May contain fewer laughs than advertised.
The first screen adaptation of George Orwell's classic satire released in 1954 and the first full-length animated film made by the United Kingdom to get a theatrical release (the actual first feature was a navy training film for sailors) by Halas and Batchelor, as well as the first one to be aimed at adult audiences. The film has only two credited voice actors: Gordon Heath as the narrator and Maurice Denham, who voiced all the animals and humans!
The film's financing was done either in full or in part by the CIA — and no, the filmmakers themselves were not aware of this fact. In addition to providing the money they also influenced the production: making Snowball less sympathetic and of course changing the ending to something more upbeat to inspire anti-communist resistance. The CIA would provide similar influence for another Orwell adaptation, Nineteen Eighty-Four, a couple years later.
All tropes are equal, but some are more equal than others:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The main diversion from the book. In the film, pig delegates from other farms arrive to see Napoleon unveil the revised commandment: "All animals are equal but some animal are more equal than others". This is the final straw and that night while the pigs are toasting to their success, Benjamin briefly hallucinates that the pigs have Jones' face (as opposed to becoming humans as in the book) then leads a revolt against them with an army of animals from farms all over — the dogs are too drunk to do their job and Napoleon is quickly stomped to death.
- Adaptation Distillation: Moderately faithful with some changes to streamline the story .... until the ending.
- Adaptational Intelligence: In the book the animals are too dumb to realize what's been happening until it's too late. Here they all realize what the pigs have become after Boxer is sent to the glue factory but the dogs prevent them from taking any action... at first.
- Adaptational Karma: The ending sees Benjamin lead an uprising which quickly removes the pigs from power, and Napoleon is presumably killed by them offscreen as they storm the house.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- Benjamin is less of a grouch and a cynic in this movie, and his friendship with Boxer is played up a lot more, with several scenes showing him caring for the injured Boxer.
- In the book Old Major encourages the animals to overthrow all humans, whereas here he only stirs them up against Jones.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Jones is portrayed even more negatively here. In contrast to the book which notes he was formerly a good master, the film portrays him as a Hate Sink with no sympathetic traits. This was requested by the film's CIA backers, who wanted it to be made more clear why the animals would revolt against him.
- Downplayed with Snowball. While the CIA insisted he not be shown in too favorable a light, his overall character is similar to the book, with only a few minor details portraying him more negatively, such as him butting to the front of the pigs during Old Major's speech.
- In the book, a small group of pigs protested Napoleon's coup but were quickly silenced and later killed by the dogs. Here none of the pigs make any objections and are happy to go along with Napoleon's coup.
- Adapted Out: Mrs. Jones, Mr. Jones’s wife, is absent here.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The pigs. Except for Old Major, who did want a better life for all animals (and as opposed to his book counterpart never declared all humans the enemy; his bile was only reserved for Jones)... and possibly for Snowball, who seems to at least have been well-intentioned even if his windmill plan may have done more harm than good (and is chased off/killed before the pigs' tyranny reaches true heights). But except for those two, there's no such thing as a non-evil pig in this movie; all of them are perfectly summed up in this line:"And that night the pigs drank to Boxer's memory, with the whiskey they had bought with Boxer's life."
- Ambiguous Situation: After the chickens revolt and are sentenced to die, Napoleon demands that any other traitors confess their crimes. A sheep and a duck come forward and are executed as well, but unlike in the book they don't actually confess to anything, so it's unclear what (if anything) they did.
- Animal Species Accent: The animals talk far less than they did in the book, and when they do they have heavy animal accents. Only the pigs talk completely normally.
- Animal Talk: Downplayed compared to the book. The animals do talk and communicate with one another, but they don't hold conversations the way they did in the book. The pigs are by far the most talkative, and the only ones who speak perfectly; the other animals are various degrees of Speech-Impaired Animal who either communicate with body language or animalistic sounds, or speak short and simple sentences with a very heavy Animal Species Accent.
- Arc Words: "Work More and Eat Less."
- Art-Style Dissonance: The film retains all the violence and political themes of the novel, despite resembling contemporary Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons.
- Ascended Extra: Benjamin the donkey plays a much larger role here than he did in the book; and essentially becomes the hero the book lacks when he leads the other animals in a final revolt against the pigs.
- Big Bad: Just like in the book, Napoleon is the leader of the pigs who corrupts the ideals of the revolution.
- Bittersweet Ending: Yes, the animals eventually revolt against the pigs, but it's unclear what will happen next, nor does it change how many animals died before.
- Book Ends: The film both starts and ends with the animals rebelling against their masters.
- Cat Scare: When Old Major is about to speak, the door creaks open, startling the animals, but it’s only the cat.
- Crocodile Tears: Squealer does this when "mourning" the loss of Boxer.
