Hi, everyone. I'm Em. And welcome to verbal diorama. Episode 286 Shrek 2 Shrek 2 Shrek 2 Shrak 2 Shrek 2 Shrek 2 this is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies yous Know and movies yous don't where your fallen tears have called to me, so here comes my sweet remedy. I know what every princess needs for her to live life happily with Just a welcome to Verbal Diorama to all brand new listeners of this podcast. Welcome back regular returning listeners. Whether you've come all the way from far far away or you just live locally, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I'm so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of of Shrek 2 and as part of that welcome to Animation Season 2025. If this is your first time visiting Animation Season 2025, there have been four movies preceding this episode. There have been episodes on Turning Red, Encanto, Paranorman, and the Simpsons Movie. And this is the fifth annual animation season. It is a celebration of of animation in all of its perfect, wonderful forms, whether that is traditional 2D hand drawn animation, stop motion animation, or CG animation and animation season on this podcast has featured some of the greatest and most well known animation studios of all time like Leica, Aardman, Disney Dreamworks, Sony Animation, Pixar Studio, Ghibli, Cartoon Saloon, even studios that are no longer with us like Fox Animation, Blue Sky Studios and Don Blue Studios. Animation. It's not just for children animation. It's not a genre. Animation is the perfect art form. It is capable of depicting anything and anyone. Whether you are an ogre, whether you are a princess, whether you are a donkey, there are no limitations. You can get away with anything in Animation and Animation Season. That's why it's here. It's here to highlight these incredible animated films that you may know that you may not, or that you may have discounted for whatever reason. But animation is so important and it's one of those art forms that I absolutely love talking about on this podcast. So I hope that you will indulge in some of the other animated treasures this animation season and I hope that you will enjoy this episode. Huge thanks to everyone who listens to this podcast and really who has continued to listen and support this podcast. This podcast has been going six years, very almost very soon. It is the sixth birthday of this podcast. I'm going to be talking about that a little bit later on in this episode. But this podcast has been going for that long. It would not have been going for that long without the support of the listeners of this podcast. So I am so grateful to you all. Whether this is your first episode, whether this is your 100th episode, it doesn't matter. I'm so grateful to you and I'm so grateful to you for listening. And it's been over 200 episodes since I did an episode on the original Shrek. This means that this particular episode holds the record for the biggest gap between a first and second movie on this podcast. Shrek was episode 79. This is 286. There's no particular reason why, Just that there's a lot of other movies to get through, I guess. But it is widely considered by many to be one of the best sequels ever. And good things come to those who wait. You don't have to travel to Far Far Away to get to this episode. Well, this fairy godmother, though, is all in it for herself. Here's the trailer for Shrek 2.

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, the King and Queen were blessed with a beautiful baby. Girl. And throughout the land everyone was happy. Until the sun went down and they saw that their daughter was cursed with a frightful enchantment that took hold each and every night. Desperate, they sought the help of a fairy godmother who had them lock the young princess away in a tower, there to await the kiss of the handsome Prince Charming. It was he who would chance the perilous journey through blistering cold and scorching desert, travelling for many days and nights, risking life and limb to reach the Dragon's Keep. For he was the bravest and most handsome in all the land. And it was destiny that his kiss would break the dreaded curse. He alone would climb to the highest room of the tallest tower to enter the princess's chambers, cross the room to her sleeping silhouette, pull back the gossamer curtains to find that she's on a honeymoon with her new ogre husband. Let's run through the cast. We have Mike Myers as Shrek, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona, Julie Andrews as Queen Lillian, Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots, John Cleese as King Harold, Rupert Everett as Prince Charming, Jennifer Saunders as Fairy Godmother, Joan Rivers as Joan Rivers and Larry King as Doris, the ugly stepsister. Shrek 2 has a screenplay by Andrew Adamson, Joe Stillman, J. David Stern and David N. Weiss. A story by Andrew Adamson