Good old Shrek. There was a large cardboard cutout of Shrek right outside of the entrance of the lighting department at the PDI [1] building in Redwood Shores. PDI animated the first version of Shrek after an attempted motion captured version by DreamWorks didn't meet expectations.
The cardboard Shrek was holding a bucket of cash and I would always laugh at the crassness of the image. Whenever times got tough at DreamWorks, it was time to for PDI to make another Shrek! Our punishment for making movies like Over the Hedge, Bee Movie or Monsters vs. Aliens was another Shrek movie to fill the coffers again. When the fourth installment of the Shrek franchise was announced, I remember Jeffrey Katzenberg stating "We decided that the Shrek story still has more to tell." What he really meant was that the bank account was empty, the stock price was low and Shrek could be counted on to bring in another decent box office result. Good times! How I miss PDI.
“It lacks a certain respect that is usually associated with fan writing,” he says, pausing to make eye contact with the rest of the 40-person Zoom audience to make sure we’re all in agreement. No one’s camera is on to reassure him, save the moderators and the Disney adult who has looked physically ill since he read a description of Shrek’s turgid ogre penis out loud.
I have only seen it once (or maybe it was a sequel). It had been dubbed into German, which was fine as the kids (we went in a group) were too young to read anyway.
As soon as it was over I wanted to flee the cinema but the rest of the parents waited for the credits and excitedly commented, “oh, that was John Cleese”. “That was Cameron Diaz”. Etc.
But the film was animated and the voices were not of those people!
I mean, actors do get assigned localization voices that are used across movies in the German localization industry. So if the voices you associate with those actors are their German localized voices, those are their voices to you.
In addition to that, usually for animation movies they do the voices first and make the animation to match. For comedy headliners, one might be able to recognize the actor from animated facial expressions, timing etc.
I am in no position to judge if that is true for Shrek.
(BTW, the German word for fear is Schreck [not a perfect translation, but the same spirit], yet I never made the connection mentioned in the article. Cool!)
It was. Because Chris Farley was the original voice actor of Shrek. It was to be his big comeback. But despite his amazing talent and kindness it was all too much, and he died before the picture could be completed.
Wow. That is really interesting. I didnt realize that. Has there been any notable recasting's due to death or contract negotiations or something like that? I could imagine Luke Skywalker sounds drastically different in the third film being a pretty jarring experience.
I found that dubbing is very popular in some countries, whereas subtitling is preferred in others. I've been brought up with subtitles and have never been able to stomach dubbed movies - whether live or animated, it feels a lot of original character/emotion/nuance is lost; and, a lot of overdubbing overdoes vocal emoting. So I watch original language with subtitles - even though I don't understand the voice, I pick up the original emotion and intent, while the brain processes subtitles to match.
My wife has been brought up with dubbing, so initially had aversion to subtitles; she felt her attention was split between text, and following actions/acting. But - after a few movies, she's now a subtitle convert as well - she's seen how much gets lost in dubbing.
Of course for kids, this may be a moot point as they cannot read subtitles either way.
>> patient zero for a generation of kid’s films whose humor is more directed at their parents than them.
>This. There are just so many "kids" movies which Nixon impersonations, or 80s trivia, or 70s nostalgia in place of actual content or humour.
Isn't the reasoning obvious? Rugrats cannot go to the movies on their own. In order to entice the parental units to take the rugrats to the movies, then the producers attempt to make their movie tolerable for the parental units.
Because carpet is out of style. Engineered hardwood is where it’s at.
And besides, nobody shampoos carpet. People just let it soak up our dead skin cells, oil, and the occasional spill. Spraying an equal amount from each of the unidentified bottles found under the sink aught to clean the apartment right up. She’ll never know
You just described pandemic lock down. Maybe replace eggnog with beverage of choice. For me, any weekday ending in 'y' is whiskey day. Weekends, it's whine. However, I'm totally at a loss for meaning of "logical Mondays". Who can be logical on a Monday?
> …the risk that your boss might be a mentally ill person who does not like you. When the little sicko in charge is you, there are no legal repercussions for this sort of retaliation.
Uff, that strikes close!
I think that the the pursue of “the freedom” of entrepreneurship or even of remote work, self care and the real power that we have to undermine ourselves is often ignored.
> It came out the summer before 9/11. It is petty and weird and, maybe I’m pilled, but it’s pretty good.
I remember thinking it was OK when I watched it when it came out. I watched it again just a few months ago, for the first time since then, and found it to be about as bad as a movie can be. Not even accidentally entertaining, like some bad movies are.
The cardboard Shrek was holding a bucket of cash and I would always laugh at the crassness of the image. Whenever times got tough at DreamWorks, it was time to for PDI to make another Shrek! Our punishment for making movies like Over the Hedge, Bee Movie or Monsters vs. Aliens was another Shrek movie to fill the coffers again. When the fourth installment of the Shrek franchise was announced, I remember Jeffrey Katzenberg stating "We decided that the Shrek story still has more to tell." What he really meant was that the bank account was empty, the stock price was low and Shrek could be counted on to bring in another decent box office result. Good times! How I miss PDI.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Data_Images