Whether you consider Shrek an all star or just a mediogre movie, you’ll probably enjoy this episode of Journsplit, where Aditi and Ryan discuss actors, accents, and try not to go ogre-board with the puns.
Person 1: Hi everyone! Welcome back to Journsplit! Today we will be talking about the eight time award winning movie, the very first animated feature with an oscar, and its very own star in the hollywood walk of fame, Shrek.
Person 2: For those who have not watched the classic before, here’s a tl;dw. Shrek is the tale of a classically ugly ogre who is feared by human and fairytale society.
Person 1: Did you know that there are a lot of stories about the creation and filming of the movie? Shrek, the movie, was based on 1990 picture book “shrek!”, and was supposed to be hand drawn at first after steven spielberg purchased its rights, but spielberg never did anything with it and the rights were taken by jeffery katzenberg on behalf of dreamworks.
Person 2: That’s very interesting! Looking at Shrek in the picture book, I can’t imagine that such a concept would be child-friendly though… Oh yeah! Did you know that Nicolas Cage was offered the role of Shrek first, but rejected it because of how shrek looked, saying “When you’re drawn, in a way it says more about how children are going to see you than anything else, and I so care about that” in an elaboration in 2013.
Person 1: Speaking of Shrek’s role, something that I find interesting is that there were three recordings of Shrek’s voice, the first being from Chris Farley, who passed away before the movie was fully recorded. the second one was from Mike Myers, who insisted on rerecording and rewriting the entire script to leave no traces of Farley, and the third being Mike Myers requesting to re record all his lines in a Scottish accent, inspired by the one his mother had used to read him bedtime stories when he was a child.
Person 2: Wonder how Shrek would sound with a Canadian accent… The iconic Scottish accent just fits so well… I really never thought that there was so much that went on behind the scenes!
Person 1: Even the opening scene has a backstory. The band that recorded the song, Smash Mouth, regrets allowing the use of their song “All Star” a lot, due to them wanting to convince people that they were not a one-hit wonder and that their success was not solely due to the funny green ogre and instead their own talent.
Person 2: About the song, “All star” was not even supposed to be in the introduction in the final cut and was used as a placeholder until the right and newer song was found! However, the team loved its sequence with it and decided to keep it anyway.
Person 1: The iconic ending scene featuring the song “I’m a believer” at the end was a late addition, and the ending was actually planned to be a book closing with Shrek and Fiona together!
Person 1: Oh, I never knew that! Did you know that the movie has some easter eggs that are, well, interesting… to say the least…
Person 2: You have my curiosity piqued, pray tell
Person 1: Did you know, Shrek’s actually kind of… a king
Person 2: Shrek? Royalty? How?
Person 1: Well, Fiona actually officially married Farquaad before he became Dragon’s dinner, right?
Person 2: yes….?
Person 1: So this makes Fiona queen, and by marriage to the queen, shrek becomes… king of Duloc?
Person 2: Is that really how it works?
Person 1: Totally! According to the redditors, that is…
Person 2: Well I guess it works then! By the way, remember shrek made this really profound metaphor when he was trying to get Donkey to understand his feelings?
Person 1: Yeah, he said he was an onion.
Person 2: The onion metaphor is actually a real thing called “social penetration theory”, and describes the process of building relationships as you move from shallow to intimate communication.
Person 1: Oh I see what you’re getting at! Shrek starts off as an unpeeled onion, all infallible and cold-hearted, and then he slowly pulls back his layers throughout the film to reveal his tender and loving side. As a whole the film serves as a metaphor for not judging a book by its cover, or better yet, an onion for its exterior layers.
Person 2: Speaking of layers, Fiona really tried hard to keep the ogre inside of her out of sight didn’t she?
Person 1: She certainly did! But if you look closely, there were a lot of moments that foreshadowed this huge revelation in the plot! For example she really loved the rats that shrek roasted.
Person 2: Absolutely, and after giving shrek the spider web cotton candy she subtly licked her fingers! She likes ogre food!
Person 1: Did you realise that Farquaad’s name was ironically Maximus? And the emblem on his flag looked eerily like the facebook logo? But that’s shrekondary.
Person 2: Oh my goodness, was that a shrek pun I just heard? Those are ogre-rated
Person 1: Shrek is not just prime material for puns, it is also a film that has captured the attention of some avid conspiracy theorists
Person 2: That’s right! If I remember correctly, there was one very dark fan theory about Fiona eating the knights who attempted to gallantly save her
Person 1: I mean Fiona was in that tower since she was a little girl right and the dragon protected her… and she couldn’t have possibly survived without food, so theorists say that the dragon most likely fed her
Person 2: If you watch carefully right after Fiona and Shrek are leaving the Tallest Tower, you can spot a giant cauldron boiling and a giant cookbook, left open on a page with an oddly specific recipe: “Knightly Treats.”
Person 1: The only one who had the ability to cook there without being burned to death or becoming dragon food, was dragon herself! Dragon was following a recipe that taught her how to cook knights!
Person 2: But what if that was just what Dragon ate, maybe she fed Fiona the horses or something!
Person 1: In the movie, we can see that the horses are left by the side to die, so I guess no one ate them…
Person 2: Maybe Fiona ate them at night when she was an ogre and slept during the day – seems pretty consistent with the movie because she was sleeping when shrek found her
Person 1: Or maybe she didn’t eat them at all! Maybe Dragon found her some other food.
Person 2: Well, I sure hope so.
Person 1: And that’s all we have for you today! Look out for our next episode!
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