Everything about Shrek totally explained
Shrek, an animated feature
film, by
DreamWorks Animation debuted in 2001, and is very loosely based upon
William Steig's
1990 fairy tale picture book entitled
Shrek! It was directed by
New Zealander
Andrew Adamson and Los Angeles artist
Vicky Jenson and animated by
DreamWorks Animation SKG.
Shrek was the first film to win an
Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a category introduced in 2001. It was released on
DVD and
VHS on
November 7 2001.
The film features the voices of
Mike Myers as a large, strong, solitude-loving, intimidating
ogre named
Shrek (from the
German word "schreck" meaning "terror" or
Yiddish word שרעק, meaning "fear"),
Cameron Diaz as the beautiful but very down-to-earth and feisty
Princess Fiona,
Eddie Murphy as a talkative
donkey named
Donkey, and
John Lithgow as the villainous
Lord Farquaad.
It was critically acclaimed as an animated film worthy of adult interest, with many adult-oriented jokes and themes but a simple enough plot and humor to appeal to children. It made notable use of pop music—the soundtrack includes music by
Smash Mouth,
Joan Jett,
The Proclaimers,
Jason Wade,
The Baha Men, and
Rufus Wainwright.
The film was extremely successful on release in 2001 and it helped establish
DreamWorks as a prime competitor to
Walt Disney Pictures in the field of feature film animation, particularly in computer animation. Furthermore, Shrek was made the
mascot for the company's animation productions.
This film is third on
Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" .
Shrek was also ranked second in a Channel 4 poll of the 100 greatest family films, losing out on the top spot to .
Tagline:
The Greatest Fairy Tale Never Told
Plot
The story begins with
Shrek (voice of
Mike Myers) peaceably enjoying life within his home: a swamp. This is shattered when he inadvertently rescues the stubborn and talkative
Donkey (voice of
Eddie Murphy) from soldiers sent by the ruthless ruler of the Kingdom of Duloc,
Lord Farquaad (voice of
John Lithgow). Farquaad is obsessed with ruling a "perfect kingdom", without any fairy tale creatures in it, and uses the
Magic Mirror to select a princess bride he can marry in order to become a king. He chooses
Princess Fiona (voice of
Cameron Diaz), who is held captive in a castle surrounded by lava and guarded by a fire-breathing dragon.
Much to Shrek's chagrin, Lord Farquaad has relocated all the fairy tale creatures to his swamp. Shrek and Donkey head off to the Kingdom of Duloc so they can complain to Farquaad and Shrek can get his swamp back. When Shrek and Donkey get to the Kingdom, they interrupt a tournament Farquaad is holding in order to select a knight worthy of rescuing Princess Fiona. Lord Farquaad then sends the knights to kill Shrek. Shrek fights the knights, with some help from Donkey, and defeats them. Lord Farquaad, getting an idea, proclaims Shrek the winner of the tournament and agrees to remove the fairy tale creatures from the swamp if Shrek rescues Fiona.
When they get to the castle Shrek and Donkey split up to search for Fiona. As Shrek, after putting on the helmet of a fallen knight finds the princess, Donkey runs into the fire-breathing dragon, which he gets cornered by, and begins to give compliments to her to stop her from killing him. Dragon takes these compliments seriously and she subsequently takes Donkey away to her chambers.
After escaping, Fiona orders Shrek to remove his helmet so they can share true love's first kiss. Shrek refuses her request at first, but then shows her his true face. Upon realizing that he's an ogre and not her true love, she angrily refuses to go with Shrek back to Dulot so Shrek takes Fiona by force instead, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. The three set off back to Dulot.
On their way through the woods, Fiona insists that they should stop and make camp as sunset comes. Fiona sleeps in a little rock cave while Shrek and Donkey talk under the stars, where Shrek reveals he's upset that people judge him as nothing but a monster without getting to know him.
The next night, Shrek and Fiona are about to kiss when Donkey reminds them of the sun setting. Surprised, Fiona rushes into the old windmill near which they're camping. Donkey now thinks that Shrek and Fiona are beginning a romantic liking towards one another, to which Shrek realizes that he and Fiona could never be and storms off.
