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Shrek
Directed by	Andrew Adamson Vicky Jenson
Written by	William Steig (original book) Ted Elliott Terry Rossio Joe Stillman Roger S.H. Schulman
Produced by	Jeffrey Katzenberg Aron Warner John H. Williams Steven Spielberg (executive producer, uncredited)
Starring	Voices: Mike Myers Eddie Murphy Cameron Diaz John LithgowEragon
Music by	Harry Gregson-Williams John Powell
Distributed by	USA: DreamWorks SKG Non-USA Theatrical: United International Pictures DVD/Video: Universal Pictures (through DreamWorks label until 2006) Paramount Pictures (2006–) Television Distribution: CBS Paramount Television (2006–)
Release dates	May 16, 2001
Running time	90 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$60 million

Shrek is an Academy Award winning animated feature film based upon William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book entitled Shrek! It was directed by New Zealander Andrew Adamson and animated by DreamWorks Animation SKG in May 2001. 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 name Shrek likely comes from the Yiddish word שרעק (pronounced Shreck) or the German word Schreck, in either case meaning "fear" or "terror".

The film features the voices of Mike Myers as a large, strong, solitude-loving yet grumpy green ogre named Shrek, Cameron Diaz as the beautiful but very down-to-earth and feisty Princess Fiona, Eddie Murphy as a talkative donkey named Donkey, and John Lithgow as the villainous Lord Farquaad.

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, Joan Jett, 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.

This film is 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.

Production

Don Bluth revealed in an interview that halfway through production of American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Steven Spielberg approached Don with the concept of making Shrek, as a traditionally animated movie. Don agreed and throughout the rest of the production of Fievel Goes West, he thought about what he was going to do to expand a small story into a feature length script. Steven only had two demands, 1) Bill Murray would play Shrek and 2) Steve Martin would play Donkey, both were available at the time. However, when Fievel Goes West was released in cinemas, Steven spoke highly of it, but spoke even more highly of rival Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Don felt betrayed by this, leading to a bitter falling out between the two and Shrek being put in development hell.

Chris Farley was originally going to do the voice for Shrek and did at least half of the audio for the voice, 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 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. 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.

Plot synopsis

Shrek (voice of Mike Myers) is a large, intimidating, solitude-loving ogre, who lives a quiet life in his home in a swamp. But this peaceful life is shattered when he inadvertently rescues the stubborn and talkative Donkey, who escapes from his owner after a brief incident involving fairy dust, (voice of Eddie Murphy) from soldiers sent by ruthless ruler of the Kingdom of Duloc, Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow). Having a task to round up all fairy tale creatures, Farquaad is obsessed with ruling a perfect kingdom and uses the Magic Mirror to select a princess bride he can marry in order to become a king. He chooses Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), who is held captive in a castle surrounded by hot, boiling lava and guarded by a fire-breathing dragon.

Much to Shrek's chagrin, Lord Farquaad has relocated all the fairy tale creatures to his swamp. Shrek and Donkey immediately head off to the Kingdom of Duloc so they can complain to Farquaad and Shrek can get his swamp back. When Shrek and Donkey get to the Kingdom, they interrupt a tournament Farquaad is holding in order to select a knight worthy of rescuing Princess Fiona. Shrek fights the knights, with some help from Donkey, and defeats them. Lord Farquaad proclaims Shrek the winner of the tournament and agrees to remove the fairy tale creatures from the swamp if Shrek rescues Fiona.

On their way to Duloc, they travel through a vegetable field, where Shrek explains to Donkey that ogres are like onions. Donkey then starts comparing Shrek to more tasty treats that people like. But Shrek tells Donkey that ogres are only like onions since "they have layers".

When they get to the castle, a rickety bridge is in their way to enter the castle. Shrek and Donkey begin to cross, but Donkey is afraid to cross. Shrek starts forcing Donkey to move back and finally stepping off. Once they enter Dragon's Keep, Shrek and Donkey split up to search for Fiona. Donkey is sent to find the stairs, since Shrek remembers reading a book once that said the princess is in the highest room of the tallest tower. Donkey, in search of the stairs, runs into the fire-breathing dragon guarding Fiona. Donkey meets back up with Shrek while chased by Dragon. Shrek grabs a hold of the dragon's tail, but gets catapulted in the process into the princess's bedchamber. Donkey then gets cornered by Dragon. Donkey begins to give compliments to Dragon to prevent his captor (who is female) from killing him. Dragon then takes his compliments seriously and begins to fall in love with him. Dragon then takes Donkey away to her chambers.

Shrek, with his face obscured by a helmet, gets up and finds Fiona, laying on her bed, waiting to be rescued. Instead of sharing a kiss, Shrek shakes her awake. Shrek grabs her and they run to save Donkey. Right when Dragon is about to kiss Donkey, Shrek drops a chandelier around her neck and Dragon accidentally kisses Shrek's butt. The three escape, as a chained Dragon is left at the castle and roars out, apparently depressed at losing Donkey and failing to guard Fiona.

After escaping, Fiona orders Shrek to remove his helmet so they can share true love's first kiss. Shrek refuses her request at first, but then shows her his true face. She figures out he's an ogre and not her true love. She then angrily refuses to go with Shrek back to Duloc. She demands that Shrek tell Lord Farquaad to rescue her properly but Shrek then takes Fiona by force by picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. The three set off back to Duloc.

On their way through the woods, Fiona tells them they need to stop and make camp as sunset comes. Fiona sleeps in a little rock cave while Shrek and Donkey talk under the stars. But Fiona hears their conversation about people thinking Shrek is a monster before even getting to know him. Donkey thinks different and doesn't think he is a monster. The two start to bond more together.

