Shrek

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Template:Infobox Film Shrek is a computer-animated movie adaptation of William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture-book of the same name. It was directed by New Zealander Andrew Adamson and animated by DreamWorks Animation SKG in May 2001. It was the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a category introduced in 2002. It was released on DVD on November 2 2001.

The name Shrek is taken from the Yiddish word שרעק (pronounced Shreck) meaning 'fear, terror' and the German "Schreck" with the same meaning.

The film features the voices of Mike Myers as a quiet, erratic large green ogre named Shrek, Cameron Diaz as the beautiful Princess Fiona, Eddie Murphy as a talkative donkey named Donkey, and John Lithgow as the villainous Lord Farquaad.

The voice of Shrek was originally recorded by Chris Farley. After his death, Mike Myers was brought on to replace him. 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 used when she told him bedtime stories. Curiously, 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.

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, 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.

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Plot

The story tells how the ogre Shrek is forced by Lord Farquaad to rescue Princess Fiona from a lovestruck dragon for Farquaad to marry. Along the way, Shrek befriends a talking Donkey, and falls in love with Fiona.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Shrek lives a quiet and lonely life in his small swamp, until his peace is disturbed by the arrival of a host of "fairytale creatures", who were exiled by the nearby dominion of Duloc by its ruler, the vain (and exceedingly short) Lord Farquaad. One creature who escaped Faarquad's purge is Donkey, an extremely talkative donkey; he and Shrek travel together to Duloc in an attempt to rid Shrek's swamp of the intruders. After defeating many of Duloc's knights in a tournament, Shrek and Farquaad reach a bargain wherein Farquaad agrees to remove the creatures if Shrek rescues and brings to him Princess Fiona, a princess who is imprisoned in a castle guarded by a dragon, awaiting the knight who will rescue her. Only if Farquaad is able to marry a princess may he assume the title of King.

After many (mis)adventures in which Shrek is consistently irritated by the friendly but overly talkative Donkey, Shrek and Donkey manage to reach the dragon's castle (the dragon is a red-violet dragon with a pair of fin like ears, white spiked cheeks, and enormous folding wings). Donkey is cornered by Dragon on a bridge, who reveals herself to be a female (note her makeup, green slitted eyes and toothed smile); in an attempt to prevent himself from being eaten, Donkey sweet-talks Dragon (compliments her hygiene), causing her to fall in love with him and carrying him in her teeth (as he turns around and calls for Shrek) off to the throne room. Meanwhile, Shrek rescues Fiona from Dragon's keep. As he opens the door, he sees Dragon with Donkey. The Dragon has brought Donkey to a private chamber and has wrapped him in her long tail, and is now seducing him. While seducing him, she lights a chandelier and strokes his fur with her finger. Just as Dragon is about to kiss Donkey, Shrek knocks him out of her coils, and she kisses Shrek's rump instead; in a rage, she chases them through the castle. Shrek, Fiona and Donkey then escape from Dragon's lair. As they make their escape and Dragon gets caught on a chain, she weeps.

Shrek and Fiona initially dislike each other--Fiona is angered that her rescuer is an ogre and not the expected Prince Charming; however on the journey back they begin to like one another. Fiona reveals herself to be more than just a pretty face; when the trio is attacked by a French-speaking Robin Hood (who assumes that the ogre has kidnapped Fiona), Fiona proves herself to be a martial-arts expert and single-handedly defeats the attackers. Shrek, despite his tough and non-caring exterior, starts to develop romantic feelings for Fiona.

On the way back, Donkey discovers that Fiona is under a curse which causes her to turn into an ogre every night at sunset (and then turn back again the next morning). The only way to break the curse is to receive "true love's first kiss". While Fiona laments to Donkey that she is ugly, Shrek (who having finally made up his mind to propose is bringing flowers to her) partially overhears the conversation and thinks that Fiona is calling him ugly.

