I know this is an early screening but it doesn't surprise me that they are running out of ideas. They were running out of them in the second one. If it wasn't for the Puss n Boots character the second one would have been boring. I hope this is the final one. I loved the first one, thought the second one was ok and so far it is looking like the third one is going to be mediocre.

I'm not a fan of Shrek, but this review left me with a mixed reaction.  See, one of my huge problems with the franchise as a whole has been the reliance on the "throwaway gags" that are called for in this review.  As far as I'm concerned, such a gag is called throwaway for a reason.  Sure, Matrix parodies once seemed topical and slightly funny- and they haven't aged well at all.  And jabs at Disney that feel more like Katzenberg saying "I'll show them!" than actualy humor?

I hate to be one of those "Pixar this, Pixar that" people, but maybe Pixar is why I can't stand Shrek.  Shrek just has always been about the fart jokes and the movie parodies and the throwaway gags, and when I go to a movie, I'd like something a bit more substantial.  Maybe they're going in a different direction, away from the stupid gags?  I hope so.  But I doubt there's any real growth.

Shrek mostly worked because it made fun of the (often) saccharine, sanitized, and ham-fisted style of traditionally animated Disney fairy tales.  Guess what?  Shrek won.  There are NO MORE traditionally animated Disney fairy tales.  Increasingly, this series will have all the cultural relevance of an extended series of Dan Quayle jokes.  What does one shoot at when the target has disappeared?

I know that it is very challenging watching these early versions of DWA movies. I've seen a few of them and have always been amazed at how they have evolved by release. Like any comedy, it is all about timing and believability. I almost have to apologize that you have seen the movie in this form. If you want to see a movie before it has been released, you should really get a director's pitch. That is amazing! I have seen director's pitches for all of the DWA movies (except Over The Hedge, for which I saw the raw version). The energy that you see from the director is much closer to what one will see in the final movie, than in a test screening. Rest assured, the timing, wording and scenery can change quite a bit. Without the context of the fully developed scene, with background sounds, fully rendered/animated characters, and the polish of a final movie, any comedy will seem quite dry. It is kind of like seeing a super-model without her makeup on...

That having been said, I have had the honor seeing a director's pitch for Shrek the Third and I am confident that it will live up to the quality of the first two, although quite different.

An interesting challenge that this movie will face is the same that any sequel 3D animated feature faces. The studio has develop their technology so much that it is hard to maintain a consistent look without "dumbing down" the rendering or animation. For example, look at Shrek 1 again and notice the groundcover at the beginning of the movie. Technically, it is made up of very simple shapes with lots of detail in the bitmap. Contrast that with Madagascar, where the jungle is very lush and full of detail. If you could see the concept boards that were developed for Shrek the Third, you would see that they have some brilliant visual ideas that are begging for the latest, greatest technology that DWA has.

Without being too specific, I would just encourage everyone to be ready to be very pleasantly surprised by Shrek the Third once it is complete. Buddy, please do see the movie once again when it is in final release and let us know your thoughts.

I have to say that I'm not quite surprised by this article, either. Unfortunately when I hear of a sequel being made for a blockbuster hit I receive the same reaction that about eighty percent of the population get, and that's, "Ohhhhhhh, god...they're going to screw it up."

That's why "Shrek 2" really knocked me off my feet: it was actually a more than decent sequel in my eyes. While it definitely did center more on throwaway gags and pop culture references than the first one seemed to, it didn't completely abandon the substance and character drama that the first dealt with. However, even before I read this review I have been dreading a third "Shrek" because I fear that the team by now should either have lost all interest in making the project spectacular (in the heart-warming story-telling sense) or that they should have lost their original wit. Many sequels fail because there is the eternal need to outdue that which has been done before, and updating the graphics never seems to satiate that need. My fear is that now that they have this plot mapped out, they're not going to work to create more substantial material for once-chief characters like Shrek and Fiona, but rather they're going to try to clutter the script with as many recycled gags as a response to the less-than-impressive test screening.

This is all speculation, of course...and I do plan on seeing the film despite my concerns. "Shrek" isn't a bad series, in fact I really enjoy it. I don't see it as being a film trilogy that I will treasure over and over down the road like I will with the majority of the Disney films, films that I will want my kids to grow up on. As bhb007 pointed out, "Shrek"'s initial target has pretty much disappeared from the box office, a target which goes silently missed and appreciated by animation buffs and common famillies everywhere. The CGI glut was inspired from Pixar and "Shrek's" success, and most definitely from "Shrek's" sense of humor. It was that style of fast-paced, in your face humor that won out for the exectutives...and now that style seems to have no means of developing further, and nowhere to go.

Wait.....do I have to be the first one to point this out???

Is the Jim Hill Media website trashing something other than Disney??!!??

....and no one noticed??

.....is everyone recovering from their weekend ok?

I have no doubt this film will have a great opening weekend at least. But frankly, I'm getting tired of the cheap shots at Disney these Shrek films are built on. Really, it's pretty clear that without the Disney references, Shrek's world is as thin as onion skin (without the layers). It also sounds like there's no new powerful character to intrigue audiences, a la Puss in Boots.

And if Dragon isn't in THIS one, I'm not going to see it!

Makes me wish they had gone with one of the rumored ideas that was thrown around before this movie went into production.  The idea was to have King Arthur and his hostile takeover of Far Far Away and the Knights of the Round Table would have featured in it as well and the surviving members of Monty Python would have voiced a good part of them with Shrek trying to prevent the impending attack.  Tha would have been comedy gold right there and not only would it have made for a funnier movie but it would have struck a chord with the Python fans.  

