most fun. [01:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. But again, that's also something where I [01:05:53] Speaker C: think he's doing that stupid as fuck. [01:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I think he's. He's doing that because he goes into production for Mowgli. Disney puts out their Jungle Book adaptation before his. [01:06:03] Speaker B: And his was originally supposed to come out first, I'm pretty sure. [01:06:06] Speaker A: Yeah. But that movie did such fucking gangbusters that they got cold feet and pushed it like a year, year and a half. And then what comes out is this weird. Arguably, like. Like, okay, I guess. I guess what you're trying to do, to try to deviate from now people's love of the 2016 film, but that movie still exists. And you just aren't that in terms of just enjoyment and design wise. Even when you. Even with the cast, that movie has fantastic Christian Bale. Benedict Cumberbatch. [01:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan. How do you. [01:06:40] Speaker A: Great choice. And fucking Christian Bale's Bagheera. [01:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:43] Speaker A: And even Circus as Baloo. It's one of Those things where it's like, I get it. I know what he's trying to do. [01:06:48] Speaker C: Well, in that movie may have some. [01:06:51] Speaker B: Something to do with. Why would this is animated and not motion capture? [01:06:54] Speaker C: Well, why this is animated, not motion capture, but also more broadly, why Circus has now at least twice run into this problem of, you know, trying to get. Having a vision for something, trying to get it made, and seemingly losing traction or losing the ability to make or release what he wanted to make or release through circumstance and through studios. Because, you know, I mean, it would be really convenient and I would love if the explanation behind this new Animal Farm movie is that Angel Studios took the film from him and changed it into something that he didn't want it to be. But Angel Studios really came to this film, like after it was basically done. Yeah, Basically just distributed it and. And I think. I think it has more to do with the film that we end up getting, which I realize we've barely talked about yet, is we're building up to it. Yeah, we're building to it. The strength is really, if anything, more a series of concessions that Circus has had to make over years and years of trying to get this thing made and other failures happening along the way that then create new obstacles to developing this thing until he's finally had to kind of boil it down to something that somebody is willing to pick up. And that somebody is Angel Studios. So in order for them to pick it up, it had to be really fucking boiled down. [01:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, because. Yeah, at the end of the day, this. I mean, the thing that is truly the most frustrating about Circus's career is that the reason why we have people talk about how good the performances in Avatar are, how good the Hulk performance of Thanos or just any big motion capture character that studios now give buckets of money to, to look as possible. [01:08:42] Speaker B: He wrote the damn book. [01:08:43] Speaker A: It's because he's fucking Gollum and is one of the best motion capture characters to. [01:08:48] Speaker B: He's King Kong. He's Caesar. [01:08:50] Speaker A: He's Caesar. Yeah. But the problem is, is that he's believed that clout would be enough to get him what he wanted. And I think, sadly, I think studios just still shortchange him a lot of the time. [01:09:03] Speaker B: And it's business. [01:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's. It's just at the end of the day, it's like, you are known as Gollum. You are known for your stop motion performances, but you haven't directed anything. [01:09:14] Speaker C: Right. [01:09:14] Speaker A: And it's like, well, I have done like, you know, unit directing for the Hobbit. And he's like, other things that he's, you know, clearly has had years and years as an actor, and so he's worked with directors and knows how to work in that kind of space. [01:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:26] Speaker A: But, yeah, the studio. Yeah. The industry is, like, cool. You still don't have anything under your belt, so. Of course. [01:09:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:09:32] Speaker A: Enter Mowgli. And then that puts a stain. I think that leads him to have to pick up Let There Be Carnage. And, like, does that because, you know, he likes working with Hardy, likes working with that cast. And then, like, that movie does. But, like, when the two films you have are Mowgli. [01:09:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:49] Speaker A: And Venom to Let There Be Carnage, it does, I think, make even your biggest fans be like, okay, what's the next thing you want to do? I'm cautiously curious. Curious. Yeah. [01:10:00] Speaker B: I'm not sure [01:10:03] Speaker A: this one T. A I L. Not a. Look at that. Oh. [01:10:08] Speaker B: Oh. I didn't even notice that. [01:10:10] Speaker A: I think it is. [01:10:10] Speaker B: Wow. They're clever. [01:10:12] Speaker A: But I. Yeah, because you look at this film in terms of just like a modern. A pseudo modernized version of the Orwell classic. [01:10:19] Speaker B: Nothing pseudo about the modern aspects of this. Damn. Yeah. [01:10:23] Speaker A: But I'm surprised. [01:10:24] Speaker B: I didn't hear Skibidi or Riz length. [01:10:26] Speaker A: I know. Really was surprised. No 67 was involved, but with the hooves. But with the cast that it has and, you know, Angel Studio putting up at least the money to distribute it in a way which Angel Studio has been around, I think, what, at least five years, but it's like, now. Has been pumping out. [01:10:44] Speaker C: Yeah. Their first. [01:10:45] Speaker B: Shit's right. Yeah. [01:10:47] Speaker A: Because. Because of the Chosen. [01:10:49] Speaker C: I think the Chosen was really what [01:10:51] Speaker B: Angel Studios is the Chosen. [01:10:53] Speaker A: Yeah. It's the thing that made them popular, I think. And because of that, I think it's now, the last few years there. I think this year they have, like, nine films. [01:11:02] Speaker B: Like, we saw Jesus Money. [01:11:04] Speaker A: We saw