Shrek
is a 2001 computer-animated American comedy film, directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, and starring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!
, the film was produced by DreamWorks Animation. 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 2, 2001.
The film stars Mike Myers as a large, strong, solitude-loving, intimidating Scottish ogre named Shrek, from the German word "Schreck" meaning "terror" or Yiddish word ????, meaning "fear". Shrek
also features Cameron Diaz as the beautiful but very down-to-earth and feisty Princess Fiona, Eddie Murphy as a talkative donkey named Donkey, and Lithgow as the villainous Lord Farquaad.
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. 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 popular music—- the soundtrack includes music by Smash Mouth, Eels, Joan Jett, The Proclaimers, Jason Wade, The Baha Men, and Rufus Wainwright (covering Leonard Cohen).
During June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten"— the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community Shrek was acknowledged as the eighth best film in the animated genre, and the only non-Disney-Pixar film on the top ten. [1] [2] . It is also 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 E.T.
. [3]
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Plot
Shrek, an
ogre that has always enjoyed living in peaceful solitude in his swamp, finds his life disrupted when numerous fairy tale beings, including the talkative
Donkey, are forced into the swamp by order of
Lord Farquaad, who is obsessed by many things, including having a perfectly clean and normal realm and his short size. Lord Farquaad's command involves evicting all fairy and magical beings who end up in Shrek's swamp.
Shrek decides to travel the country to see Farquaad to try to regain his privacy, with Donkey tagging along. The two make it to Farquaad's palace in DuLoc, where they find themselves in the midst of a tournament; the winner will have the "privilege" of attempting to rescue
Princess Fiona from a castle surrounded by lava and protected by a fire-breathing dragon so Farquaad may marry the princess and become king, due to the advise of a Magic Mirror, who tells him that technically he is a Lord but not King and offers three Princesses for him to marry:
Cinderella,
Snow White and
Fiona. Shrek and Donkey easily best the other knights, and Farquaad agrees to remove the fairy-tale creatures from the swamp if Shrek goes on to rescue Fiona.
Shrek and Donkey travel to the castle and split up to find Fiona. Donkey manages to encounter the
dragon. While he sweet-talks the beast to save himself when he finds out the dragon is female, she takes a liking to Donkey and carries him to her chambers. When Shrek finds Fiona, she is appalled at his lack of romanticism. As they are leaving, Shrek manages to save Donkey, caught in the dragon's tender love, and causing the dragon to become irate, chasing Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey out of the castle. At first, Fiona is thrilled to be rescued but quickly becomes disgusted to find out Shrek is an ogre. The three make their return journey to Farquaad's palace, with Shrek and Fiona finding they have more in common with each other along the way, and falling in love. However, at night, Fiona refuses to camp with them, taking shelter in a nearby cave until morning.
The next night, Fiona takes shelter in a nearby windmill. When Donkey hears strange noises coming from the windmill, he finds Fiona has turned into an ogre. Fiona explains she was cursed as a child and turns into an ogre every night, which is why she was locked away in the castle, and that only a kiss from her true love will return her to her proper form. Shrek, about to confess his feelings for Fiona, overhears part of their conversation, and misinterprets her disgust at her transformation into an "ugly beast" to be disgust with him. Fiona makes Donkey promise not to tell Shrek about the spell, vowing to do it herself, but when the next morning comes, Shrek has brought Lord Farquaad to Fiona. The two return to the castle, while Shrek returns to the now-vacated swamp.
Shrek finds that despite his privacy, he is miserable and misses Fiona. Donkey shows up to tell him that Fiona will be getting married shortly, urging Shrek into action to gain Fiona's true love. They are able to travel to DuLoc quickly thanks to Dragon, who had escaped her confines and followed Donkey. They interrupt the wedding before Farquaad can kiss Fiona, but not before the sun sets, which causes Fiona to turn into an ogre in front of everyone. While her transformation causes Shrek to fully understand what he overheard at the windmill, Farquaad is furious. Disgusted over the change, he orders Shrek killed and Fiona imprisoned, but Dragon bursts in and gobbles up Farquaad whole. Shrek and Fiona admit their love for each other and share a kiss; Fiona is bathed in light as her curse is broken, but is surprised to find that she has remained an ogress. Shrek calms her by assuring her that she is still beautiful. The two of them get married in the swamp and depart on their honeymoon, while Donkey and Dragon continue their relationship.
Production
Robin Williams, who had worked for Jeffrey Katzenberg before in
Aladdin
and had had a
bitter falling out with him and
The Walt Disney Company over marketing agreements, has hinted in an interview that he refused a role in
Shrek
, because it would mean working for Katzenberg again. He would not state which role he had refused.
[4]
Chris Farley was originally going to do the voice for Shrek and recorded at least half of the dialogue for the character, 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 film was well into production, he asked 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 a Scottish accent for a
Saturday Night Live
skit, and also for the characters Stuart MacKenzie in the motion picture
So I Married an Axe Murderer
, and
Fat Bastard in
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
and
Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Donkey was modeled after Pericles, a real miniature donkey from Barron Park,
Palo Alto, California.