was directed by Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon and was based on Shrek by William Stig. So I think it's easy to call the Original Shrek a 2000s phenomenon. It subverted the fairy tales that we'd been spoon fed since children. It revolutionized animation. It won the first ever Oscar for Best Animated feature and basically became a thousand meme generators. So despite it making fun of fairy tales and specifically Disney movies and their propensity to generate sequels to those movies, sequel to Shrek was inevitable. It was everything Disney and Pixar weren't. It was rude, it had farts, it made sex jokes and had pop culture references. It was the refreshing alternative to Disney, and in many ways it was Jeffrey Katzenberg's middle finger to the studio he previously called home. Katzenberg had managed the acquisition of Pixar and then left Disney to create DreamWorks alongside Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. There was a well publicized feud between DreamWorks and Pixar with Katzenberg wanting ants to beat a bug's life into cinemas on purpose. Shrek was the ultimate fu, with Lord Farquaad reportedly modelled on Disney chief Michael Eisner. Let's Just say Eisner and Katzenberg weren't the best of buddies. Shrek cemented DreamWorks as the animation studio of the future, and while Disney's animation department was floundering, no pun intended, Little Mermaid Shrek went up against Atlantis, the lost Empire at the box office, and with a six week advantage, Shrek just decimated the competition. But the story of Atlantis is due its very own episode pause for dramatic effect and there were more tales to be told from the Shrek universe as well as more money. The original Shrek made just under half a billion dollars in 2001 and so it meant getting the cast and creatives back for a sequel. Director of Shrek, Andrew Adamson would return to do the sequel but also co write the story. After Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the screenwriters and producers at Shrek, left the project citing creative differences. Adamson would base his story on the 1967 comedy drama Guess who's Coming to Dinner, starring Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn and Sidney Poitier, about a young white woman who brings her new fiance home to meet her parents. But her new fiance just happens to be an African American man. Interracial marriage had historically been prohibited in many US states, and the movie was one of the few to portray an interracial marriage in a positive light. Six months prior to the movie's release on 12 June 1967, interracial marriage was still illegal in 17 states. In Shrek 2, the story similarly centers around meeting the in laws with Princess Fiona bringing Shrek home to beat her royal parents in Far Far Away. Like the parents in Guess who's Coming to Dinner, King Harold and Queen Lillian, particularly Harold, struggle to accept their daughter's choice of husband, in this case because Shrek is an ogre rather than the prince they expected. But naturally the racial metaphor is still there. Jo Stillman, one of the writers from Shrek, did return to help pen the script, and joining the movie's writing team would be screenwriting duo J. David Stern and David Henry Weiss. There were initial plans for the return of Lord Farquhar. Despite becoming dragon food in the first movie, the idea was that he would return as a ghost to haunt Shrek and seek revenge. With John Lithgow reprising his role, the idea was instead used for Shrek 4D, the simulator ride at Universal Studios. A new story continuing the fairy tale of Shrek and Fiona straight after their wedding was proposed instead. Again, no pun intended, which would mean the return of all three primary cast members, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz on the first movie, the three actors deferred their salaries and were paid scale, but negotiated deals that included a percentage of the film's profits, which significantly increased their total earnings given Shrek's massive box office success. After Shrek became a huge hit, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz negotiated an upfront payment of $10 million each for voicing a sequel to the film. Joining the cast would be a whole host of British names, including Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Jennifer Saunders, and Rupert Everett and Antonio Banderas. Also joining as one of the greatest characters in the entire franchise. Puss in Boots would be so integral to the franchise that I'm certain there's a Mandela effect going on here because he was in Shrek, right? He's just been here this whole time. I don't believe that Shrek exists without Puss in Boots. He's that important to this universe. He'd also be the character to get the spin offs, one of which would be outstanding, just FYI. Puss in Boots the Last Wish Very almost got a spot on