“Another fairytale movie is out,” you inwardly groan as your kids jump up and down begging to see it. There’s nothing wrong with them, its just that they are always the same: a perfect man finds a perfect woman and they live happily ever after in lala land, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. This is not the case with DreamWorks’ new film: Shrek. Yes it starts off “once upon a time” and may even end with “they lived happily ever after,” but the characters are lovable in a whole new way, not just for their charm and exceptional looks; the theme of the movie teaches great life lessons that every child and adult should know and the soundtrack is the phenomenal icing on top of the cake.
The movie is named after the main character: Shrek, voice played by Mike Myers. Shrek is not your usual leading man, in fact he is not a man at all, he is an ogre. Fat, green, and ugly, Shrek is the object of terror and disgust in the small fairytale town. He lives alone in his smelly swamp lacking all social skills. When all the fairytale creatures are exiled from the town, they take refuge in the swamp, much to Shrek’s dismay. Shrek demands his privacy back from the ruler of the land: Lord Farquad, voice played by John Lithgow. Lord Farquad agrees to remove the fairytale creatures we are familiar with from previous stories such as the ginger bread man, three blind mice, Cinderella, snow white and the seven dwarves from his swamp, if he goes on mission to rescue a certain princess and brings her back to the kingdom. A talking donkey, voice of Eddie
Murphy, that was also exiled, joins Shrek on this journey. Their journey together is comical and exactly what you wouldn’t expect from your usual fairytale story. Instead of slaying th...
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...on of “I’m a Believer,” that will have you bouncing around and doing silly dance moves you’d never think possible before.
If you’re ready for a new kind of adventure that will have you laughing out loud along with your kids, Shrek is a must see. It’s time you enjoy an original story with lovable characters that will have you rooting for them till the end. Don’t forget the added plus of the must-know life lesson that ties down the theme-beauty from the inside out! This motto can never be reiterated enough and why not do it in a fun way? And get ready to have tons of catchy tunes stuck in your head after hearing the phenomenal soundtrack. Don’t miss this genuine and heartwarming film, DreamWorks production of Shrek-an antagonistic fairytale.
Works Cited
Shrek. Dir. Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson. Perf. Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz. DreamWorks, 2001. Film
Big Fish. Dir. Tim Burton. Perf. Ewan McGregor. S GOLD The Entertainment Network, 2003. DVD.
The first scene of Shrek starts off with him in his swamp having fun to an upbeat track (All Star by Smash Mouth), which presents Shrek to be a laidback, peaceful character. After the opening scene, there were a bunch of nearby villagers, who have negative stereotypes about ogres, headed towards Shrek’s swamp to try to drive him away from there (Constructivism). The usage of stereotypes set a theme for the film, to never judge a book by its cover. Once Shrek met Donkey and Fiona, neither one of them assumed that because Shrek was an ogre, it meant he is an evil monster. In addition, everyone else in the movie does not call him Shrek. Everyone calls him “Ogre” instead, further confirming the stereotype. In another scene after Fiona goes into a cave at night to sleep, Shrek and Donkey have a conversation of the aftermath of their quest to rescue Fiona. Shrek goes off on a tangent about how people hate him despite not even getting to know him. Donkey shows an example of personal construct by telling Shrek that he never thought of him as an ugly monster. This scene shows the bipolar dimensions aspect, where people who never tried to know more about Shrek would have a default negative view about him. Donkey, who learned more about Shrek during their journey, does not characterize him as any type of villain and
Mulan. Dir. Tony Bancroft. Perf. Ming-Na Wen, Eddie Murphy, and Bradley Darryl Wong. Walt Disney, 1998. Film.
We all grew up hoping that we were the princesses who met the dreamy prince and lived ‘happily ever after’ like in a fairytale.People debate over whether or not Disney fairytales are beneficial for children. Like Melissa Taylor the author of the piece ‘10 reasons why kids need to read non disney fairy tales’, I am against disneyfied fairy tales. In this essay I will argue on why kids should not only watch disney fairytales but also the real versions.
The Princess and the Frog. Dir Ron Clements and John Musker. Perf. Anika Noni Rose, Bruno
Produced in 2009, The Frog Princess is a Disney animation inspired by the Grimm Brothers’ fairytale, The Frog Prince. Both The Frog Princess and The Frog Prince deal with a multiplicity of issues, all of which contribute to supporting positive messages and morals (Ceaser, 2009). However, though The Frog Princess is based on a classic fairytale, it is far from being the same. The writers at Disney have taken a classic fairytale and created a “Monster” (Prince, 2001). This essay will examine the evolution of the original Grimm Brothers’ fairytale, the messages both main characters represent, and how the adaptation to fit a modern child readership diminishes a classic fairytale. Through discussing these arguments, this paper will prove that Disney’s adaptation into The Princess and The Frog is counter-productive in representing the original story’s messages, morals, and values.
