She acts strange when sunset comes near. She does this in a number of occasions. She decides to camp while they are on there way to Farquad’s kingdom and during the wedding vowels with Farquad, she wants to skip it when she see the sun setting. One example of Princess Fiona’s feistiness is Shrek rescues her, but doesn’t slay the dragon, which he is meant to do first. Fiona speaks to Shrek in a modernised way with a different tone to her voice: You didn’t slay the dragon? ” Shrek responds: “It’s on my to-do list. ” This is a fine example, especially when Shrek plays the same game as her.
It is obvious that Shrek and his sidekick Donkey are the heroes of the film. Shrek becomes jealous of Farquad and tries to stop the wedding between Princess Fiona and Lord Farquad. Donkey helps him with his plan. Shreks succeeds when Princess Fiona gets exposed to the sun set when she turns into an ogre, just like Shrek. Lord Farquad wants them dead, so they both fight Farquad’s men, but they cannot win. Donkey saves the day when he and the dragon they didn’t slay destroy the men and the dragon eats Farquad. Shrek and Fiona kiss and then Fiona turns into a ray of light and then stays the same.
A touching moment in that scene when Fiona says she’s ugly, but Shrek says she’s beautiful which enlightens her. The film includes a whole host of fairy tale characters, which Disney now uses. DreamWorks can get away with it because the movie is a parody and Disney did not create the characters shown – they were characters (and legends) created decades and centuries ago, many by book authors. DreamWorks also makes fun of Disney. What makes Shrek a classic in its own right is that it successfully pokes fun at other animated movies and past fairy tales (Pinocchio, Beauty and the Beast, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, etc.
) while subtly presenting itself as a fairytale at the same time. Shrek also includes spoofs from other movies. Some examples are When Tinkerbell falls on Donkey and he says “I can fly” and people around including three little pigs, go say, “He can fly, he can fly” it is referencing Disney’s Peter Pan movie. When Donkey is flying he says “You might have seen a house fly, a super fly, but I bet you’ve never seen a Donkey fly. ” This is a reference to Disney’s Dumbo. When Shrek crosses the bridge to the Castle and says, “That’ll do, Donkey, that’ll do” he is referencing the movie Babe.
Fiona singing to blue bird is a reference to SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs. Princess Fiona fighting the Merry Men is a lengthy reference to The Matrix. Transformation scene at the end strongly references Beauty and the Beast. Gingerbread Man at the end with a crutch (and one leg) saying, “God bless you everyone” is a reference to little Timmy in A Christmas Carol. Shrek is a colourful film, which is meant for kids, but adults too can join and see the fun that Shrek has to offer. The characters also reflect their vocal talents.
Shrek is an ogre, big, just like Chris Farley who was supposed to do the voice of Shrek. But he passed away so Mike Myers took over. Playing Shrek’s “sidekick” is a donkey named Donkey. For the voice, the Shrek team selected Eddie Murphy. Murphy’s last experience as a voice over artist came in Disney’s Mulan where he played Mulan’s sidekick, Mushu the Dragon. Eddie Murphy, who is funny, clever and finds a solution to every situation uses over the top acting. Playing the role of the princess – who is unlike any past animated fairy tale princess – is actress Cameron Diaz.
She describes the princess as “a little spark plug. ” What makes Shrek different for Diaz is that it is her first ever voicing of an animated character. One of Diaz’s sequences in the movie includes a fight scene that mimics some moves from The Matrix. Diaz was psyched about that part of the movie because she was doing intense daily martial arts training for Charlie’s Angels. John Lithgow was the vocal talent Lord Farquad. When storyboard artists and other crew pitch an idea to the directors, they act out the characters in the sequence, including character dialogue.
The Shrek filmmakers were so impressed with some of these performances that they cast some of their crew as animated character voices. This includes story artist Conrad Vernon as the Gingerbread Man, Chris Miller as Geppetto (and as the Magic Mirror), Cody Cameron as Pinocchio (and one of the three little pigs), and Christopher Knights as one of the three blind mice. A few real life voice artists did make their way into Shrek. One well-known voice artist, Jim Cummings, was cast as the Captain of the Guards. Cummings has voiced over 100 animated characters in his lifetime.
This includes voicing Tigger and Winnie the Pooh in last year’s Disney animated film, The Tigger Movie. The 3-D animation is very realistic. It has a very smooth gradient and uses soft shapes. The lighting also looks very real. There are shadows where there should be shadows and very natural looking sunlight and moonlight. Reflections seen in Armour also add to a sense of realism. I even noticed some backlight on Lord Farquad and his army when they ride in to one scene, giving him the halo affect. Light coming through stained glass windows in the last scenes is also quite effective.
Unfortunately, some of the backgrounds scenes look very unrealistic and make the shots look quite shallow. The use of color is suggestive of fairytale scenes. Pastures and woods are very green, flowers are very bright, and sunsets are very golden. In contrast, Lord Farquad’s town is gray, suggesting boredom and fitting with his character. The evil castle is dark and haunting, as is the surrounding land. Lots of red and black are used in the castle scenes, to convey the danger and heat from the fiery pits. The evil dragon is first seen as black but then when you realize that it’s a girl, her real color is revealed.
Realistic camera framing and movement is used effectively too, and include a wide shot of the village, camera height and tilt to the reveal bad guy, tilt to reveal the height of castle, Over the Shoulder two Shots, Point of View and close-ups. Special effects type of shots is really effective in conveying the humor. Slow motion running as they run from the dragon parodies action movies. End of the day it’s a very good movie, which can be enjoyed again and again. A masterpiece, and due to its popularity a sequel is on its way.
