Shrek

[Ben]

proof positive that DW does NOT "have no original ideas except Shrek."

Which, of course, was based on a book...

[ShyViolet]

So was Prince of Egypt.
Which had strains of Ben-Hur thrown in for good measure and was partially inspired by that old Charlton Heston movie, what's it called again.....

Also, I don't know if anyone realizes this but Monsters Inc, a very good film, was quite reminiscent of Where the Wild Things Are, E.T, The Wizard of Oz and other children's books/films. Not that it made it any better or worse. But there's nothing totally original nowadays.



Anyway, the Shrek book itself was like 20 pages and had only the barest bones of the animated Shrek story. No Fiona is really an Ogre, no Duloc, no Faarquad, no Dragon either if memory serves....

Anyway, maybe DW films were often "inspired" by other sources like Bambi (Spirit) or The Man Who Would Be King (Road to El Dorado) or the 1940 film The Thief of Baghdad (Sinbad). That 1940 film is, by the way, extremely similar to Disney's 1992 Aladdin--the villain is named Jafar, the Sultan loves toys, the Thief wants to marry the princess and fakes being a prince with the Genie's help. I'm totally serious. So between Cobbler and Baghdad, Disney's Aladdin was a total rip-off. But so what? It was still very original in its own way and had lots of its own magic. Nothing is ever totally original.


And yeah...Over the Hedge...TOTAL rip-off....RJ is clearly a Meeko clone....and Kung-Fu Panda....oh great, another martial arts Panda movie, will they ever stop??? And Prince of Egypt? Oh man, I can't tell you how sick I was of animated Bible flicks when that film was released....

[Dacey]

Sorry WJ, I just never caught on to Rugrats. Maybe I was too old for it when it got popular...I just never liked the designs, or the voices, which grate on me no end! All that Nick stuff is icky-poo cutey-pie nauseating in my eyes.... IMO it's a total rip off of Muppet Babies, Angelica's like a carbon copy of Baby Piggy, if you ever watched that show.

I wasn't talking about "Rugrats" or "Spongebob" or "Wild Thronberrys" or whatever. Truth be told, I don't really watch Nick that much (I've seen many of their movies, though).

I guess I thought that your "Language" was a bit much there.

[Meg]

I mean you could say Shrek 4d was just "milking" the franchise further but...it turned out to be very good from what I read.

Oh, ew, no, it was horrible. I saw it at Universal Studios and it was...terrible. The 3d effects were pretty lame, and they just recycled jokes from the first movie.

[Daniel]

Here here DJ. Also, you should have seen how excited the crowd in Cornell got when JK said he brought footage of Shrek The Third....

thanks Vi

Ya, believe me if I was there, I would've been like OMG Shrek preview!!

He was like: "If anyone of you holds up a cell phone, I'm gonna come out there and kill ya!" Ha ha.

How funny I still wound've tried though. Imagine.... He would probably want to talk to you in private, and your like, "sike, I just wanted more time with you" he's a celeb so its natural

I mean you could say Shrek 4d was just "milking" the franchise further but...it turned out to be very good from what I read.

Eh... A little . I haven't seen it, but I have read up on it as well. Seems like a mixed bag from what I remember. But look at what Meg wrote, it must be bad...

Maybe this IS Shrek overkill, but still, I think that as long as DW/JK is handling it, it WILL at least turn out decent.

That's the spirit Vi

I don't think this is overkill though, a little much, but who's complaining?

The only thing I wish is that DW would ACKNOWLEDGE its 2d efforts on its web site.

Oh me to Vi! My favorite being Spirit hence the avatar

Same here Dan! I love Private and Rico. My favorite feature on the Mad DVD is that "Penguin Chat."

Those are my favorite to! jawker j/k

Sorry WJ, I just never caught on to Rugrats. Maybe I was too old for it when it got popular...I just never liked the designs, or the voices, which grate on me no end! All that Nick stuff is icky-poo cutey-pie nauseating in my eyes.... IMO it's a total rip off of Muppet Babies, Angelica's like a carbon copy of Baby Piggy, if you ever watched that show.

Never caught on Rugrats? Well I never, nah I didn't either. I watched it here and there, but it was to childish. The designs were ok, but I know what you mean. The voices? Only one or two were bad

I hope that Nick hatred doesn't apply to Spongebob, right?

Btw... Who's gonna watch the 26 hour marathon? It starts today at 8:00pm and last until tomorrow at 10:00pm

Now that's overkill

Along with the marathon there playing the premiere of the SB movie, and a new episode, entitled 'Best Day Ever' absorb the yellow, people

If anyones curious, I'm gonna watch some not all I can't watch something that long

[George J]

This morning my daughter (7) and I got to see a test screening of Shrek the Third. We didn’t know that’s what we were going to see, even as we were standing on line to pass the extra rigorous security. The recruiter did say it would be “a movie from the studio that brought you Madagascar,” so we probably should have been able to guess, but we didn’t. We just found our seats, popcorn and (small) sodas in hand, and hoped for the best. And I’m glad we didn’t know what the movie was going to be because we were pretty excited when they revealed it was Shrek 3. So was everyone else in the packed theater. It was a great moment. My daughter felt like she was part of something special, and so did I. So after being a reader only on this site for the longest time, I was prompted to log my first report from the field for a change.