the trailer for Young Washington in front of. Which is an angel studio film. We talked about. We'll talk about a later episode or next episode. We talk about the Hershey film randomly because we're just like, in, like, they're making a What? [01:11:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:22] Speaker A: The Angel Studio is now just kind of popped in. And unlike a pure flick situation where they get like C list actors that you haven't seen in, like, maybe decades. Sorry. Dean Cain and God's Not Dead. [01:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:34] Speaker A: But like, this film has Glenn Close, Woody Harrelson, Kathleen Turner, Seth Rogen, Laverne Cox, Kieran Culkin, Laverne Cox. I mean, sad. [01:11:47] Speaker B: Seth Rogen I mean, like, is the title character practically. He is Animal Farm. [01:11:56] Speaker A: I mean, he loves the Laughter Slaughterhouse. [01:11:59] Speaker B: No, he says Laughter House. [01:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, the trailer alone, that Adam is disastrous, but was enough for us to be like, all right, this episode's on the books because it just has to be seen to be believed. And now I'm here to tell you, [01:12:16] Speaker C: you don't have to see it. Yeah. [01:12:18] Speaker B: Save Yourself. [01:12:19] Speaker A: Save Yourself might be the worst film I've seen so far this year. I think this might be truly, at [01:12:27] Speaker B: least to me, definitely for a goose [01:12:29] Speaker A: egg out of 10, I think this is like, even with a talented cast and even as much as I love Serkis and what he's done as a performer, the best part about this movie is when we saw it together is when I fell asleep, that was the most serene I was and how much fun I had in that movie. And then Adam woke me up and was like, I think you missed this. And then I started watching the movie again and I'm like, I don't think I missed anything. It is the longest adaptation, the most star studded cast to a degree. It is full blown, just CG nonsense at times. It is the most. I would say, the most kid friendly in a detrimental, derogatory way. And it's just overwhelmingly just a shitty movie. It's a bad adaptation. It's bad to the point where, like, I. The ending, I would even argue they could have gotten worse with it. But the way that the film ends, and I think Andy saw this too, when we both saw in silhouette form, Adam's jaw dropped and he left the theater, it was like, yeah, I understand. [01:13:45] Speaker B: So again, I'm gonna be pretty crass here. I mean, so the most infuriating part of this movie for me was that there were flashes, brief flashes I need to make very clear of, actually [01:14:01] Speaker C: the [01:14:01] Speaker B: beginnings of interesting ideas of a modernized or reimagined, whatever the hell you want to call it, version of this story. There were things that I was like, oh, well, that's not completely off topic. You can kind of roll with that. And then they get bored with it as soon as they introduce it and drop it, like again and again and again. And there's just really nothing. It doesn't say anything at the end of the day is what it ends up doing. And the entire discourse and press release of this movie was just fucking pathetic. Because they release a dog shit trailer. [01:14:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that. [01:14:42] Speaker B: That shows very accurately how dogshit the movie is. Yeah, there's huge backlash, rightfully so. And I mean, even in the movie, after the fact and just up until the. All the press, it was so apologetic and like, wait, wait, wait. We know you're freaked out. We know, but wait, we're gonna do right by it. And, I mean, it's just so spineless. [01:15:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Serkis, I think, himself authored a statement that he put out to, like, critics and people who were, like, reviewing the film early. What did it. [01:15:22] Speaker B: Wait. Oh, God. [01:15:23] Speaker C: A friend of ours and repeat guest, Evan Dossey over at Midwest Film Journal, he reviewed the film. And so he. He saw it early, I think. And, yeah, along with the screener, there was, like, a message from Circus where he was basically saying, like, now I know that we. You know, we put a lot of kid humor in here. And, you know, one. One early reviewer mentioned the. Or maligned the. The fart jokes. But. But sniff. Sniff a little deeper, dear viewer. These. These fart jokes are, you know, indicative of some deeper meaning, which is not at all. It all boils down to just like, you know, oh, you thought our movie was stupid. Well, actually, it is, but give it another be nice to it circus. [01:16:11] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, when the trailer drops, [01:16:13] Speaker B: but what the hell else is he supposed to do? They had him on. They had him on Instagram doing, like, John Pork memes. [01:16:22] Speaker C: John Pork meme. [01:16:23] Speaker B: No, I swear to God, like, he's like, oh, look who's calling. It's John Pork. And it's like, he's like, this is the first time Andy has been made aware of this, and they're just forcing it on this poor man because, you know, John Pork. [01:16:34] Speaker A: I gotta say, for studios making their auteurs do something, I think I'd rather watch. [01:16:39] Speaker B: Put them on Hot Ones, for fuck's sake. [01:16:41] Speaker A: I think I'd rather watch, like when Sony Pictures pushed Alex Garland and Danny Boyle to talk to, like, a. A V idol. Like a. Like a. Like a. Like. [01:16:51] Speaker C: Oh, yes. [01:16:52] Speaker A: And like. And Garland. And Garland. Yeah, Garland. Garland looks like he wants to put a gun in his mouth while Danny Boyle is the sweetest man possible. Like, just talking to this person, I would rather see that over. Before we saw the film, Adam, we had a group chat about it. Adam posted us a YouTube video that's just an hour of Seth Rogen's laugh. They said Napoleon laughs, but Napoleon's laugh is just Seth Rohan's laugh. Like, they're trying to demonstrate hard. [01:17:21] Speaker B: And there were plenty of social media posts about boxer and glue and all these things that were obviously trying to be like, no, no, no, wait, guys, we read the book, we know what happens in it. But betraying the tone and the message at every possible. [01:17:43] Speaker C: I mean there is some way