- Creepy Circus Music: Invoked. When the animals are exploring Mr. Jones' house, Benjamin accidentally starts up a record player that plays a loud, orchestral version of "Entry of the Gladiators." Benjamin is so frightened by the music that he kicks the record player with his donkey hooves, destroying it. Being a farm animal, Benjamin probably doesn't understand the concept of "circus music," but the music itself still sounded loud and hyperactive enough to scare him.
- Creepy Good: The crow isn't an evil character but is seen prominently in several scenes where a death occurs, making his presence seem ominous.
- Death by Adaptation:
- We don't see it outright, but Snowball is heavily implied to have been killed by the dogs during his escape.
- The cat is killed by the dogs as well, during the chicken revolt.
- Napoleon himself and the rest of the pigs are heavily implied to suffer this at the end by hoards of very angry and vindictive animals.
- Death Glare: When Squealer gives a eulogy for Boxer after the latter was sent to the knacker, he claims he was with him in his final moments. He's met with this from the rest of the farm animals, indicating that none of them are buying it.
- Decoy Protagonist: The first third of the film mostly follows Snowball until he’s killed by Napoleon, at which point the focus shifts onto Boxer with Benjamin as his Lancer. It’s only when Boxer is sent to the glue factory that it becomes clear that Benjamin was the protagonist all along.
- Demoted to Extra: The majority of the animals outside the pigs, Benjamin, and Boxer. The other animals don't even get names!
- Dies Differently in Adaptation:
- Old Major died quietly in the book, while in the film he suffered a sudden fatal heart attack in front of the other animals.
- Jones died in a drunkards' home in the book, but here he blows himself up while sabotaging the windmill.
- Dirty Coward: Napoleon and the pigs act tough only when their dogs are around. Without them they're all whimpering cowards.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: Not only does Boxer still collapse due to overworking and his age catching up with him, but he is shot in the leg during the Battle of the Windmill, and said leg never heals.
- Establishing Character Moment: Snowball and Napoleon are introduced butting to the head of a line of pigs to hear Old Major speak, but Snowball merely wants a good view while Napoleon is more aggressive in doing so, glaring at Squealer to get him to make room, and later grunts aggressively at a young lamb and its mother for bleating in fear during the speech, despite Old Major addressing them kindly. The filmmakers even took note of this, with their production notes stating Snowball is "pushy but not too rude about it" while Napoleon is "pushy and not polite at all."
- Everyone Has Standards: The same crow who had watched Snowball being chased to his demise by the dogs turns away in disgust and horror as the dogs are summoned to execute animals that the pigs have painted as criminals.
- Fat Bastard: Squealer is often referred to as “fat pig Squealer” by the narrator.
- Foreshadowing:
- When inspecting Jones's house, Boxer is seen pushing over a stack of beer crates, which tragically foreshadows his fate of being sold by the pigs for liquor.
- Both times the farm is attacked, Squealer is seen cowardly taking cover rather than fight. At the end when the animals rise up, he hides under the table rather than defend Napoleon and the other pigs.
- Greed: The catalysts for the second attempted invasion of Animal Farm — the other farms are jealous of how much money Whymper is making by trading with them.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: The dogs' decadent lifestyle resulted in them all being too intoxicated to respond to a crucial summon, leaving Napoleon helpless to the rebel assault on his headquarters.
- Kick the Dog:
- Napoleon's first scene has him growling at a young lamb simply for bleating in fear when Old Major talks about how Jones abuses them.
- The farmer who shoots Boxer during the second attack on the farm smiles sadistically as he does it, which makes it all the more satisfying when Benjamin kicks him.
- Kid-Appeal Character: A cute baby duckling is used for comic relief in several early scenes, having been added by one of the producers who felt the film was too dark.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Squealer is shown several times to be a coward, often hiding when there’s any fighting to be done. Napoleon’s reliance on him comes back to bite him as when the animals rebel at the end, Squealer predictably dives under the table rather than defend Napoleon.
- Let No Crisis Go to Waste: Mr. Whymper overhears the farmers talking about how Animal Farm will eventually collapse due to lack of money to buy supplies. He is quick to offer Napoleon a trade deal - jams and jellies in exchange for the farm's milk and eggs, which he sells at a tidy profit. Napoleon quickly accepts the terms."In Mr. Jones' circle the subject of shortages at Animal Farm was a popular one. And a sharp trader named Whymper was just the sort to do something about it."
- Mirror Character: Snowball and Napoleon. When the first winter after the rebellion comes there are shortages due to the pigs' inexperience. But both pigs only throw themselves into their own ambitions rather than work to solve the immediate hunger problem: Snowball and his windmill, Napoleon and his plans for a coup. This may have been done in response to the CIA's input, who were worried that Snowball would come off too sympathetically to audiences.