this animation season, but I felt like I needed to give Shrek 2 its final dues and all of the characters would make sense in this story. Prince Charming was the prince on his way to rouse Fiona with Fairy Godmother making a deal with the king who already owed her for making his happily ever after come true. Just how much the Fairy Godmother did actually do is unknown, but it is likely she could have also caused Fiona's curse in the first place. Mike Myers was a huge Monty Python fan, and so having John Cleese in the movie was a particular dream come true for him. While most of the cast recorded their lines separately, John Cleese and Julie Andrews recorded theirs as the King and Queen together. Doing the animation once again was the team at PDI DreamWorks, and while the animation was enhanced across the board, it would also have to be updated to include these new characters, including Pussing Boots, and he brought about new challenges. The original inspiration for the character was Andrew Adamson's cat, who was gray. But having a gray cat next to a gray donkey wouldn't work, so Puss was instead modeled on visual effects supervisor Ken Bielenberg's orange tabby cat. The animators researched extensively studying videos of real cats to understand their natural movements and behaviors. They paid particular attention to how cats move their bodies during different actions walking, running, pouncing, and even subtle movements like ear twitches and tail swishes. The team frequently brought in real cats to the studio for live observation sessions and as a podcast with two feline producers, I can tell you that Evie and Peggy are well represented in Puss. For the characters bipedal movements, the animators had to find a careful balance between human and feline motion. They created a hybrid style that maintained cat like grace while allowing Puss to perform human actions convincingly. This included studying how a cat's spine and shoulders would adapt to upright posture while retaining distinctly feline characteristics. The facial animation was particularly complex. The team developed a detailed rig for Puss's face that included multiple layers of controls for his signature cute eyes expression, sophisticated whiskey movement systems, detailed mouth shapes for dialogue, ear controls for emotional expression, fur dynamics that responded to facial movements, and simulated over 40,000 individual hair strands on Puss's body. For the sword fighting sequences, the animators referenced both cat movement and traditional swashbuckling films. This studied how legendary screen sword fighters like Errol Flynn moved, then adapted these movements to work with Puss's feline physiology. This created his distinctive fighting style that combined cat like agility with heroic swordplay. The animation team also heavily utilized Antonio Banderas performance as a reference. They would film his recording sessions and study his expressions and gestures, incorporating these human elements into Puss's character animation. This helped maintain the Spanish flair that Banderas brought to the role while keeping the character fundamentally feline. Banderas, for his part, would not only record Puss's dialogue in English, but also in Spanish and Italian. At the time, Banderas was on Broadway singing every night and then recording Sessions for Shrek 2 the next morning. So Puss's bravado ended up essentially destroying his vocal cords. They also had complications around how Pussy's fur would react to his belting cape because. Newsflash. I don't know if you know this, but most cats don't wear a belt or a cape. They also had to develop a simulation system to move fur out of the way of the belt. It was a lot easier for the Shrek 2 team to animate fluids. Even huge vats of multicolored potions spilling everywhere could be easily achieved with new dynamic fluid engines and directing how fluids interacted with characters. But with a bigger cast for Shrek also came more human characters and more realistic human characters. While Princess Fiona in the first movie looked very naturally human, subtle design changes were made to her and to Shrek. Taking advantage of the enhancement in CG animation, the rest of the human characters were created with their human voice actors in mind. With fairy godmother strongly resembling Jennifer Saunders. One of the most difficult characters to create was Handsome Shrek because he still had to resemble Shrek but also be sexy. They gave him strong chiseled features and flowing hair, but kept some of Mike Myers facial characteristics to maintain a connection to Shrek's personality. The design was meant to parody the typical Prince Charming archetype while still making him believable as a transformed version of the character. Myers maintained the Scottish accent for Shrek, but with a slightly more refined delivery as Handsome Shrek. Even the background