somewhere out there in the multiverse where a tongue in cheek, silly, almost self parody version of Animal Farm could work. And you could have the jokes and the clips about the glue factory. [01:18:01] Speaker B: Look at Life of Brian. Yeah, look at Life of Brian. Something that is like, people are like, oh, it's walking Christ or something, but it's actually saying some very deep things about religion. If you just peel it back. [01:18:15] Speaker C: That is possible. I'm not saying it's not an option. But this, this movie has no actual interest in like engaging with the text. It's just, oh, let's pull things people remember about this book and make them funny now and light hearted and goofy. [01:18:33] Speaker A: It makes the laziest choices at every turn. Even when. Because I do think the one aspect I think we both, we talked a little bit about that I think could have been very fascinating is the fact that the idea of capitalism, when that book is coming out, capitalism of course still exists. But it's been 81 years since that book was published. The idea of capitalism now has evolved in so many different ways that when you have a Pilkington character in an animal farm, which in this one is Glenn Close, she's gonna be like, tech bro. [01:19:04] Speaker C: Well, and socially, culturally, capitalism is much more, more a topic that is understood and actively discussed by people and debated. Yeah, I think framing it around kind of a. I mean, I guess to some degree it's still kind of a vaguely anti capitalist comment. [01:19:26] Speaker B: Yeah, vaguely. [01:19:28] Speaker C: I think that, yeah, like you said, it's a flash of an idea of changing the story and still saying something with it. But yeah, this, this movie has no interest in actually tackling any subject matter. It's just like, you know, how can we release a new movie with a recognizable title? [01:19:47] Speaker B: Just like the title is pretty much it. And then some character names and then it really. [01:19:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it just has like changing Pilkington as. Instead of it being Mr. Pilkington as Mrs. Pilkington. It goes like, ah, progressive. We got Glenn closes. [01:20:04] Speaker C: Pilkington is like a craft technocrat. Yeah, yeah. Pilkington is this giant tech conglomerate, but like big. [01:20:12] Speaker B: And, and that's the thing too is like it is vague because they, they do factory farming and stuff. And you're almost like, oh, wait a [01:20:21] Speaker C: second, are they about to talk about the agriculture industry? [01:20:23] Speaker B: Because think about, think about how much that's changed 80 fucking years just of all that. [01:20:29] Speaker C: But farming sucks. [01:20:31] Speaker A: Yeah, most farmers have two plows now. [01:20:33] Speaker B: And you were saying, like, with, like, okay, the symbols of capitalism, like, what it looks like in consumerism and all of that. So you have. I mean, in the original book, it's. Molly wants. The horse wants ribbons in her hair. He's like, I think I look pretty still. And, like, oh. So just like clothing and stuff. But now in this one, there's cars, tablets, all sorts of just random shit. Which, again, in a better movie might actually work really well. [01:21:04] Speaker A: And also the conversation of a film series about Napoleon, which, thank God they [01:21:08] Speaker B: never popo, as he's known in this. [01:21:12] Speaker A: It is. Yeah, it just. Oh, my Lord. It's also like this. The laziest choice to. Again, I think, because the story is such a, you know, indicative of trying to introduce children to the ideas as well as what it's satirizing, which is the Russian Revolution. They now have a child pig surrogate for the audience. And it is the most. I think, again, there's a reason why. I think if there's anything I could push off against that. If you're gonna have a protagonist with Animal Farm, I think it needs to be an adult or at least a mature animal. Because once you have the adult, once you have the kid pig, it mostly becomes all the other adult animals. Looking at the pig, Lucky, played by Gate Matarazzo, who's known as Dustin from [01:21:56] Speaker B: Stranger Things and forever will be. [01:21:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, because you know what? No one will know that he's in this, and that's fine. [01:22:02] Speaker B: I think. [01:22:03] Speaker A: Good for him. [01:22:03] Speaker B: He got a paycheck. [01:22:04] Speaker A: Very talented. He's a very talented guy. [01:22:06] Speaker B: He's a decent voice actor, too. [01:22:08] Speaker A: Like, great singer. [01:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:09] Speaker A: Yeah. This is the Gate Matarazzo podcast. Yeah. [01:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah. If you're listening, we love you. Come on. [01:22:14] Speaker A: But it does. It does feel like anytime Lucky's by himself, it's. And sad or conflicted. It has, like an adult animal practically looking at the audience being like, well, looky, what have you learned? [01:22:26] Speaker B: The voiceover. [01:22:27] Speaker A: What have you learned from this? It's like, stop. Just let him live it. Quit asking. [01:22:33] Speaker B: Each one of these movies has a narrator. [01:22:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:22:37] Speaker B: And this is easily the one that is the worst. It is. It. It detracts from every single moment of weight that this movie actually is able to somewhat tip the scale with. It immediately backpedals. And you have Woody Harrelson as boxer who, spoiler alert, fucking dies again, remarkably, in this one. But he's even talking after the fact that he's dead. [01:23:09] Speaker C: But. [01:23:10] Speaker B: But he's doing this voice where he's just kind of a little bit, you know, not very smart. And there are moments, you know, he's a good enough actor where it works, but just when you have to hear him say, well, Lucky was really not cool with what happened because Napoleon was doing bad things that were in X, Y and Z and shut up. [01:23:35] Speaker A: How could the pigs be wrong? Lucky thought. And it's like, again, funny to think that he's Boxer because he was Cletus Kasady, [01:23:45] Speaker B: but before that, he was in War for the Planet and a phenomenal role as the Colonel. He's so good in that. [01:23:53] Speaker