Shrek
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The name Shrek is probably derived from the German word schrecklich, meaning terrible.
The film features the voices of Mike Myers as a large green ogre named Shrek, Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona, Eddie Murphy as a talkative donkey, and John Lithgow as the vain 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.
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 animation, particularly in computer animation.
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Plot
The story tells how the ogre Shrek is forced by Lord Farquaad to rescue Princess Fiona from a dragon for Farquaad to marry. Along the way, Shrek befriends a talking Donkey, and falls in love with Fiona.
The film contains parodies of many fairytale stories and classic Disney films. Lord Farquaad's face visually resembles Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who fired current Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg from Disney in 1994.
Sequels
- 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.
- Shrek 3. A sequel with that title was announced on June 2, 2004. According to the studio, it is planned for release in the winter of 2006, and members of the crew are to include the writing team of Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman and Jon Zack, and the three lead voices from the previous movies: Mike Myers as Shrek, Eddie Murphy as the donkey, and Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona.
- Shrek 4 was announced on August 19, 2004 and is planned to bring back all the cast and be released in 2010.
- Shrek 5, or a prequel to the first Shrek, is unannounced, but suspected from Katzenberg's statement, "Shrek 3 and 4 are going to reveal other unanswered questions and, finally, in the last chapter, we will understand how Shrek came to be in that swamp, when we meet him in the first movie. There is a reason he came to be there, but there is another chapter to the story before that."
Other media
Original story on which the film is based: Stieg, Wiliam (1990). Shrek , Sunburst Paperback. ISBN 0-374-46623-8
Also several video game adaptations of Shrek have been published on various game console platforms.
External links
- Shrek at the Internet Movie Database
- DreamWorks SKG Fansite for Shrek
- William Steig's web page describing the original 1990 story book
- Shrek 3 at the Internet Movie Database
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