[5]
Simon J. Smith the director of
Shrek 4-D and
Bee Movie. was the Head of Layouts in the film and
Ken Blegiberg was Visual Effects Supervisor.
Cast
- Mike Myers - Shrek
- Eddie Murphy - Donkey
- Cameron Diaz - Princess Fiona
- John Lithgow - Lord Farquaad
- Conrad Vernon - Gingerbread Man
- Chris Miller - Geppetto/ Magic Mirror
- Cody Cameron - Pinocchio / The Three Little Pigs
- Michael Galasso - Peter Pan
- Christopher Knights and Simon J. Smith - Three Blind Mice / Thelonius
- Aron Warner - Big Bad Wolf
- Jim Cummings - Captain of the Guards
- Jerome De Guzman - Blind Mouse
- Vincent Cassel - Monsieur Hood (a French rendition of Robin Hood)
- Kathleen Freeman - Old Woman (Donkey's ex-owner)
Dragon, Snow White, Cinderella, Pied Piper, The Three Bears and several other characters are not speaking roles and are thus uncredited
Soundtrack
Two soundtracks were released for the original motion picture:
- Shrek: Music from the Original Motion Picture, the lyrical soundtrack by various artists
- Shrek: Original Motion Picture Score, the instrumental score, composed by Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell
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
, and
Chicken Little
. It also inspired a number of CG-animated films which also spoofed fairy tales, or other related story genres, often including adult-oriented humor, most of which weren't nearly as successful as
Shrek
, such as
Happily N'Ever After
,
Doogal
,
Igor
, and
Hoodwinked!
.
[6]
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
- Shrek 2
- Shrek Smash n' Crash Racing
- Shrek: Hassle at the Castle
- Shrek Super Slam
- Shrek: Extra Large
- Shrek: Super Party
- Shrek the Third
- Shrek n' Roll
Comic books
- In 2003, Dark Horse Comics released a Shrek three-issue mini-series comic book adaptation, which was collected into a trade paperback. [7]
Broadway
A
musical version of
Shrek
, with music by
Jeanine Tesori and a book and lyrics by
David Lindsay-Abaire, opened on
Broadway at
The Broadway Theatre beginning previews on November 9, 2008 and opening December 14, 2008. It stars
Brian d'Arcy James in the title role,
Sutton Foster as Princess Fiona,
Christopher Sieber as Lord Farquaad, Daniel Breaker as Donkey, and
John Tartaglia as Pinocchio and the Magic Mirror. The musical had a tryout in Seattle, Washington in August and September 2008. The musical received eight
Tony Award nominations including
Best Musical [8] as well as twelve
Drama Desk Awards nominations,
[9] ten
Outer Critics Circle Award nominations,
[10] and three
Drama League Award nominations.
[11] It won the
Tony Award for Best Costume Design.
Reception
Shrek
was received well. It holds an 89% positive response rating on review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes, based on 169 professional reviews.
[12] The film made $42,347,760 during an opening weekend averaging $11,805, making it the highest grossing film that week beating
The Mummy Returns
on its third week with $20 million. The film stayed in cinemas for more than 29 weeks (roughly over 206 days) with following
Shrek 2
at 21, and
Shrek the Third
with 12. It made $267,665,011 domestically, international reaches $216,744,207, for a worldwide total of $484 million, making it the second highest-grossing animated film of the year behind
Monsters Inc.
It is the fourth highest-grossing film of 2001 behind
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
,
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
and
Monsters Inc.
Sequels and Spin-offs
- Shrek 4-D
(2003) (Theme Park Attraction)
- Shrek 2
(2004)
- Shrek the Third
(2007)
- Shrek the Halls
(2007) (Short film)
- Shrek the Musical
(2008) (Theatre)
- Shrek Forever After
(2010)
- Puss in Boots: The Story of an Ogre Killer
(2012)
- Shrek 5
(2013)
See also
- List of animated feature-length films
- List of computer-animated films
- List of fairy tale characters in Shrek
References
- AFI Crowns Top 10 Films in 10 Classic Genres
- Top Ten Animation
- Title Unavailable
- Title Unavailable
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- Is Shrek Bad for Kids?
- Title Unavailable
- Gans, Andrew and Jones, Kenneth."Nominations for 2009 Tony Awards Announced; Billy Elliot Earns 15 Nominations",playbill.com, May 5, 2009
- Broadway.com Staff.Headlines: 9 to 5, Shrek Lead 2009 Drama Desk Nominations April 27, 2009
- Gans, Andrew."Billy Elliot and Shrek Top Outer Critics Circle Awards Nominations",playbill.com, April 20, 2009]
- Gans, Andrew."75th Annual Drama League Award Nominees Announced",playbill.com, April 21, 2009]
- Shrek (2001)