A: It's. It just. Yeah, it. And it's all. Yeah. The funny thing, too, is, like, what it does. It does what the 90s film also does, where it cuts to, like, what you think is the years in the future at times, and then it's like, Lucky, at times. We'll even be like, well, let's keep going with the story. [01:24:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:08] Speaker A: And then you just find out it's literally after. Literally seconds after the film ends is where he's just telling the story. What the fuck? [01:24:17] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think a huge reason that Lucky is a problem for this. I mean, this movie has nothing to say either way, but yeah. [01:24:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:26] Speaker C: Unfortunately, as an adaptation of the novel, a huge problem with. With the presence of Lucky is that you give the narrator the agency to interpret the story when the allegory was already so overt and so clear in what. It's kind of beating you over the head with it. Like, the whole point of the book is it's very matter of fact, and you're just observing these facts, and you can draw the conclusion from exactly what happens. You don't need a lens character to be there to react to it and to be like, oh, well, that's wrong. And this is who I trust and this is who I don't trust. [01:25:05] Speaker B: And no, it's like, okay, here's old Major's head on a spike, like, evoking Lenin in state and all of this. [01:25:15] Speaker C: Yeah. In giving the lens or the storyteller, the narrator of the story, the agency, to interact with these characters in the form of Lucky, it only further removes the viewer from engaging with what's already [01:25:32] Speaker A: there, especially when Lucky's also a pig. So at a certain point in the film, it just pushes Lucky towards more of the pig side, obviously, because all the pigs are living in the house. [01:25:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:25:42] Speaker A: And then treats the other animals like they are lesser than secondary. They're just extras in the story up until Lucky goes, guys, I Fucked up. I'm sorry. [01:25:51] Speaker C: Yeah, you're not really getting the other. The rest of the farm perspective. You're just getting the pig betrayal. [01:25:57] Speaker B: If you're gonna use a young character, if you're gonna do that, have a perspective of youth, because there is something interesting in that. Children are not stupid. They know when bad things are happening. Do you know how many of my students have said the name Epstein? And many of them are very young. It's like horrific shit in the world. [01:26:19] Speaker C: It gets to them. [01:26:20] Speaker B: It gets to them. And their perspective on it is one often of anxiety and uncertainty that as an adult, we forget what it feels like often because we're like, okay, well, what's really gonna happen if this goes down? And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there is an angle where you can make a young narrator work very well. And the movie almost again flirts with that in this father son relationship sort of between Lucky and Napoleon, where I think in some of those moments, Rogen's really able to. To shine, albeit very briefly, just like, oh, dang, that was a good, like, reading of being sneaky and shit like that and all that. [01:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Because there's also the implication too. And this could be something in the book, but it felt very weird in this adaptation because I don't think it does any other two adaptations. There's a moment in this adaptation where Snowball talks down about the other animals when they're discussing the. Describe the creation of the water well. Because the water wheel. Cause instead of it being a windmill, they're doing a water wheel. [01:27:23] Speaker C: Wheel. [01:27:24] Speaker B: This ain't your mama's animal farm. We have a water wheel in this. [01:27:27] Speaker A: But like Snowball, played by Laverne Cox, who I think, like most people in this film is just doing the absolute damnedest. [01:27:35] Speaker B: The slaughterhouse. [01:27:38] Speaker A: It's. It really, in that scene, she just basically just says, like, we can't. Let's just build the water wheel because all the other animals are stupid. [01:27:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:27:46] Speaker A: And then Napoleon hears that, and then that's what is the film implies. Napoleon doesn't have. Didn't have a bad bone in his body until he was talked down to. And now he's going on this. It gives it more of like a binary feel to it where it's like [01:28:00] Speaker B: you can't trust either. [01:28:02] Speaker C: Yeah. It kind of creates. It feeds into this, like, I don't know, all sides are bad kind of rhetoric that the movie. Because the movie is making such a broad attempt at a statement, it's gonna try and cover all bases. And I mean, the yeah. Not to spoil where the conversation is going, but, like, the ending moral of the story is, like, nothing more than, we'll work together, guys. Be nice. You know, so when you're doing something that broad out of something as specific and overt as Animal Farm, you have to, I guess, make all the characters in power look bad. Yeah. And so, yeah, this is the only adaptation where Snowball is, like, explicitly shown to be, like, also kind of corrupt in a way. [01:28:50] Speaker B: And they don't. They don't do it in a very good way either, because there really aren't. There's what that one moment for Snowball, there's nothing really else about her character [01:29:05] Speaker C: really, like that moment. And then kind of her attitude just up until she's ousted. [01:29:11] Speaker B: And, like, I suppose now I'm thinking of the 90s one a little bit. Snowball is, I think, at his best there, just because, I mean, one Kelsey Grammer is pretty good actor. And there's another level, too, where there feels like there is shame in that 90s version of snowball because, you know, he is getting fat and happy with the rest of the pigs for a while. It's a while before he is exiled. And when he's the one that's like, oh, we have the milk and apples, like, and ashamed of it, and like, ah, it's the pigs. [01:29:49] Speaker C: We do. [01:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:29:50] Speaker B: There's. There's no depth