characters were remodeled from the original's generic design to give them high resolution assets, anatomically correct physiques, textured clothing, redone hairstyles, and even skin wrinkles. But wait, this is Hollywood. I mean, Far Far Away wrinkles aren't allowed, right? But in true Shrek parody fashion, the design of Far Far Away imitated Hollywood and Beverly Hills, but reimagined it through a medieval fairy tale lens, mixing medieval architecture with modern Los Angeles culture. The Far Far Away sign, which is a direct parody of the Hollywood sign, is placed on a hillside overlooking the kingdom. The design team carefully created weathering aging effects to make it look like it had been there for centuries rather than decades. The main street of Far Far Away was modeled after Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, featuring medieval versions of luxury stores like Versacerie, Versace, Abercrombie and Witch, Abercrombie and Fitch and Old Navery, Old Navy. The buildings maintained a consistent architectural style. The blended Gothic and Renaissance elements with modern retail design with obviously a fire books located on both sides of the street. The streets were based in a warm golden California sunshine effect while also maintaining the fairy tale atmosphere. A new lighting system was implemented which included careful attention and to how light would interact with different surfaces from cobblestone streets to castle walls to create the feeling of a sunny Mediterranean climate in a fairy tale setting. They took inspiration from 15th and 16th century classical paintings, including by Gustav Door, the renowned 19th century French illustrator and engraver who himself inspired the classic Disney animated fairy tales. Production designer Guillem Aratos and his colleagues used a lot more displacement and global illumination in obtaining a greater realistic bounce light. For Shrek 2, they used global illumination for 80% of the shots, which is a proprietary renderer and has been rewritten since the first Shrek. The King and Queen's castle design drew inspiration from multiple real European castles, but incorporated Hollywood Hills mansion elements, creating a hybrid that suggested both ancient royalty and modern celebrity. The interior design followed the same principle, mixing medieval tapestries and throne rooms with modern luxury amenities. Fiona's parents, Queen Lillian and King Harold were named after Harold and Lillian Michelson, an extraordinary couple that maybe you've never heard of. Harold Michelson was an Oscar nominated production designer and art director working on west side Story, the Birds and Cleopatra. Lillian Michelson was a film scholar and researcher who sometimes experienced danger doing said research. It's said that she had to interview drug lords and DEA agents to have accurate material for the movie Scarface, for example. Lillian Michelson also built and managed Hollywood's most famous research library, the Michelson Cinema Research Library. She made deals for the library to be housed with the American Film Institute and then the Pantagious Theatre. She was so passionate about this library that the materials contained within it were under her almost constant watch. Francis Ford Coppola asked her to join ZoeTrope Studios in 1980 and she at the library stayed there till 1986 when Michelson was let go from the studio for financial reasons. Dreamworks Pictures then became the steward of the library when Lillian Michelson retired and in December 2020 the library was donated to the Internet archive. Harold Michelson died in 2007 at the age of 87 and Lillian Michelson is currently 96 and living in the retirement community set up by the Motion Picture and Television Fund in Los Angeles. In 2017, Harold and Lillian Michelson were given a lifetime achievement award by the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for their contributions, making them the first behind the scenes non actors to ever receive that award. Queen Lillian and King Harold were named after them in Shrek 2 as a tribute to everything they've done for the Hollywood film industry. And while Dragon shows up at the end of the movie and it's discovered that her and Donkey have had quote unquote mutant babies, she was originally going to have a much bigger role in the movie that when the potion is taken, Donkey turns into a stallion, baby dragon would have turned into a Pegasus. The sequence was reportedly storyboarded but ultimately cut from the final film. And one of the things that the original Schweppe and this sequel do so well are the pop culture parodies. There are so many of them, I can't possibly list them all. However, here's some very obvious ones. We have parodies of Mission Impossible in the castle break in sequence. Spider man, the upside down kiss, Lord of the Rings, the forging of Fiona's wedding ring, the Little