My thoughts on the ending

Well thats what happened after the Soviet Union collapsed, no need to alter if its the truth.

I need to think of a really kick @$$ signature, any ideas?

And a very strange violent uprising that was, with a large number of "terrorists" shooting at the civil population, of which not even one was caught. And, of course, the leadership of the newly freed country was formed largely from members of the old Communist Party.

Well, the definition of allegory is "the treatment of one thing in spirit under the guise of another," or rather, a symbolic form of storytelling. I don't think it necessarily has to be historically accurate; the definition on Dictionary.com certainly doesn't stipulate this.

Plenty of science fiction films about alien takeovers and the like have been read (perhaps a little overzealously) as Communist or Cold War allegories. I.e., the aliens represent "the emotionless Red Menace." And in almost every film, humanity destroys the alien menace somehow through direct involvement by the very American heroes, quite unlike what happened to the real-life Soviet Union. Thus, I think an allegory can be about what could happen/could have happened as much as what actually did happen.

Social commentary can exist without being constrained by the events of history, in short. Maybe one day we'll get a movie that features an ending faithful to Orwell's novel, but until then, if you want historically accurate allegory, there's always, y'know, the book itself.

All *I* care about is whether or not an interesting story is told, and both films have accomplished this for the most part.

I really think people overeach when they want to put a firm stamp down on it's just the real events being in an allegory. I know i myself and others take away much more than just those symbolisms and can argue for a much better one.

I don't think the added ending takes away from the story, as it just tacks on what might come next. There's more to be read from the story about how new dictators can rise from revolution. As one poster mentioned their is symbolism to Benjamin looking the same color as Napoleon.

The book ends with Benjamin and the animals accepting the pigs are now just like the humans, it's a logical step that maybe that's what would of happened next and raises a question, could a new regime under Benjamin become just as corrupt.

You can act all closed off and assume there has to be a step by step analysis of real events to a story that goes beyond that scope and has a story's life itself. You shouldn't be denying that Animal Farm is only just the way to satire the political events. You should be willing to look more at it formally and not just for the contextual meaning. I'm pretty positive a satire story has ever been published that the author didn't want people to see his symbolism as well as get involved in the story, because that wouldn't make them a good artist.