Great Moments in U.S. Covert Operations

Defense Tech recalls how the CIA bought the movie rights to Animal Farm and bowdlerized the story's politics.

Comments

[Deux ex Machina]

Haven't seen the 1954 animated version, but I recommend the the 1999 live action remake featuring none other than Patrick Stewart as the tyrannical pig Napoleon. Looks like a dark version of Babe.

[V "getting close to dinnertime]

Deux:

" Looks like a dark version of Babe."

cool. especially since i had always believed that pork is white meat. mmmmmmmm. BLTs for everyone.

mmmmmmm.

[MattXIV]

I picked up the animated version for $5 at ShopKo a while back. If you've have them around, it's not a bad price to to see the CIA-sponsored alternate ending.

[Evan]

The best part is that, while the CIA took out the explotative humans, they left in the tyrannical pigs. Ask ten people who the CIA or the US Government in general, is represented by.

[mediageek]

Must be nice to be able to buy your way into showbiz with taxpayer money rather than go the traditional route of using one's abilities to act/perform/direct/produce/fuck/shmooze your way to the top.

[Kevin Carson]

The 1999 version took just as many liberties. It ended with a restoration of human rule after the clearly unnatural experiment with animals running their own affairs. The final scene was the Kennedyesque new owner (complete with a convertible, Fats Domino on the radio) coming to inspect the ruined farm with his young family.

[SR]

"The 1999 version took just as many liberties. It ended with a restoration of human rule after the clearly unnatural experiment with animals running their own affairs."

I believe Slate had a review in which it was speculated tongue-in-cheek that the humans coming to the farm at the end were supposed to symbolize the World Bank/IMF.

[abdul]

Maybe the CIA just wanted Animal Farm to seem a little anti-communist. What's wrong with that?

[wsdave]

"The CIA buys the Farm".

How ya gonna go wrong with that?