Mermaid when Fiona throws an aerial lookalike into the sea, Alien, the scene where Puss emerges from Shrek's stomach, Cops, the night chase sequence. And also the O.J. simpson Bronco Chase. And obviously Zorro in Puss in Boots character and fighting style. It also parodies general Hollywood elements like red carpet culture, celebrity lifestyle, awards shows, and Hollywood's obsession with youth, luxury and beauty. Here in the uk, the Joan Rivers and Larry King characters were redubbed with Kate Thornton and Jonathan Ross, but they are never credited for these roles. It similarly doesn't make much sense for the Joan Rivers character because she is modeled on Joan Rivers. The role was designed exclusively for Joan Rivers and she is also credited on IMDb as Joan Rivers. So to not have Joan Rivers voice, that role just does not work. And Joan Rivers would be the first time that anyone would essentially be playing themselves in the Shrek universe exclusively to this podcast is the obligatory Keanu reference. It is part of this podcast where I try and link the movie that I'm featuring with Keanu Reeves, and it's always very difficult to link Keanu to animation. I've always found it really tough. However, Keanu Reeves first worked with Princess Fiona, aka Cameron Diaz in Feeling Minnesota back in 1996, but teaming up again next year for Jonah Hill's second feature film as director the black comedy Outcome. And I have to say, I'm so happy to see Cameron Diaz back. She has effectively been retired from acting for about 10 years at this point, and she has recently returned. She has obviously just been in the Netflix action movie Back in Action, which is fine, she's good in it, but the overall the movie is fine and she is obviously going to be returning in Shrek 5 as well. But yeah, Cameron Diaz is the easiest way to link Keanu Reeves to this movie. Somebody might tell you that Shrek is synonymous with smash mouth's All Star, although I would argue that Mystery Men got there first. But when it came to the soundtrack for Shrek 2, Shrek 2 basically saw the Shrek soundtrack and said hold my beer because we've got the Counting Crows penned Accidentally in Love, which was written especially for this movie. A cover of David Bowie's Changes, a cover so good that David Bowie offered to record new vocals for it. There are two covers of holding up for a Hero, first recorded by the Incredible Bonnie Tyler, including a cover song by the inimitable Jennifer Saunders, who is a comedy legend here in the uk. There is a cover of Living La Vida Loca, which is about as early 2000s as you can. Early 2000s. There's Tom Waits, Little Drop of Poison and Funky Town by Lips Inc. The score and soundtrack is also credited with helping to tell the story, with composer Harry Gregson Williams crediting Director Andrew Adamson with picking most of Shrek 2 songs, and he specifically chose tracks that worked best within the narrative. And so obviously fan anticipation for a sequel to Shrek was high. And so they did a lot when it came to marketing this movie. It was actually one of the most extensive and innovative marketing efforts for an animated film at that time. They obviously had the traditional deals like M&M's, Burger King, Ben and Jerry's. They had Shrek 2 cereals, they had Shrek 2 Pepsi and Shrek 2 crisps, aka chips. They also had a toy in video game, which was released on the PlayStation 2 Xbox and GameCube, which allowed players to experience the movie story interactively. It received mixed reviews, but then most movie video game tie ins tend to do that. But the viral Marketing for Shrek 2 in 2004 was innovative for its time. And you've got to remember as well, this was before the advent of social media. It was before YouTube, which came out in 2005, it was before Facebook went public in 2006, and it was before Twitter as well. That came out in 2006. The official website, Shrek2.com featured interactive character profiles, desktop wallpapers and screensavers for download. Browser based mini games, behind the scenes videos and AOL and MSN messenger icons. Most Internet users were actually still on Dial Up Connections at the time, if you remember Dial Up Connection, because I certainly do. And because of this, the interactive features had to be relatively simple to accommodate those slower download speeds. And if you're of that vintage where you remember, those were the days of Internet Explorer 6 and Medscape Navigator, I mentioned AOL and MSN Messenger. The movie also had an official presence on those platforms. And these were basically very, very early versions of social media presences. There were also email newsletter campaigns and promotional content on very early social platforms like friends stuff. You could also create your own fairy tale on the Shrek 2 website, where users could mix and match characters and scenarios. And there was also Far Far Away