Animal Farm Book Comparison

Animal Farm is political satire by George Orwell in 1945, and made into a silver screen adaptation twice, once in 1954 and once in 1999. This comparison is going to use and compare the book to the 1999 movie adaptation of Animal Farm, not the 1954 cartoon versions. As you could imagine, there is a lot in common between the movie and the novelization of Animal Farm, given that the movie is based off of the book. The basic plot line remains the same, including Old Major inciting a rebellion, Mr. Jones being run off the farm, the struggle for power between Snowball and Napoleon, the 7 commandments of animalism and Napoleon's subsequent changing of them to fit his own needs, human attacks and sabotage of Animal Farm, Napoleon running Snowball

For starters, the movie frames itself as a flashback to an earlier time, while the book has everything in the current time, watching things as they unfold. This is important because the book is very open-ended, giving no real ending or solution to the conflict. In contrast, the movie opens with a scene portraying the farm after Napoleon’s rule, which is not even mentioned in the book variant of Animal Farm and is shown in the movie as the so-called ending of the conflict. This is due to the fact that Animal Farm is meant as a form of political satire, and as of the time Orwell wrote the book, some of the events alluded to in the movie had not occurred yet, such as the failure of the Soviet Union and eventual collapse. Additionally, the perspective is different from the book to the movie; the book is in third person, while the movie is seen through the experiences of a narrator, Jessie (one of the animals on the farm). This means that while we got to see all facets of farm life in the book, the movie has slightly more restraint, only getting to see what the narrator sees. Getting into details, there are several minor adjustments. Old Major is shot by Mr. Jones instead of dying of old age , the method that Napoleon uses to execute animals is changed, and a song titled Beasts of England in the book is retitled Beasts of the World in the movie. One of the major adjustments in the movie