The movie Shrek is a 3D animated adventure involving the protagonist by the same name and his sidekick, Donkey, as they embark on a journey to save a princess from her castle for Lord Farquaad. On the outside, Shrek is a mean and scary ogre, but underneath his “onion-like” personality lies a sad, lonely soul. Shrek is not a typical, Disneyesque fairytale; it is a fairytale that parodies every “once upon a time” and “happily ever after”. By making an ogre the main character, the film breaks the typically boring, fairytale pattern. As said in the movie Shrek, “sometimes things are not always what they appear to be”. One of the recurring themes in the movie is the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, challenging people’s tendencies toward bias.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Dir. Nicholas Myer. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nemoy. Paramount Pictures, 1982. DVD.
Presentational Devices of Shrek and Reversal of Traditional Roles In this essay, I am going to analyse the characters in 'Shrek'. I will mainly focus on Shrek and Lord Farquuad. I will also write about how the film makers use different presentational devices to create an unusual film. Stereotypically the prince is good and the ogre is evil. In traditional fairy tales ogres are pictured as man-eating beasts, while the Princes are tall, handsome and save the Princess.
In this essay I am going to analyse the characters of shrek and Lord Farquaad, and write about how filmmakers use different camera angles, lighting, music and setting to create an unusual fairy tale. The giant in jack and the beanstalk is what we expect of giants/ogres. In traditional fairy tales ogres are normally man-eating beast, at the beginning of shrek, shrek is what you expect him to be like. When the farmers go to his swamp and the meet shrek. When shrek is shouting at them the low angle camera shot makes shrek look intimidating to the crowd and audience.
Disney has made it his life 's goal to create home entertainment for both young and old. From the creation of Mickey to his work in films, Disney had made it clear that happiness is something that everyone should have. Disney had also know that animations is not just for the imagination of the children. Early movies such as Snow White and Pinocchio have clear messages for the younger views. “In Snow White- the main characters are victims of injustice who are eventually restored to their rightful place. In Pinocchio, the characters Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket and Geppetto are faced with dilemmas, and their own actions result in them becoming victims of ev...
Toy Story is the groundbreaking 1995 motion picture developed by Disney and Pixar and directed by John Lasseter. The film was so revolutionary not only because it was the first feature length animation to be created completely by CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) but also, also the film was more rounded in all respects. The characters not only looked more sophisticated and three-dimensional but their personalities were also more human and fewer cartoons like. The film uses a constructed text in order to put across a theme of two very different characters learning to work together beyond their rivalries to rise above a common enemy and work towards a common goal. The film uses characters and imagery very cleverly to portray this theme. The music used in the film is also different to other Disney features. Rather than the characters bursting into song themselves as in Aladdin or Hercules, the songs are played and sung by an outside person (Randy Newman) and reflect the mood and emotions of the characters in a particular scene. For example, the title sequence song “Friend in Me”, when Woody and Andy are playing together, and the scene where Andy’s room has been made over to a Buzz Lightyear theme, “Strange Things” where the song reflects Woody’s confusion and fear not only about the change in his surroundings but also the change in his friends and his own character and self-confidence. The attention to the smallest detail for example the reflections in Buzz’s visor give the film even more realism and depth. The use of unusual and imaginative camera angles, made possible by the use of CGI, also adds to the texture and pace of the film.
The Lion King. Dir. Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff. By Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, Linda
written by William Steig in 1990 (“Shrek!”). The plot of the book and the film are similar in some ways, but the film adaptation creatively incorporates many different fairy tales into its plot to create a new fairy tale. Some of the fairy tales characters included in the plot are the Gingerbread Man from The Gingerbread Man, Magic Mirror from Snow White, and the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood. For the creators to pull multiple elements of different stories into their own, they used intertextuality, as opposed to allusion, to mold the story into a single universe, where each character feels as though they belong in said
The animated film Shrek is a Dreamworks fairy tale that teaches us to look beyond what we expect to see, by completely subverting the traditional fairy tale concepts of gender, appearance and beauty. The characters in Shrek are vastly different from what we would expect to see in their appearance and behaviour. With unexpected plot twists, the directors of Shrek create important messages and morals that would not usually be conveyed, using techniques such as humour. The techniques have been placed strategically to result in an entertaining and educational film.