to any one character in this movie that even, like, touches what they do with some of the side characters in the story. [01:30:01] Speaker A: But again, also, the fact that this is the only adaptation to have a woman of color and the only female to play Snowball and to make it the most. [01:30:09] Speaker B: And Benjamin. [01:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Kathleen Turner's Benjamin, to have the, like, just at least for Snowball's case, to make it, like, I think the worst version of that character. Of these three adaptations, it's like, such a bummer because it's like you're going out of your way to add Laverne Cox as a character that is, you know, historically is literally portrayed as male. [01:30:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:30:29] Speaker A: And literally was Kelsey grammar the last time he was a film. It is a fast, but it ultimately she is given. All right, Laverne, just say this line from this page of Animal Farm. Yeah. [01:30:42] Speaker B: But don't say alcohol. Yeah, we can't say alcohol. [01:30:46] Speaker C: Juice. Yeah. [01:30:47] Speaker A: Because at the end of the day, this is a movie that is trying to cater towards, at a certain point, Angel Studios audience, in a sense. Like, clearly they picked it up because they want people who liked. And again, if you liked King of Kings or David last year. Great. But like that, I think if you like those two animated films from angel and you see this, I feel like you're just gonna be confused because it's not. Yeah, it feels like it's retroactively trying to be like not sane. It's looking for a conservative audience. But it does have an energy that [01:31:18] Speaker B: doesn't want to step on anybody. [01:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it's the most in between. Like middle of the road. Like maybe a libertarian animal. [01:31:27] Speaker C: I mean, really. Because the only bad this really has, if you're reading for one, if you really read for it, is Bootstraps. Anti. Well, yes, but like anti. Anti Authoritarian. [01:31:40] Speaker B: It's just big business. [01:31:42] Speaker C: It's just power corrupts. [01:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. [01:31:44] Speaker C: Power corrupts. Okay, well, I guess. But also work together and be kind to each other. I don't know. It is a very vague libertarian message. [01:31:57] Speaker A: This happened after you left. Left the theater. And I wonder if you remember this, but when the credits were rolling, there was a family in front of us and like the mom of the family was genuinely irritated by the movie. And I think it was not because it was a bad adaptation. [01:32:10] Speaker B: How did that, how did that show. Was she just saying like this? [01:32:14] Speaker C: No, she said like that was awful or something. [01:32:16] Speaker A: She's like, she's like. They. I think she says at one point they've made better stuff. Implying that she's there because of the age. [01:32:23] Speaker B: Like probably David. My aunt went and saw David. This is like a 70 year old woman from Indiana. And she was like, yeah, check it out, David. Because you know the Bible. [01:32:34] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's just, it's fascinating. [01:32:36] Speaker C: Again, just like a 24. Angel is a studio with a follower base. [01:32:41] Speaker A: I mean. [01:32:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:42] Speaker A: And it's just, it was fascinating just to be there and be like, we're just hating it because of the Orwell. Just like Orwell rolling in his grave 18,000 times with each second. [01:32:53] Speaker B: Like that damn water wheel. [01:32:55] Speaker A: And then you just have someone in the front who probably is there because they loved the Chosen or they loved David or this angel. And then this is just like bad. What the fuck is this? [01:33:05] Speaker C: Yeah, it's just, it's not funny. It's poorly paced. [01:33:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:33:09] Speaker A: It's the type of adaptation that I think arguably gets more frustrating and worse when you bring attention to specific lines and moments from the book. [01:33:20] Speaker B: There is no old major. [01:33:21] Speaker C: No. [01:33:23] Speaker A: Jones is practically in it for five seconds and then. And pushed out of music. [01:33:26] Speaker C: And he is basically a caveman. [01:33:28] Speaker B: Yeah, he's just a ha ha Drunk American redneck farmers. Stupid idiots. And he's voiced by, you know, circus going crazy day from Plants vs. Zombies. Yeah, but like, by the end of the opening credits, which, you know, it's a modern movie. Opening credits are usually just like, hey, look at all the famous people we have. By the end of the credits, the revolution is over, Right? [01:33:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:56] Speaker B: It doesn't give a fuck. There's no major issue. [01:34:00] Speaker C: The whole movie is just lucky. Witnessing Napoleon's slide into greed. [01:34:08] Speaker A: There's no sheep dog situation. There are puppies, but, like, the puppies just change off screen. It's implied. It just happens at some time. I think once Snowball gets pushed out, that's when they introduce the dollar. [01:34:20] Speaker C: But this movie does just like the others do. [01:34:23] Speaker B: The. [01:34:24] Speaker C: The kind of. I can't tell man and pig apart. [01:34:28] Speaker B: But the worst. [01:34:29] Speaker C: More face. Yeah, not. Not very. [01:34:31] Speaker A: Because again, it would work better if Jones was more of a character. Because Jones, it was just a guy's face. Yeah, it's just. It is like Jones, especially that original animated film. It was. Even though Jones is barely a character, his design is enough of a striking image that when you start to see his face on a pig. [01:34:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:52] Speaker A: You know immediately what they're saying, no, no, thank you. And so like. Yeah. To just be like, you throw him out in five seconds. And then it like, what, 90 minutes in this, like, 105 film? Or just like, here it is. And it's like, that's fucking insane. I did what? [01:35:07] Speaker B: And I don't even know if it's supposed to be Jones. [01:35:09] Speaker C: No, it just looks like one of them. Well, one of them, I think is made to