Can Andy Serkis and Seth Rogen Make ‘Animal Farm’ Family Friendly?

My wife and I have many discussions about when to introduce our twin four-year-olds to different things. We want to share our interests with them, but don’t want them to grow up too fast. There are things I want them to remember their first experiences with, but also some things I want ingrained in their bones. But, more importantly, I want to have a firm reason when they are exposed to something, and I want to be able to communicate that to them. It can’t merely be, “this is important,” something I dealt with quite a bit when I was younger.

One such instance involved the novel Animal Farm. I was introduced to George Orwell’s novel about equal rights and dictatorships via anthropomorphic farm animals as a summer reading assignment when I was ten years old. Y’all, I did not read that book. I tried. My Dad told me how important it was. But I was ten. I had no idea what the f*** was going on. If other folks read it when they were ten and understood its heavy themes, more power to ya. My way to deal with this was to wait for a made-for-TV movie version to drop on TNT later that fall. I didn’t understand that either.

I understood the big story points. Animals wanted rights under a farmer, but were betrayed by pigs. Still, the deeper, social aspects of the movie were lost on me. Even though the movie had animals from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and had Sideshow Bob as one of the voices, it did not click for me in the slightest. I was so not interested that I never ended up trying to properly read the book (I know I should), and my eyes will kind of glaze over when I hear it referenced. Still, my eyebrows raised when I saw that Andy Serkis was making an animated adaptation of the book.

Serkis has been working on the film for over a decade as the director and producer. While it doesn’t currently have a release plan, the film, which stars the likes of Seth Rogen, Kieran Culkin, Laverne Cox, and Glenn Close, premieres at the Annecy Animation Festival this month. A new clip has been released in anticipation of the premiere, and it looks pretty good! Chilling, but good. It features Rogen (playing head pig Napoleon) attempting to convince Gaten Matarazzo’s Lucky that while all animals are equal, pigs should stick with pigs.

The film definitely has the feel of a family-friendly adaptation, while not shying away from bigger themes. Serkis has mentioned in the past that he doesn’t see the film getting too heavy. “We’re keeping it fable-istic and [aimed at] a family audience,” Serkis explained in 2012. “We are not going to handle the politics in a heavy-handed fashion. It is going to be emotionally centered in a way that I don’t think has been seen before. The point of view that we take will be slightly different to how it is normally portrayed and the characters. We are examining this in a new light.”

I get what Serkis is saying from the clip. And, as a test, I did show it to my four-year-olds. One of them said it was “awesome,” while the other was too focused on getting his SpongeBob Monster Truck to ride up my computer cord. Maybe there is a version of this story that will appeal to the whole family? It’s not like the ideas presented are particularly radical. I read a book to my kids called Click Clack Moo that they love, and it is about farm animals collectively bargaining for better conditions. There isn’t any betrayal, but maybe that story will make them primed to experience Orwell’s classic in a way I never was.