The sad part is that if this is the version they release in theaters, we still have a part 4 to dread, as Katzenberg himself has said that he wants to do a part 4 explaining how it was that Shrek ended up in the swamp in the first place. The even sadder part is that Timberlake is in the movie and I'm sure it only because of Cameron Diaz.  If I am wrong, then I stand corrected.      

Why does everything have to be Joke after Joke after Joke after Joke in animated movies?  The Merlin/Arthur pulling the real sword out of the stone should be a touching moment, not just Joke after Joke.

The King Arthur/Knights take over sounds much funnier than what they have now.  This doesn't sound all that interesting to me.

To me, Shrek is an example of the new way of thinking, namely  
                      big box office = good movie

I didn't think the first Shrek was a good movie, so I'm not going to be disappointed by Shrek II, III, or XXVII. The film was a parody/rip-off/anti-homage of the classic Disney animated films without the advantage of having a Mel Brooks/Richard Pryor -caliber writer, or even a Carol Burnett show-caliber writer. Before it was released, all the buzz was about the nasty shocking Disney swipes contained in the movie. Anyone that's been inside the animation building on the Disney lot, or even a Disneyana convention has probably seen much nastier and funnier parodies. The movie simply aimed low and scored high.

Oddly, some of today's "disappointing movies" (and you know who you are) will be in demand in the future when you can download a holographic movie display into your family room, because they have actual characters with a strong storyline coupled with character-driven gags. Topical reference comedy doesn't age so well - try watching Aladdin and explaining to an 8 year old who Arsenio Hall was.

I haven't really liked Shrek much because it is all about pop culture or current (at that time) references and digs at Disney.  Shrek 2 was funny, but not a movie I will want to see again and again.  I am sure the third movie will change a lot from this advanced screening.  I am surprised that more isn't done by now though.

Even back when it wasn't cool (remember?), I've always been raising the banner that the first Shrek coasted along not only what audiences -thought- was Katzenberg's nyah-nyah attack on Disney--back when Katz himself had beaten the Formula into the ground, and people were blaming Eisner for it--but also selling them on a few corporate-propaganda Big Lies[TM] about how different DW was going to be:
Shrek 1 tried to persuade us that all Disney ever did were corny fairytales (before Lilo & Stitch came out) about twittering un-PC princesses (before Aladdin came back out on video), and that -their- CGI was the most emotional and detailed ever made (at least until Monsters Inc. came out six months later)...In other words, we liked it because we just didn't know any better.  :)

And the fact that there was a bigger King Arthur story that they couldn't make, and had to cobble together a replacement in rescripting, would explain a -lot- about why we got this mess of remarketed running-gags without any real point--
Up till now, I'd just thought 3 was there for the "peer pressure" of Katz getting to show off his own pre-sold franchise 3&4, just like the OTHER studios got with THEIR big presold multi-sequeled franchise hits (ahemyohoyoho)...

The descriptive writing in this article is unfair to a work in progress.  It would have sufficed to have had a simple 2 paragraph summary of the movie, rather than a scene by scene description.

This film lacked animated scenes, a final audio mix, sound effects and music which all account for an enormous amount of the emotional imapct. It is unfair to Dreamworks to critique a movie to an audience (JHM viewers), who were not meant to be part of this test screening measurement process.

This was a unique opportunity for Mr Glass to view an important work in progress that he misused.   Too bad he couldn't exercise better judgement.

throwing stones at mr glass?  now there's something the movie could use...

pERSONALLY i DONT LIKE dREAMWORKS, jUST DISNEY, aND DISNEY IS GOING TO DO AWESOME WITH THE fROG pRINCESS, eNCHANTED, AND rAPUNZEL. jUST SO YOU KNOW, PEOPLE ARE DYING NOW FOR ANOTHER DISNEY MUSICAL MOVIE, BROADWAY STYLE. i SERIOUSLY CAN'T WAIT. aND AS FOR sHREK 3, MY DEEP CONDOLENCES TO dREAMWORKS, WHOSE BLOCKBUSTER WILL PROBABLY MAKE GOOD MONEY FIRST WEEK, AND SINK THE NEXT... sHREK LOST ALL OF ITS MAIN PRODUCERS AND DIRECTOR, SO IT'LL PROBABLY SUCK

I know I'm in the minority when I say that I just don't care for the Shrek films.  I don't find them the least bit appealing of funny.  Poorly written and animated, dispite the creative posibilities.  Pop culture references and fart jokes will never replace the timeless beauty and story telling of a Disney classic. Give me Bambi any day.

While I would never judge any work in progress as the final product, and have no intention of wasting my money going back once more to a well that ran dry for me with the "mystery spell"  (that tipped off the entire rest of the so-called "story" for me) Princes Fiona suffered in the first film.  To quote: "Ho-Hum"...

I'm not a great fan of Shrek.
Don't get me wrong, Eddie Murphy convinced me in the first that he's made to do animated movies (and arguably only animated movies,) and the sequel had me giggling quite a few times (although Eddie Murphy started wearing thin.)

But they're not classics.  They're not classy.  They're just well done pop-culture gag-filled comedies.
Which is the second lowest form of comedy - the kind that ages the worst, too.


So I'll probably see Shrek 3, probably laugh, and probably promptly forget about it.  Just like the other two (with the exception of Pinnochio's penchant for ladies undergarments.)



Also of note - the new Xbox 360 title Dead Rising features a psychopathic clown voiced by Shrek 2 director Conrad Vernon.  He uses the exact voice he does for the Gingerbread man.  And, while the character is a bit of a cliche, and sadly not as dark as he could have been (would it have been too much to use toddler corpses instead of dolls?) it's still a bit amusing for animation fans, just due to the contrast of enviroments you'll hear that voice in.

<i>As Hollywood starts to deal with the long-term ramifications of the CG glut, three of the top animation studios make plans for the future. Jim Hill now reports on how Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks are each handling this crisis</i>

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