look. Look like Mrs. Pilkington. And then another one is just like a vague man because there's also. [01:35:19] Speaker A: Steve Buscemi is a lawyer to Pilkington. [01:35:21] Speaker B: He's a banker. [01:35:22] Speaker A: Banker, that's right. Yeah. He's the one that also looks at the audience and goes, this is what's going on. Bye. And it's like, oh, Jesus, why are you here? Yeah, it really is dumbing it down to the point where there's. It's negative amount of brain, just brain [01:35:38] Speaker C: function that you need to, like, takes away from your. [01:35:41] Speaker B: It is insulting. I'm not insulted by film much anymore. I'm too damn old for that. I'm not an ancient individual. But it's like, you get to a point where it's like, okay, not everything's gonna be for me, and that's okay. [01:35:54] Speaker C: But, like, this is for nobody. [01:35:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:35:58] Speaker C: It's afraid to be for Anybody, like, even. [01:36:02] Speaker B: It won't be for anybody. Cause if you put this on for a baby, they're gonna be fucking bored. [01:36:06] Speaker A: Yeah. They're asleep in seconds. [01:36:08] Speaker B: If you put it on for a kid just a little bit above that, they're gonna be insulted by it. [01:36:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:36:15] Speaker A: It's at a point where you almost. It's the most fucked up, like, Stockholm syndrome thing where you kind of just want, like, I want bad needle drops. I want a 6, 7 Skibidi reference. Anything to feel. Anything. [01:36:30] Speaker C: It doesn't even really feel as much a product of its time as the other two do. No. So you don't even have that charm. [01:36:38] Speaker A: It just like. But like a big moment in that. In the book that I love and we. I think we both. All three of us love, is Boxer getting taken to the glue factory. [01:36:46] Speaker B: Horrifying. [01:36:48] Speaker A: Fantastically done, I think, in the 90s film and also really well done in the 50s film. [01:36:52] Speaker B: Scary. It's just. [01:36:53] Speaker A: And it's like, it's hilarious how in their heads, it's almost like, well, a tech capitalist, like, bro would not have a truck for a glue factory. She needs to have a helicopter that just has glue written on the side of it. Which is already. Because, again, it doesn't have glue written on the van. It just says, like, they. They call it the horse doctor. Until one of them can see that it's more. [01:37:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it just. It's just. [01:37:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it just dumbs it to a. To a degree that is like, you didn't have to dumb it down this hard. [01:37:27] Speaker B: And, you know, Boxer is lifted up and there's, like, light and all of that. And it's. You know, they try and make it like he's being goddamn martyred. Which, I mean. [01:37:37] Speaker A: Yeah, he's an angel now. [01:37:40] Speaker B: Exactly. It felt like, oh, wow. We need to put a, I don't know, Abrahamic afterlife vibe into this so kids don't cry too much. No, that's not the goddamn point. Boxer is the part that really fucked me up when I first read that book, because it was. He dies. Yeah, he dies. And not only that, he is killed in a industrial way. He is dragged away. There is nothing they can do. [01:38:14] Speaker C: Dragged away kicking and screaming because he only realizes too late and he can't get out of the cart. [01:38:20] Speaker A: It's terrifying because initially he's like, it's fine. I'm going to the horse doctor. Until they all tell him Napoleon is always right. [01:38:27] Speaker C: He sees the side of the truck and he's like, no way. [01:38:30] Speaker A: It's. Yeah, it's Also, it's because you would think. Because it's also a film that tricks you into thinking it cares. Mostly because of circus attempt to do, like, the amount of camera moves in an animated film or, like, camera, like, very. There's a fucking split diopter shot, which is fucking insane. I would say, arguably, even though this film is a 0 out of 10, for me, the best scene, I would say, of it all is the Benjamin Lucky scene. [01:39:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Let it breathe. [01:39:01] Speaker A: When Lucky basically finds out, oh, I am one of the pigs, I really up and I'm on the wrong side of this. And then Benjamin and Lucky are like, in the stables. The shot is like. I was like, why? Why are we shooting this? Like, it's a little. It's a moment where it's like, this has something to say or it's trying to say something. And I appreciate that. [01:39:22] Speaker B: Are you a pig or an ant? [01:39:23] Speaker A: Why the fuck does it look like this? I mean, they could both attest they were making fun of me while we were watching the movie, and understandably so. The only time I laughed was during one of the Seth Rogen fart scenes. Not because. But it's like. It's not even because of the fart. It's because there's a long fart and then it slowly zooms in fast and then goes. And it's like, why did that just happen? Why did we just. [01:39:48] Speaker B: That. And that's early on. [01:39:51] Speaker A: It's like the first 20 minutes. [01:39:53] Speaker B: And I remember just the. I didn't even hear a kid laugh. No, because the fart. [01:39:59] Speaker A: Because I was like, what? [01:40:01] Speaker C: The fart is like, over. Like, there's a line of dialogue over the fart, too. [01:40:06] Speaker B: And that. A shiver went down my spine when it was like, Logan, you were the only one that laughed at that entire thing. There are little kids in the theater where farts. I mean, that is the creme de la creme of humor at that age. And none of them. None of them bit that whole. [01:40:23] Speaker A: Nearly through that whole bit, I was like, homelander's face until the little bit of fucking. And I was just like, why is that the artistic choice we're making during a fart joke? Like, yeah, it's just like. Yeah, because it's like. It's almost like it just like. Even Illumination, I think, has more auteurism in the weakest films than this. Like, I. I don't know if. [01:40:45] Speaker B: Because again, they are an animation studio, proper animation studio. [01:40:48] Speaker A: And I think with angel, it is kind of this fascinating thing. This is technically an Independent animated film in a sense. And it is kind of