Why is the footage from 40 years ago?

I'm sure it's because the major corporations wouldn't allow any recent footage to be used. The trivia says it took years for the filmmakers to even get the footage used in the film.

Most of the footage isn't as old as it appears. It's bad quality because it was filmed with concealed cameras and/or from a long distance. It took six years for the filmmakers to gather enough footage because it is so difficult to obtain.

It is really telling that there are NO meat plants or other parts of this industry that will allow for what they do to be known. They do that because hiding it makes for higher profits. Most people don't WANT to know what goes on behind closed doors because it's so much easier to put their blinders on, eat their cheeseburger, and pretend everything's all hunky-dorey.

I dont know where you got the idea that the videos of animal mistreatment is 40 years old.

As another poster wrote, small concealed camera's by their nature do not have high def resolution.

To pointedly answer your question, the food animal industry has definitely NOT cleaned up. They have only gotten far worse as corporate lobbies have achieved further de-regulation of their money making industries. What does a suit in a skyscraper care about how the animal was killed? He only wants to make that the company makes $215 extra on the skin of the animal that is fried up for human consumption.

There's a new law called "Ag-gag" that forbids people from filming the truth behind factory farms, look it up.

Because laws passed that made the things you see in the movie illegal (at least here in europe) so of course those retards with their eating disorder had to fall back to outdated old footage for their laughable propaganda.