Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Shrekked Off


And open letter to Shrek's Marketing Team: Stop. Seriously...put the CGI down.
Though I haven't sat down with the numbers, I'm fairly sure that the number of animated Shrek commercials equals - nay exceeds - the actual amount of animation for the movie. I can't turn a channel now without seeing Donkey and Shrek whore themselves out for something else.
And an overweight shit-eating ogre as the mascot for healthy eating at McDonalds? Huh?
Look - marketing is fine - business is business, but Shrek was a franchise that catered to a more jaded / sarcastic audience who had their fill of machine made movies and enjoyed the slanted take on the genre.
Now, its become THAT VERY GENRE. Shrek 3 looks to me like nothing more than a toy/M&M/videogame/happy meal selling vehicle.
I have fond memories of the first Shrek. I took my mom to it for Mother's Day. We laughed. It was new. Fresh.
Now...this:

Shrek's dignity brought to you by the New 2008 Ford Escape

2 comments:

Creative Freakin' Genius said...

I concur with your analysis. It saddens me to think of the demise of the Shrek we all grew to love in the first film. It went against everything commercial and was the first original idea in animated film since....well, I don't remember when.

None of the people involved with the film need the $$ - so that can't possibly be the motivating factor behind what we're witnessing. I wonder how much of this was actually approved of by Mike Myers or if it was simply a matter of him selling out to the studios to make his life easier. "Let them handle it..." Handle it, indeed. If it was the latter, I hope he's neck-deep in a toilet bowl right now and knee-deep in regret.

Anonymous said...

Synopsis of Shrek 4 - brought to you by Oil of Olay for younger, greener looking skin...

Wholly disappointed with Shrek 3, although still better than some of the other recent garbage I have seen on the big screen. They need to end it now...and start a spinoff with donkey and the dragon, although the dragon would clearly need to start speaking, and I say the half-donkey half-dragon kids play starring roles...brought to you by GlaxoSmithKline Pharamceuticals, genetically engineering animals since 1978.