like, I guess if you want to give angel some credit is the fact that they picked it up. But then at the same time, it's [01:41:00] Speaker B: like, I wish I did it. [01:41:01] Speaker A: I took that credit away. I take it immediately. [01:41:04] Speaker B: I blame you now for this. [01:41:05] Speaker A: It's like an UNO reverse for everything I could say that I could like or think is a cool way, because it really isn't. It just honestly, it's funny how this, the trailer uses fucking Portugal the Man, a song that's like nearly a decade old, it feels like at this point. And then when you watch the movie, it's like, oh, yeah, they don't really have the budget to do like the illumination style. Here's a needle drop every five minutes. So it's like just a kind of a barren score. The cinematography is pretty bare bones except for the wild little choices they make here. [01:41:38] Speaker B: And the human designs are all hideous afterthoughts. It reminds me of almost weird transitional period of Dreamworks. [01:41:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:41:49] Speaker A: Like, again, this word Norm of the north comes from for me is like it has like, it has the energy of an independent international animated film that [01:41:57] Speaker B: gets an all star cast and then like Zumba, the Zomba zebra or some shit like that. And it'll be like, Christopher Walken is the king. [01:42:05] Speaker A: Like that. Or like fucking open season. Like, it's like shit like that where it's like that in. Like that in between. Like, yeah, the late 2000s, early. [01:42:13] Speaker B: Probably do an odd trilogy of that. I think there are three sequels. [01:42:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:42:17] Speaker B: They Kept Crying. I mean, I'd be a cold day in hell before I came back to talk about any of those. I saw that first one in theaters. It was terrible. [01:42:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it just has like that energy when you see the. The poster for this film. You think the next you'll see this poster is next to like Alpha and Omega or like the fucking Turtle film. You know the Turtle film where, like, [01:42:37] Speaker B: it's got a dude's face, basically? [01:42:39] Speaker A: I think so, yeah. And it's like. But then you look at it, you're like, that's fucking Andy Serkis cockadoodle doo. This is the thing he's been talking about forever. And it is kind of just. I mean, it is a bummer, but at the same time, I don't think any of us came in with like, huge expectations. And no, as soon as I think I expected a 1 out of 10 and I got a 0 as soon [01:43:00] Speaker B: as I saw the first image for the movie, which is actually, you know, it doesn't show much. And it was a behind. It was the shot of, you know, Lucky with the pigs. [01:43:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:43:10] Speaker C: Behind the shot in the night sky [01:43:11] Speaker B: and the other animals looking up and stuff. And so, like, you got the silhouettes of animals. It's pretty inoffensive. But even them. And looking at the cast, it was like. [01:43:19] Speaker C: And it looked so cute and, like, charming in a way that just isn't right. [01:43:24] Speaker B: We're Shepex. And then, you know, that first trailer [01:43:27] Speaker A: comes out and it's the tagline of the film. [01:43:30] Speaker B: Is Skibidi a cautionary tale? Indeed. And, yeah. No, I mean, I just seen goddamn QR codes at the end of a movie is enough to make a movie. [01:43:41] Speaker A: That was awesome. [01:43:42] Speaker B: That's an Orwellian nightmare if I've ever fucking seen one. [01:43:46] Speaker A: In an era where every decade, I think we constantly ask, do people really understand an Orwell book well enough? [01:43:54] Speaker B: No. [01:43:54] Speaker A: Or yeah. It's like, yeah. The answer is usually no, because of course, we surprised. We haven't brought up 1984 at all in terms of the other Orwell classic because I think the constantly redesigned and rediscussed in a way that is, like, that's not. [01:44:06] Speaker B: And the allegories, not what that is. I think the allegories are so much the same, too. I mean, again, I forget the name. Is it Goldstein or something? What? The Trotsky equivalent who's very. But I mean, again, I think it's literally Rogan. Yeah. I love to laugh. [01:44:23] Speaker A: I'm part of the institution. [01:44:25] Speaker B: And then, like. Yeah. I mean, I do like that they give Napoleon at one point a kind of communist jumpsuit a little bit. It's a suit. It's a proper suit that he's wearing, but it's kind of that, like, army green and stuff like that. [01:44:40] Speaker A: There's gotta be. At some point when they were doing designs for Napoleon, someone in the, like, raised their hands and was like, can they make him look like the pig from Sing? And then Circus had to, like, not fucking scream and jump over the table. [01:44:54] Speaker B: Just one more. One more month until I go. [01:44:56] Speaker A: He used to wear the suit. Like. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this was our first. I think all three of us. It was our first angel studio film and may very well be the last, depending on. [01:45:08] Speaker B: Definitely gonna be my last. [01:45:09] Speaker C: I mean, I don't know. We'll find an excuse to talk about Sound of Freedom on the podcast. Sure. [01:45:18] Speaker B: Is that the sex trafficking? [01:45:19] Speaker C: Yes. [01:45:24] Speaker A: Oh, man. I mean, yeah. It's. The unfortunate truth about this trilogy is that, I mean. Yeah. It's that we're 80 plus years into having this novel into the zeitgeist and conversationally and is still a classic in so many different ways. And it still yet again feels like. Like you have to re analyze it for some people to be like this is what it's about. But also like this is why these moments are so important. This is why the tone is so important, why it is. Because I have no doubt there are people out there that are like yeah, I get it. But why are they animals? Jesus Christ. [01:46:00] Speaker B: Like dude, would you watch a Russian Revolution like probably not 16 part. [01:46:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:46:08] Speaker B: In cinematic universe to do it justice. [01:46:10] Speaker A: But it's a true oddity to have an adaptation of Animal Farm just in general because it just feels like a movie idea that if you want to do it right, you have to end on a fucking. You have to end on a important. Has to be a bummer. You have to walk out of the theater being like, well that's what I'm thinking about for the rest the day. But like that's no studio is probably even if the CIA are not as involved is probably not going to fund that. And so it's one of the reasons why like, you know, why any time if I ever in the next in our lifetime ever hear about a 1984 fucking adaptation, there's. Unless it's a specific type of director and a specific look, I'm just going to assume they're going to bastardize Robert Eggers. 