DreamWorks stuff

I also agree that the first one is good.

Just because something has memes doesn't mean it doesn't have really good stuff!

I know I'm a minority in this one, but I am more fond of the first Shrek than Shrek 2. Mostly because I had the first one on VHS and rewatched it plenty of times, whereas I saw the second one, maybe, twice.

I've always compared Shrek to Mel Brooks' output, especially Blazing Saddles regard to incorpating contemporary pop culture and killing of traditional films in a genre.

I also really enjoyed the first Puss in Boots movie. The only Shrek movie I didn't really like was Shrek the Third because the characters weren't as memorable in this movie as they were in the previous movies.

Shrek the Third practically had its villain on a silver platter, primed and ready to go, but they dropped the ball with Charming so badly.

Agree. Like, I thought they were going to do something interesting with Charming, but they didn't really do a good job at making Charming an actual threat. I actually found the Fairy Godmother from the previous movie to be more memorable as the villain.

Speaking of memorable villains, this evening while I have dinner I’m going to watch The Last Wish. Aka the movie where The Grim Reaper is a werewolf.

Oooh! I loved Puss in Boots: The Last Wish! I never thought that the movie would be so good! I especially loved Goldilocks and the Three Bears and their relationship with each other. It's probably one of the main highlights of the film. I also loved how they handled Death as a villain as he really was a pretty threatening villain in the movie.

Those four are also great. Especially when Perrito dropped a Cluster F-Bomb (with a lot of bleeps, of course, but still) and Papa Bear liked it. XD

Edited by Demetrios on May 3rd 2024 at 6:59:25 AM

And Mama Bear was like covering Goldilocks' ears during that part!

Honestly, I think the only bad thing about Puss in Boots The Last Wish is every Dreamworks movie after it is stuck in ther shadow and can't surpass or reach it.

Edited by generation81 on May 3rd 2024 at 5:45:03 AM

That by the way guys, I created thread for Madagascar series since we didn't had one before.

Yeah, that's the trouble with movies that made a mark in the studio. Whenever those movies prove to be so successful or well beloved, it's hard to make another movie that can capture the same praise as the previous movie.

> PIB:TLW

this acronym is completely unreadable to me.

Fixed it, then.

Honestly I just use TLW.

Also man, Death really did the "short in screentime but absolutely memorable".

Edited by Ookamikun on May 3rd 2024 at 8:23:46 PM

Day 6: You guys kinda got ahead of me on this conversation, huh? Makes sense that you all didn't have anything to say about Joseph, though. Anyway...

Edited by lbssb on May 3rd 2024 at 10:39:22 AM

Well, I sort of said my piece about the movie itself already, so I guess I'll talk about What Could Have Been. I've been watching a couple scenes showing Chris Farley's take on the character and I'm kind of surprised about how little the dialogue changed from his version to Myers'. They share a ton of lines like "NO! I'm an Ogre! Doesn't that bother you at all?" And stuff like that. I had expected a lot more things to change.

Apparently sometime after Farley's death, they had contemplated on if the movie should have even been made. What on Earth would DreamWorks even look like in a world where Shrek didn't exist?

Shrek really gets mileage on repeated viewings because you notice little details.

Simply reading Shrek as a "cynical anti-Disney movie" misses out a lot of the subtlety of the movie.

I imagine the landscape of animated films would look VERY VERY different in a world where Shrek never existed, because it changed the landscape of animated films forever. There would probably still be 2D animated films with an occasional CGI one, like it was during the time period Shrek was released.

Movies like Happily N'Ever After and Hoodwinked also wouldn't exist because those were made to capitalize on Shrek's success.

Part of what makes the first Shrek film still hold up is that underneath the cynicism, there is a strong emotional core to the film. Shrek isn't just a jerk, it's clear he has a history of loneliness and his anti-social behaviour is a defense mechanism against being hurt by the people around him. The film plays the themes of true love and inner beauty completely straight, it's just that Shrek was not the kind of character you would see leading a Disney film. There have been Disney protagonists who've been unconventionally attractive or kind of selfish before, but none were as crass as Shrek who openly embraced his rude nature. And yet, the film still shows he's worthy of love and acceptance, even if he has to work hard to overcome the walls he built around himself.

It's a lot like Iron Man 1 in that it's subverts a lot of tropes on the surface, but deeper down it's actually a fairly safe and traditional story - rom com in this case. This continues to make it an extremely appealing entry point to the series, because it eases the audience into taste of the subversiveness while resolving in ways they're still used to.

Shrek didn't really get to the point of "subvert everything" as its major focus until Shrek II, and has waffled between crazy stuff sometimes and traditional stories sometimes ever since - and unlike the Iron Man series, it got even better for testing that balance.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 4th 2024 at 7:24:47 AM

Yeah even the bombasticness of 2, it still has a strong narrative.

Because we still care about these characters in a sincere, earnest matter. The fact that they shuffle things around, doesn't change the fact that the shuffled things perform wonderfully in their new roles. Fairy Godmother is a glorious villain, deliciously hammy to boot.