Idol, which was an interactive feature that tied into the DVD release starring Simon Cowell as himself, but an animated version of himself. In May 2004, Shrek 2 competed for the prestigious Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival alongside films like Oldboy, the Lady killers and Fahrenheit 9 11, the latter of which won the award and is so far the first and only documentary to win the festival's main prize. Nevertheless, the fact Shrek 2 was up there with some of the best movies from across the world that year. Spoke wonders and audience anticipation was high. Shrek 2 was originally scheduled for release on 18 June 2004. It was then moved forward to 21 May 2004. However, due to fan demand, it was released two days earlier on 19 May 2004. It opened at third due to its early release, but then jumped up to number one at the weekly box office where it stayed for two weeks and then stayed in the top 10 for 11 weeks. On its eventual $150 million budget, Shrek 2 would make $441.6 million domestically and $487.5 million internationally for a total worldwide gross of $929.1 million. It became the highest grossing movie of 2004 worldwide, beating its nearest rivals Harry Potter and the Prisoner of azkaban and Spider Man 2 by 130 to 140 million dollars. Shrek 2 was the highest grossing animated film globally until the release of Toy Story 3 in 2010. It also held the title of highest grossing animated film in North America until Finding Dory was released in 2016. It was the highest grossing non Disney animated film at the US box office until the Super Mario Bros movie in 2023 and it was the highest grossing non Disney animated film worldwide until 2013 when Despicable Me Too overtook it. When the Shrek 2 DVD released, it became one of the best selling DVD releases of all time with over 37 million copies being sold grossing $458 million. Well, purportedly investors would sue DreamWorks with a class action lawsuit over misrepresented DVD sales. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Chairman Roger Enrico were accused of failing to Disclose in the first quarter that sales of the DVD were declining more than expected. Expected that DreamWorks continued to ship DVDs far in excess of demand and hid the fact that retailers were then returning unsold DVDs. The lawsuit over the Shrek 2 DVD sales was undermined by the documents presented by the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs arguments were that the defendants were aware of a trend that would have a material impact on the DVD sales, but the documents did not support this claim and the lawsuit was thrown out. Despite the lawsuit being thrown out, DreamWorks Animation would deliver two profit warnings in three months in 2005 which saw its stock price crash after surprise surprise lower than expected DVD sales. And this was despite the financial success of the movie Madagascar which came out in 2005. But back to Shrek too, because it was also praised critically as well. It has an 89% of rotten tomatoes with the consensus reading it may not be as fresh as the original, but topical humor and colorful secondary characters make Shrek 2 a winner in its own right. Shrek 2 was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but it lost to the Incredibles. It was also nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards for Accidentally in Love, which it lost to Al Otro Lado del Rio from the Motorcycle Diaries. Accidentally in Love also received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song and a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. But we need to talk about sequels because Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever after exist. Yay. I have seen Shrek the third. I have seen a bit of Shrek Forever after and I turned it off because I was not enjoying myself. I probably should actually give that movie a chance, especially with Shrek 5 on its way. But it is really funny that Shrek made its name on parodying Disney, Disney's repetitive messages and inferior sequels. And then it basically does exactly the same thing. Shrek5, as I mentioned, has been confirmed it will be arriving in December 2026 with the main three principal cast returning. And from this movie we got a Puss in Boots spin off in 2011, but really the only movie that we care about from the Shrek universe other than the original Shrek and this one is Puss in Boots the Last Wish, which didn't have to go as hard as it did, but it really did and it is a truly stunningly beautiful and poignant movie. I highly recommend you watch it. If you haven't, I believe it's on Netflix at the moment here in the uk. And the lasting legacy of Shrek is simply this. When my dad goes off on a bit of a rant about something, my mom will tell him to stop being a drama king. And if something permeates pop culture to the extent that my parents are quoting really has properly permeated