‘Animal Farm’ Review: Seth Rogen, Kieran Culkin and Glenn Close Voice Andy Serkis’ Dumbed-Down Orwell Adaptation

I said this 20 years ago. Don’t need a thesis.

This is one of the most condescending, childish replies I've ever seen on the internet. The irony of your last sentence is staggering.

I think the book is anti authoritarian, Orwell just fell for the lie the USSR was all rainbows and sunshine until Stalin came along. Lenin and Trotsky were both just as authoritarian as Stalin, Stalin just weaponized the system for his own benefit unlike those two, who while still being dictatorial monsters genuinely believed in it while Stalin was more cynical. If Trotsky had taken power, there’s probably not as many purges and no holodomor, but the USSR might still be worse off because Stalin focused on industrializing the nation and focusing on what he had unlike Lenin and Trotskys plan of focusing on spreading communism to other countries. Plus Trotsky was still all for authoritarianism and dictatorship. Remember, Lenin started the dictatorship and secret police, not stalin. Lenin believed democracy and free speech were tools of capitalist control, and instead of giving the means of production to the workers put them in the hands of a small group of oligarchs, ahem I mean socialist intellectuals, because he didn’t trust the people not to go back to capitalism.

I'm all ears for any sources you have to the contrary that he wrote the book as a critique of Stalin and how specifically the Russian revolution went wrong.

While it is a great example of dark humor, kids chanting the line used to promote inequality might be one of the best examples as to why this probably shouldn't have been made into a kid's movie.

As a massive Vonnegut fan I think about how he would feel about the last decade pretty often. During the 2000s he absolutely hated the Bush administration so can only imagine. In a way happy he hasn't had to witness this shit show.

No, they're not.

On one hand there's that, and on the other hand Russia has been allowed to literally collect ousted world leaders since at least the 1900's. This also encourages leaders on the outs to form stronger bonds and make deals while still in influence. I'm not saying they have powerful as individual leaders of smaller powers, but there's an amount of influence you get when you are a leader at all, and you have information that is pretty great to have about where and how money flows. That said, Russsian spies etc. aren't joked about as incompetent in most any serious media, and for a reason. If you're going to underestimate Russian influence, then at least contend with the reality they've [had deep tendrils within the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen) in ways that support the idea that Russia might specifically have one over on the US in ways that most places might not.

I didn’t mean The Studio is the only good thing that he’s done. I meant that it’s an outlier because it has a different tone and type of humor than his other work.