Donkey enters the windmill, but finds an ogress instead of Fiona. He instantly starts screaming and yelling, until he realizes that the ogress
is Princess Fiona. She then explains that she was cursed by an enchantment: human by day, ogress by night, until she receives her true love's first kiss and takes "love's true form". Donkey brings up Shrek's name, saying that the two of them have a lot in common. Meanwhile, Shrek is outside the door waiting to tell Fiona how he feels about her, but overhears the conversation between Donkey and Fiona, thinking that Fiona is calling him a horrible monster. Shrek leaves, angry and heartbroken, without listening to the rest of the exchange: Fiona requests Donkey not to reveal the secret to anyone. Before Fiona has the chance to tell Shrek, the sun rises, turning Fiona into her human form. Fiona tries to tell him, but he's too angry about what he heard last night. As she still doesn't understand why he was upset about it, Shrek repeats what she said, "who could love a beast so hideous?" Unfortunately, Fiona misunderstands this as Shrek saying even
he thinks she was hideous. Farquaad and his knights then simultaneously appear to escort Fiona back to Duloc, which Fiona gladly accepts. Farquaad gives Shrek his deed to his swamp and he begins to head off. Farquaad takes Fiona back to Duloc and begins the preparations for the marriage, while Donkey rushes to Shrek, telling him to stop Farquaad from taking Fiona. Shrek refuses to listen to him and sets off for his swamp, leaving an upset Donkey behind him.
Shrek goes home to return to his normal life, even more miserable than before. Donkey returns to Shrek's swamp to confront Shrek and tells him that Fiona was talking about somebody else rather than him. Shrek wants to end the wedding before it's too late, but wouldn't be able to make it in time. Donkey then whistles and Dragon appears offering to take them. Upon arriving, Shrek storms in and objects to the wedding.
Shrek tells Fiona that Farquaad only wants to marry her so that he can be king and that he isn't her true love. Farquaad then realizes that Shrek has fallen in love with the princess. He and the rest of the citizens begin to laugh before he reminds Fiona that they're one kiss away from their happily ever after. The sun then sets, revealing Fiona's ogre form. Farquaad, disgusted, orders his knights to kill Shrek and lock Fiona back in her tower. Shrek whistles and Dragon smashes through a stained glass window and swallows Farquaad. Shrek tells Fiona that he truly loves her and they share a kiss that turns Fiona into an ogress permanently. She is initially confused, as she was expecting to become beautiful, but Shrek assures her that she
is beautiful.
At the end, the two get married and set off on their honeymoon in an onion carriage. In a post-credits scene, Shrek hosts a variety of songs sung by many of the characters of the movie.
Production
Robin Williams, who had worked for Katzenberg before in
Aladdin and had had a bitter falling out with him and
The Walt Disney Company after going back on the deal they'd (which can be explained in the
Aladdin page), has hinted in an interview that he's refused a role in this film, because it would mean working for Jeffrey Katzenberg again. He wouldn't state which role he refused.
Chris Farley was originally going to do the voice for Shrek and did at least half of the audio for the voice, but died before the project was completed. Dreamworks then re-cast the voice role to
Mike Myers. After Myers had completed providing the voice for the character and the movie was well into production, he asked to be allowed to re-record all of his lines in a
Scottish accent similar to the one his mother had used when she told him bedtime stories. Myers had also employed this character voicing for a skit during his
Saturday Night Live tenure, and also for the character Stuart MacKenzie in the motion picture
So I Married an Axe Murderer and
Fat Bastard in and
Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Donkey was modeled after Pericles, a real miniature donkey from Barron Park,
Palo Alto, California.
Cast
Soundtrack
Influences
Previous films and TV shows, such as
Fractured Fairy Tales and
The Princess Bride, have parodied the traditional fairy tale. However,
Shrek itself has noticeably influenced the current generation of mainstream animated films. Particularly after
Shrek 2, animated films began to incorporate more
pop culture references and end-film musical numbers. Such elements can be seen in films like
Ice Age 2,
Robots,
Chicken Little, and
Hoodwinked!.
Other media
Books
Original story on which the film is based:
Steig, William (1990). Shrek!, Sunburst Paperback. ISBN 0-374-46623-8
Video games
Several video game adaptations of Shrek have been published on various game console platforms.
Shrek (video game)
Shrek 2 (video game)
Shrek Smash and Crash
Shrek Super Slam
Shrek the Third (video game)
Comic books
In 2003, Dark Horse Comics released a Shrek three-issue mini-series comic book adaptation, which was collected into a trade paperback.
Broadway
A musical version of Shrek is planned for the stage, announced to open on Broadway at The Broadway Theatre with previews starting on November 9, 2008 and opening December 14, 2008.
The cast is as follows, from www.broadway.com and www.shrekthemusical.com
- Shrek: Brian d'Arcy James
- Donkey: Chester Gregory II
- Princess Fiona: Sutton Foster
- Lord Farquaad: Christopher Sieber
- Pinocchio: John Tartaglia and,
- The Dragon: Kecia Lewis-Evans
Jeanine Tesori, composer of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Caroline, or Change is composing the show's music, with the book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. A reading was held in February 2007, and a later one was held in July-August 2007. The hit songs "All Star" and "I'm A Believer" from the original movie will be transformed into musical numbers for the stage (most likely sung by Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona). Tesori and Lindsay-Abaire eventually created two songs for Shrek the Third.
The director is Jason Moore.
Crew
Further Information
Get more info on 'Shrek'.
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