I’m happy to report that the movie is pretty great. It gets off to a funny start with Prince Charming revealed as having been reduced to an actor playing Prince Charming. I’m not sure that my daughter got the irony, but it made me chuckle. Shrek and Fiona’s first scene is okay, with Fiona trying to hint to Shrek that she’d like to have kids. But then there’s this whole series of scenes about them filling in the King and Queen of Far Far Away. I didn’t understand why they would be doing that. It was a little confusing.

In the next scene, Fiona’s father the Frog King is on his deathbed. Just before he dies (it’s a funny death scene, but he does in fact die right there in front of our eyes), he tells Shrek and Fiona that they will have to be the next King and Queen of Far Far Away unless they can find the only other heir to the throne, Arthur.

That pretty much puts things in motion. There are several stories to follow. Shrek, Puss and Donkey head off to find Arthur, who turns out to be the young King Arthur, at this point still a picked-on kid in high school. Meanwhile, Prince Charming convinces a bunch of villains, led by Captain Hook, to help him stage a coup in Far Far Away. He captures all the Fairytale Creatures from the first two movies (The Wolf, The Three Little Pigs, Gingy the Gingerbread Man, and Pinocchio) but Fiona, her new princess friends (Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty), and the Queen get away. But it’s not long before Charming gets them too.

Late in the movie, the princesses break out of prison and rescue Shrek from Prince Charming, so that was an interesting reversal of how things are usually done in these movies. My daughter really liked the princesses. They’re tough. They fight back. I appreciated the “girl power” idea too. My daughter’s not as into princesses as she once was, but I still cringe when I see all that pink and puff that Disney’s pushing on our girls.

Getting back to Shrek, he’s actually got another big thing to worry about besides getting Artie, which is that he’s soon going to be a dad. This was another subplot that I really liked a lot. Shrek is basically afraid that he might not have what it takes to be a good dad. I remember being worried about that too once upon a time not so long ago. It was really interesting to see Shrek wrestling with that, and it’s funny to see Puss and Donkey giving him conflicting advice about how he should react to the news that Fiona’s pregnant. Of course, when the babies actually arrive at the end of the movie (there are three of them), Shrek turns out to be a great dad. The babies are pretty cute.

Merlin is also in the movie, but with a twist. He’s more like a burned out old hippie than a wizard. It’s pretty amusing. His spells don’t work so well anymore. In fact his one big spell, which is to teleport Shrek, Artie, Puss and Donkey back to Far Far Away in a hurry, doesn’t entirely work. When they arrive, Puss and Donkey have switched bodies! This was my daughter’s favorite part. She loves both these characters and really thought it was a hoot to see them sniping at each other for having to live in each other’s bodies.

I have to be honest that the first half of the movie was a lot more enjoyable for us than the second half. I’m sure that’s because the first half of the movie is already mostly animated and big chunks of the second half are still in story boards. It’s hard to look at those sketches and imagine what the scene will really look like when it’s animated.

Or at least, for me it is. My daughter says she got it all perfectly, and she assures me it’s going to be great! She’s probably right. The scenes that have already been animated are amazing, and the jokes definitely play better when they’re coming out of the mouths of “real” characters. Plus I guess the whole point of these test screenings is to see what’s working and what’s not, so I’m sure my daughter is right.

I too have faith. Based on what we saw today, this is going to be a great movie for the family. Certainly my daughter and I can’t wait to see it again when it’s finished.

[ShyViolet]

Thanks for that! This makes me really happy.

Because of the spoilers, I skimmed the review, but was really glad to see you liked it.

[Daniel]

I agree with Vi, this makes me really happy .

Your so lucky! You don't know how jealous I am

With that excellant review, I have alot more confidence in the sequel. And people were doubting, cough*jimhill*cough

Thanks for all the insight and welcome to the boards George J!

Btw... I only read a little, don't want to be to spoiled

[ShyViolet]

And people were doubting, cough*jimhill*cough

Not to mention all the people who *LOVE* DreamWorks (not! )that post on his site.

People are certainly entitled to their opinion, but it's scary how much some of them hate DW films.... And I mean EVERY DW animated film that was EVER produced.

Of course it's their right to feel that way too, but the venom on that site....*shudders*

You should have seen what they wrote after Jim's Shrek the Third "preview" article....
I don't post there anymore.

[bawpcwpn]

Thanks George. Sounds good. I'm looking forward to seeing this film next year. Its definitley number 3 in my top 5 animated films to see next year being..

1. Ratatouille
2. Surfs Up
3. Shrek the Third
4. Meet the Robinsons
5. Bee Movie

[Josh]

Thanks for the review, George! Furthermore, welcome to the Animated News Forum!

[Ben]

Ditto!

[Meg]

And people were doubting, cough*jimhill*cough

True, but it wasn't Jim Hill who wrote the review, it was someone else. And didn't they like the first two films?

[ShyViolet]

And didn't they like the first two films?

You mean the people on the Jim Hill forum? Nah, most of them hate anything Shrek with a passion. Anything DW.

True, but it wasn't Jim Hill who wrote the review, it was someone else.

I seem to remember that Ben was pretty sure that it WAS Jim writing under a psuedonym..

[Meg]

You mean the people on the Jim Hill forum? Nah, most of them hate anything Shrek with a passion.

Actually I was talking about the writer of the article. They may of not, I'm not sure...

I seem to remember that Ben was pretty sure that it WAS Jim writing under a psuedonym..

That doesn't make it true. Their writing styles seem pretty different to me, so I don't think it's Jim.