The misunderstanding causes a bitter split. Shrek and Donkey go back to the Swamp while Fiona and Farquaad make wedding arrangements, with Fiona desiring to be married before that evening's sunset so that Farquaad will never see her in her ogre form. Donkey follows Shrek back to his swamp; after an argument, Donkey informs Shrek that she was not calling him a "hideous, ugly beast". Together, they travel on the back of the beautiful Dragon they previously battled (who is now Donkey's girlfriend) to Duloc and crash the wedding (though not in time to prevent the vows from being taken). Farquaad and the assembled guests laugh at the notion of the ogre marrying the lovely Fiona. At that moment, the sun sets, and Fiona reveals her curse to all assembled. Farquaad, repulsed at Fiona's ogre form, orders her carried away. A struggle ensues, and Dragon crashes through the palace windows and devours Farquaad, spitting out his crown and belching. Donkey makes the cheeky remark, "Celebrity marriages! They never last, do they?"

Shrek and Fiona then exchange proclaimations of love, and he kisses her, but instead of this turning her back to a human being, she turns permanently into an ogre. When Fiona says that the kiss was supposed to turn her beautiful, Shrek says that she was beautiful. This ending stresses the relativity of beauty, thus lending the allegory its moral. Donkey ruins this, though, by saying, disappointed: "I thought it was going to be a happy ending..."

After the wedding, the song I'm a Believer is played while all the magical creatures visit. One of the cute scenes is when Fiona throws the bouquet and Dragon catches it (Dragon is holding Donkey in her tail again), then shows it to Donkey. The newlyweds ride off into the sunset in a carriage shaped like an onion.

The bonus scene shows all the characters dancing and singing at a karaoke party.

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Parodies and Jokes

  • The castle in Duloc is an obvious parody of Disneyland, complete with a box office, turnstiles, ushers dressed up in ridiculous costumes, and ropes for queueing up patrons seeking admittance.
  • The character Lord Farquaad was modeled after former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who fired current DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg from Disney in 1994.
  • Earlier in the movie, when the fairy tale creatures invade Shrek's swamp, the Papa Bear and the Baby Bear are there, but the Mama Bear is nowhere to be seen. But after Shrek explained to Donkey why he is better alone, when cutting to Farquaad's bedroom, we see what had happened to Mama Bear - she has been turned into a rug. (However, she manages to show up unharmed in the karaoke music video.)
  • During the rescuing of Princess Fiona from the dragon, in the part when Fiona says where the exit is and when Shrek says, "Well, I have to save my ass," (referring to Donkey), there is a cookbook in the background about how to eat a knight.
  • When entering Farquaad's room, in the back of Farquaad's bed, there are paintings of himself. The middle painting show Farquaad rising from the sea. This is a parody of the Greek mythology of the Goddess of Love, Venus, doing the exact same thing, and of the Botticelli painting "The Birth of Venus".
  • In the scene when Fiona is fighting off Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Fiona jumps in a still motion and the camera goes around her in mid-air. This is a reference to the movie, The Matrix.
  • Fiona's "transformation" after she kisses Shrek is practically identical to the Beast's transformation in Beauty and the Beast.
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Box Office Totals

  • Budget - $60,000,000
  • Marketing cost - $45,000,000
  • Opening Weekend Gross (Domestic) - $42,347,760
  • Total Domestic Grosses - $267,665,011
  • Total Overseas Grosses - $216,744,207
  • Total Worldwide Grosses - $484,409,218
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Cast

Image:Screenshot of the character Shrek from film Shrek 2.jpg

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Main cast

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Minor Cast

Image:Gingerbread man.jpg

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Songs and performers

A list of songs which were performed during the film. Songs which were included on the soundtrack are listed in boldface.

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Sequels

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  • Shrek 4-D- A 15 minute 4D sequel elaborating on Shrek and Fiona's honeymoon.
  • Shrek 2 - Was released on May 19, 2004 and quickly overtook Disney's Finding Nemo as the highest grossing opening weekend for an animated feature. It is the third most successful movie of all time, behind only "Titanic" and 1977's original "Star Wars."
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Other media

Original story on which the film is based: Steig, William (1990). Shrek!, Sunburst Paperback. ISBN 0-374-46623-8

Also several video game adaptations of Shrek have been published on various game console platforms.

In late 2005 Shrek was released on the Game Boy Advance Video format.

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External links

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es:Shrek fa:شرک fr:Shrek hr:Shrek it:Shrek he:שרק hu:Shrek nl:Shrek ja:シュレック no:Shrek pl:Shrek sq:Shrek fi:Shrek sv:Shrek

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