- Mood Whiplash:
- Occurs twice in an early scene when Old Major suffers a fatal heart attack while leading the animals in song, resulting in all the animals mourning his death. The mourning is short-lived when Mr. Jones fires his shotgun in the air after being woken up by the animals' cries.
- When Snowball seems to have won the windmill debate, he turns to Napoleon with a deadpan "Problem?" look. Then things turn serious when Napoleon summons the dogs to kill him.
- Also occurs when the windmill blows up immediately after Napoleon awards himself a medal for the animals' second battle against the humans.
- Musical Pastiche: The music uses different instruments to represent different animals, in a similar style to Peter and the Wolf. The music that plays when the cat arrives at Old Major's speech also sounds distinctly like the cat theme from that story.
- The Narrator: Gordon Heath, who speaks more than the animals themselves.
- Off-Model:
- When Snowball tries to educate the animals, a pig is seen giving them lessons. From the context this is likely meant to be Snowball, but he's colored a light pink in these scenes instead of white.
- Squealer's design often varies as well, as he's sometimes light pink and sometimes a darker, almost reddish shade. He's also generally short and chubby but appears larger in some shots.
- Oh, Crap!: Napoleon when he realizes the dogs are too drunk to come to his aid at the end.
- Perpetual Frowner:
- Napoleon is constantly depicted as such, even when startled he maintains a grimace... and even when affably chuckling at the baby pigs in the front yard he looks more like he's doing a low-key Evil Laugh. Only twice in the movie is his expression completely wicened; the first time is when the windmill blows up and the second time is when he realises the other animals are going to kill him.
- Snowball too, is almost always frowning, even when he's speaking about good things; maybe in order to stop him from seeming too sympathetic. He's a lot more likely than Napoleon to soften his expression, though; on occasion he can look downright cheerful — but those instances are still fairly rare.
- In fact, it's a pretty common trait among the pigs. Squealer's the one pig who isn't a Perpetual Frowner; he displays the fullest range of emotions of all the animals... though even he's quick to frown and it's pretty clear that his nobler emotions are all faked (see Crocodile Tears above).
- Plucky Comic Relief: In this version, there is a little duckling that tries its best to help the other animals but struggles due to its small size. It's mostly just there to be funny and cute.
- Scary Symbolic Shapeshifting: The film ends with a conference of pig delegates from other farms across the country, which a work-fatigued Benjamin decides to spy on; halfway through, Benjamin is so exhausted that he briefly hallucinates that Napoleon and his cronies are transforming into doubles of the tyrannical Farmer Jones - as with the original novel, a sign that the pigs have become indistinguishable from their former oppressors.
- Self-Disposing Villain: During the second invasion of Animal Farm, Jones ends up blowing himself up along with the windmill.
- Shout-Out: Snowball tells the animals his plan for electricity will mean "a light in every stall" which is reminiscent of Herbert Hoover's "a chicken in every pot" slogan.
- Snow Means Death: Appropriately, it's snowing the day of Snowball's assassination.
- This Is Unforgivable!: When word gets out about what the pigs have done to Animal Farm, with the "some are more equal than others" commandment and their plan to spread this totalitarian ideology across the world, the animals of the other farms, regardless of their own welfare, are completely infuriated. They rise up, joining forces to become an army the world has never seen the like of, and completely crush them in the ending."To the animals, it now seemed that their world, which may or may not some day become a happy place to live in, was worse than ever for ordinary creatures, and another moment had come when they must do something about it…"
- Too Dumb to Live: In the book, Jones dies in a home for alcoholics. Here he fills the windmill with dynamite but is too busy drinking to leave before the fuse goes off, although it's up to interpretation if that was the case or his plan all along since he was just shunned to join the attack on the farm because of his drunkenness.
- The Voiceless:
- Mr. Jones doesn't say much more than a few incoherently mumbled words, while his pigs spend the whole film talking to each other.
- Most of the animals count too; the pigs get the majority of the dialogue and the rest of the animals, like Boxer and Benjamin, rely on animal sounds, body language, and the ever-present narrator to convey their messages to the audience.
- Whip of Dominance: Farmer Jones uses a chain whip to stop his livestock from eating, showing he has control over the animals. The livestock had quite enough of his abuse and scare him away.
- Wicked Wastefulness: After the pigs led by Napoleon make the farm a profitable enterprise for themselves, Benjamin, the donkey, spies into the farm house, and sees a pig taking bite out of an apple, and throwing over his shoulder. The apple lands close to another pig, who brushes it away onto a pile of more apples that only has one bite taken out.
- Wingding Eyes: As Mr. Jones abuses the animals with his whip after they try to feed themselves out of hunger, a few of the rebelling angered animals’ eyes, including Snowball’s, turn bloodshot red. May count as
Nightmare Fuel to some viewers.