1984 would be insane. Like S. Craig Zoller 1984 Thatcher. [01:47:04] Speaker C: Kirk Cameron's 1984 Saving Christmas. [01:47:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Animal Farm does look like a Kirk Cameron film. Yeah, that's gotta happen. [01:47:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Where the hell was he? He could have been Boxer. [01:47:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean honestly, if anything when it comes to an adaptation, I hope maybe down the line whether Audible or another company could do like a full cast. Like it's under three hours. It'd be kind of cool just to see if they did like a radio drama esque version. [01:47:30] Speaker B: I do know there is one from I think the 80s. [01:47:32] Speaker A: Oh really? [01:47:33] Speaker B: They did a radio drama and I don't know who all's in it. [01:47:37] Speaker A: That just kind of feels like that works I think better in terms of being able to. Because once you're going for an audiobook you're going for exactly what you're looking. You know exactly what you're looking for. [01:47:46] Speaker B: And even a dramatization you can do pretty damn well where it's like, yeah, you're not reading the narrator stuff but you can maybe transfer that. I mean, they've done that before with many great British novels, and. And it's just a shame that this one hasn't had anything cinematically that's really lived up to. And it's not. How can you. With this newest one, too, it's like, okay, Laverne Cox's Snowball and gender bends across the board, even to Pilkington and stuff like that. But no, Molly. Molly only shows up in one of these movies. One of the. And I mean, of course she's a vain, vapid consumer, so maybe not great representation or role model. [01:48:34] Speaker A: No. But. [01:48:34] Speaker B: Yeah, but there's so many things that are left out, and then you make up new shit to just pad it out. [01:48:40] Speaker C: Right. [01:48:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:48:41] Speaker C: It's like, why not mine? What's there. [01:48:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:48:44] Speaker C: For everything before coming up with a new shit. [01:48:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:48:47] Speaker A: I mean, that's the Odd Animal Farm trilogy. I mean, it really is. Unfortunately, it's gonna. This is gonna have to end on a bummer, just like the novel, because at the end of the day, none [01:48:58] Speaker B: of them live up to it. [01:48:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I think the closest to be. [01:49:01] Speaker C: We have a triumphant ending because we are going to march on the studios and demand a good animal farming. [01:49:11] Speaker B: I want Phil Tippett to do fucked up, Mad God stop motion and make me never want to look at a pig again. [01:49:19] Speaker A: We will march on Angel Studios. But if you see us all three in Young Franklin, you know what happened, because that. That means the bag was nice. [01:49:29] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. [01:49:30] Speaker C: It means we. We. Napoleon. [01:49:35] Speaker A: Adam, thank you for suggesting this and being a part of the podcast. [01:49:38] Speaker B: Thanks for tolerating that. My. My suggestion. [01:49:41] Speaker A: No, of course it was. It was great to, like. We got to watch all three of these together. [01:49:45] Speaker C: Together. Yeah. [01:49:46] Speaker A: And even when it was at its worst times, it was like, at least I'm not alone. [01:49:51] Speaker B: And that is the socialist core message that we need to hold on to. [01:49:57] Speaker A: But, yeah, again, thank you so much for being here, man. Hopefully your next trilogy will have more of a fun jaunt to it. Whether it is Lord of the Rings or something else we think of, but [01:50:07] Speaker B: if it's related to Russia in any way, I'm not doing it. [01:50:11] Speaker A: What if it's that Russian Avengers film? Maybe there's three of them with, like, the bear hole. Yeah. [01:50:17] Speaker C: Adam. Adam will return for our Odd Dostoevsky adaptation trilogy. [01:50:23] Speaker B: Hell, yeah, I'm there. Oh, fuck. Yeah. [01:50:26] Speaker A: But to end off in May, our next episode, I think, is more triumphant, more bombastic, and in fact, definitely a lot gorier than what we're talking about today. [01:50:37] Speaker C: Still some. Some vital social commentary. [01:50:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Andy, tell us, what is the next trilogy? [01:50:44] Speaker C: We have been. We are joining forces with a friend and colleague, Mitch Ringenberg of the Midwest Film Journal, to explore and investigate, interrogate, if you will, incarcerate even the wonderfully violent and socially sharp, at least in part, RoboCop trilogy. [01:51:12] Speaker A: Yep. 87's RoboCop 90s, RoboCop 2 and 93's RoboCop 3. [01:51:18] Speaker B: Dicks will be blown off. [01:51:19] Speaker A: Dicks will be blown off. Peter Weller will shine as a man. It looks like a toilet seat helmet. Just like this classic. We'll be talking about Paul Verhoeven's kind of Rise and how this film kind of introduced everybody to him, as well as the fact that unfortunately, while OCP would be fun in just a fictional sense, the. The OCP of real life, AKA certain studios, lead the series to kind of go in a way that unfortunately, to [01:51:49] Speaker C: kind of toy ify the series. [01:51:52] Speaker A: But yeah, it's. It's gonna be a fun time talking about that. Tune in on May, is it third? Yeah, May 23rd. Will we discuss the RoboCop trilogy? But as always, I'm Logan Sowash. [01:52:05] Speaker C: And I'm Andy Carr. [01:52:06] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening. Bye.