The next morning, Fiona makes up for overreacting and makes them breakfast from a bird's eggs. Shrek and Donkey then realize Fiona is not a typical damsel-in-distress. Robin Hood then comes and rescues Fiona from Shrek, thinking he is going to harm her but Fiona beats him up and all of his merry men. Shrek and Fiona begin a bond. They have a lot in common like eating flies, spiders, and weed rats. That night, Shrek and Fiona are about to kiss when Donkey reminds them of the sun setting. Surprised, Fiona rushes into the old windmill near which they are camping. Donkey now thinks that Shrek and Fiona are beginning a romantic liking towards one another. Shrek tells Donkey that they could never be and storms off as Donkey knows that Shrek is upset that they can never love one another.

Donkey enters the windmill, seeing if Fiona is okay, but then finds out that Fiona is really an ogress, cursed by an enchantment: human by day, ogress by night. Fiona is disgusted at her own appearance. Donkey tells Fiona to reconsider marrying Farquaad. He brings up Shrek's name, saying the she and he both have a lot in common. Outside, meanwhile, Shrek is outside the door waiting to tell Fiona how he feels about her, but hears the conversation between Donkey and Fiona, thinking that Fiona is calling him a horrible monster. Shrek then leaves, angry and heartbroken. Fiona tells Donkey to not tell anyone about this but Donkey convinces her to do one thing: to reveal the situation to Shrek. The sun later rises, turning Fiona into her human form. Shrek then comes back angrily. Fiona tries to tell Shrek but he is too angry to listen about what he heard last night. Farquaad and his knights then simultaneously appear to escort Fiona back to Duloc. Farquaad gives Shrek his deed to his swamp and he begins to head off. Farquaad takes Fiona back to Duloc while Donkey rushes to Shrek, telling him to stop Farquaad from taking Fiona. Shrek doesn't want to listen to him and Shrek goes back to his swamp, leaving an upset Donkey behind him.

Shrek returns to his swamp, saddened. An alone Donkey met with Dragon at the river from which he is drinking and makes up for being rude to her. They begin to like one another. Fiona then knows that the marriage is a mistake. She only wants to marry Farquaad to end her cursed enchantment. Donkey then returns to Shrek's swamp and tells him that Fiona was talking about somebody else but not him. Shrek and Donkey then make up. Shrek wants to end the wedding before it's too late, but won't be able to make it in time. Donkey then whistles and Dragon appears, taking them to the wedding being held at the cathedral in Duloc. Shrek then storms into the room and objects to the wedding.

Shrek tells Fiona that Farquaad only wants to marry her so that he can be king and that he's not her true love. Farquaad then realizes that Shrek has fallen in love with the princess. He and the rest of the citizens begin to laugh. Fiona then shows Shrek her ogre form. Farquaad, disgusted, orders his knights to kill the ogres. Shrek whistles and Dragon smashes through the glass with Donkey on her back. She then subsquently swallows Farquaad. Shrek tells that he truly loves her. They share a kiss that turns Fiona into an ogress all the time, thus possibly destroying the curse.

At the end, the two get married and set off on their honeymoon in an onion carriage. Donkey is now married to Dragon. All the fairy tale creatures wave good-bye to Shrek and Fiona.

Cast

Main cast

Minor cast

Crew

Soundtrack

Influences

Even though previous cartoons, such as Fractured Fairy Tales and The Princess Bride (film), 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 can be seen in films like Ice Age 2, Robots, Chicken Little, and Hoodwinked!. Dreamworks' recent films such as Shark Tale and Madagascar, similar in style to Shrek, were panned by critics. Nevertheless retribution was made by Over the Hedge which was released in the summer of 2006 and received a much warmer reception.

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 (video game)
• Shrek 2 (video game)
• Shrek Smash and Crash
• Shrek: Hassle at the Castle
• Shrek Super Slam
• Shrek: Extra Large
• Shrek: Super Party
• Shrek the Third (video game)

Comic books

• In 2003 Dark Horse Comics released a Shrek three-issue mini-series comic book adaptation, which was collected into a trade paperback.

Theater

A musical version of Shrek is planned for the stage in 2008. Jeanine Tesori, composer of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Caroline, or Change has been commissioned to compose the show's music, with the book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. A reading was held in February 2007, and a later one was held July-August 2007. The hit songs "All Star" and "I'm A Believer" from the original movie will be transformed into musical numbers for the stage (most likely sung by Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona).

References

1. "Definition of Fright", BrainyQuote, retrieved 07 May 2007.
2. Time Magazine May 10, 2007
3. http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=12-541
4. see playbill article December 8, 2006 and playbill article, August 10, 2007

See also

• Other Shrek films
• List of animated feature-length films
• List of computer-animated films
• List of fairy tale characters in Shrek

External links

• Shrek Official Web Site
• Shrek at IMDb
• Shrek at Rotten Tomatoes
• Shrek at Metacritic
• DreamWorks SKG Fansite for Shrek
• William Steig's web page describing the original 1990 story book
• Shrek Rendering Statistics
• Shrek at Box Office Mojo

• Misplaced Pages articles with plot summary needing attention from July 2007
• Shrek
• 2001 films
• Best Animated Feature Academy Award winners
• Annie Award winners
• Computer-animated films
• DreamWorks Animation films
• Fantasy-comedy films
• Children's fantasy films
• Films based on children's books
• Films directed by Andrew Adamson
• Parody films
• American films
• English-language films
• Feature films