pop culture. And one of the reasons animation is so great and two kind of epitomizes this is that animation works on a multi generational level. It has kid friendly humor and it has adult humor as well. And yes, some of the references are a bit dated because this is a movie from the mid-2000s. There's also more than a little bit transphobia in this movie as well. Again, this was the case in the 2000s. There is a particular line that fairy Godmother says that's often cut out. I'm not going to repeat the line, but it is often cut out because it might cause offense to some people. And the ridiculing of Pinocchio for wearing a thong is a funny joke, but it just goes on a bit too long. And who cares that he's wearing a thong again? Thongs were very much a thing in the early 2000s, and I remember using that line whenever you could see a friend's thong poking out from behind her jeans. And just like Shrek, this movie created lasting memes and quotable moments. While Shrek popularized pop culture references and modern music in animated films, Shrek Too just takes it one step further by elaborating on the story we've seen and we know and carrying it on in a natural way. We know he's married to the princess now, he has to meet the parents, and this may be bold, but I think Far Far Away is one of the best parodies of Hollywood ever put to screen because the attention to detail is absolutely phenomenal. But this is also a movie with hearts. It has a great central villain who's clearly been in it for the long run, and all Fairy Godmother wants is her boy on the throne. The idea that he was the prince destined to free Fiona from the tower but just got there a bit late does make you wonder how Lord Farquaad didn't know that Fiona was technically already off the market. But I guess Lord Farquaad doesn't really care. We know that he's compensating for something. If you think about this movie a little bit too much, it starts to not make sense. Like the toadstool turning into a rose pretty much immediately, but it takes overnight for Shrek and Donkey. And why didn't Fiona question Prince Charming as Shrek more? I don't know. Maybe ask if you're Shrek, then where did we spend our honeymoon? Stuff that Charming wouldn't know. I realized the plot would crumble, but her voice and demeanor didn't change. So why would his Shrek 2 is seen by many as a perfect sequel. Not a perfect movie, but a perfect sequel by expanding on the original's themes and story while maintaining quality, balancing comedy with emotional depth, deepening the character development of Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey giving us Puss in Boots. Look at his eyes. Aww. The themes of the original Shrek are about self confidence, accepting yourself for who you are and that you are worthy of love no matter what you look like or what your background is. That you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Regardless of what the torches and pitchforks say in Shrek 2, they really expand on this theme and how the character of Shrek deals with this in a really effective way. With both Shrek and Fiona now ogres and her parents accepting her for who she is, but her father refusing to give Shrek his blessing because of who he is. Shrek has likely never had a family, so this seemingly happy family dynamic is completely new to him, not to mention the fact they are the literal royal family of Far Far Away. So of course he begins to doubt how deserving he is of Fiona, especially when he discovers she had dreams of marrying the stereotypically handsome but total mummy's boy Prince Charming. He worries about not being good enough to the point where he takes a potion to become handsome, believing that that's all that Fiona really wants. The potion, obviously from Fairy Godmother, and Fairy Godmother is just an exceptional villain. Jennifer Saunders plays her perfectly, and holding out for a hero is downright the best song and scene in this entire franchise. It has action, it has humor, it has Fiona trying desperately to avoid Prince Charming kissing her, and it has Mongo, go bongo, be good. That gets me every time. In many ways, the success of Shrek would ultimately lead to the downfall of DreamWorks. Nothing ever reached these highest heights again. And in 2004, DreamWorks Animation LLC became a publicly traded company. And with them not having a distribution arm, they entered deals with other companies like Paramount and 20th Century Fox. The studio was ultimately acquired by Universal Pictures in 2016, now headed up by Chris Meledandri of Illumination Studios. This deal is what gave us Puss in Boots, the Last Wish. But it's safe to say that DreamWorks Animation peaked in the early 2000s, and then the late 2000s saw an evolution of Disney animation. When Bob Iger replaced Michael Eisner at Disney in 2005, he said that one of his main goals was to restore Disney's animation. One of Iger's first act was to buy Pixar outright rather than just partnering with the company. In his tenure, Iger was also responsible for Disney paying billions for Lucasfilm and Marvel. Iger also pushed Pixar's storytelling brain trust into the rest of Disney animation, which led to a whole new renaissance with Tangled, Wreck It Ralph and Frozen and everything that's come after that. And if ogres can live happily ever after, there is hope for the rest of us. We can only hope though, that Shrek 5 brings back some of the Shrek magic and for a sequel, it is genuinely one of the best sequels. It's also one hell of a middle finger to Disney. Thank you for listening. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Shrek too. And thank you for your continued support of this podcast. If you want to get involved and help this podcast grow, you can find this podcast on social media. I am@VerbalDiorama. You can find me, you can follow me, you can like posts, you can share posts wherever you go. Social media ring, Verbal Diorama is there. You can tell your friends and family about this podcast or you could leave a rating or review wherever you found this podcast. And if you like this episode on Shrek, the only episode I can really Recommend is episode 79 on the original Shrek. So the next episode of this podcast I'm going to tell you about the next three episodes of this podcast because they are for this podcast sixth birthday, so they're kind of a big deal. So for the sixth birthday of this podcast I wanted to focus on Disney and I have obviously covered a lot of Disney movies in the past, but I wanted to specifically cover the pre Renaissance Renaissance and post Renaissance eras of Disney. So let's go through all three. For the pre Renaissance, I'm going to be talking about the history and legacy of the Great Mouse Detective, AKA Basil the Great Mouse Detective, which is what it was released here in the UK as. And that movie was actually fundamental to the Renaissance because without the success of the Great Mouse Detective, it's likely that the Disney Renaissance never have happened. But moving into the Renaissance, I'm then going to do an episode on the History and Legacy of Hercules, which is a Disney Renaissance movie that doesn't feel like a Disney Renaissance movie, but it's an interesting Disney Renaissance movie. It has a very unique and interesting animation style and let's be honest, some of the best songs in Disney movies. Full stop. The Muses. That's all I need to say. The Muses. Also, I believe the Muses are the first black women to appear in Disney animation, which is quite astonishing really, considering Hercules came out in 1997. And then the final episode for the Birthday is going to be on the Post Renaissance and I'm going to be doing an episode on Atlantis, the Lost Empire, which is technically stunningly beautiful but really, really, really struggles. And it's such a shame because there's such great stuff in Atlantis and it's got such a fervent fan base as well, and you can really see what they were trying to do with the movie. But I want to go into the history and legacy of Atlantis, the Lost Empire. So those three movies are going to form the basis of the sixth birthday of this podcast. I hope you listen to one of them. I hope you listen to all of them. But if you do, I hope you enjoy them. They're going to be released spread over a week's period. But please join me for the next episodes of this podcast on the history and legacy of the great mouse detective, Hercules and Atlantis, the Lost Empire. Now, I always say this podcast is free and it always will be free. However, it is not free to make a podcast. So I rely on some incredibly generous human beings to help fund Verbal Diorama to help me pay for things like subscriptions and software and equipment and hosting and all of the stuff that you need to run a podcast. You are under no obligation to financially support this podcast and you never will be under any financial obligation. However, if you have some spare pennies and you want to help support an indie creator who does all of this every week on her own, you can do that one of two ways. You go to verbaldiorama.com tips and give a one off tip. Or you can go to verbaldiorama.Com Patreon and you can join the amazing patrons of this podcast. They are Sade, Claudia, Simon, Laurel, Derek, Kat, Andy, Mike, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa, Sam, Jack, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas, Zoe, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny, Ali, Stuart, Brett, Philip M, Michelle, Xenos, Sean, Rhino, Philip K, Adam, Elaine, Kyle and Aaron. If you want to get in touch, you can email verbaldioramail.com or you can go to my website, verbaldiorama.com and you can fill out the little contact form. You can also find bits that I do@filmstories.co.uk and finally,

Bye.