(Three and a Half Torches out of Five)

When Dreamworks rolled out Shrek in 2001, it was a shot of adrenaline into an animated film industry that — with the exception of a few Pixar hits — was flailing in the apocalypse of Disney’s golden age. Shrek was unapologetically not trying to be a classic. With A-list voice talent, a Top 40 soundtrack, and a screenplay loaded with pop-culture zingers and crass double entendres, it was just trying to be funny.

And it was. It was refreshingly warm and hysterical.

Somewhere, though, between Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third, the formula got stale. Rather than reinventing the recipe with every new film (like its impossibly magical competitor Pixar), Dreamworks kept making the same movie over and over with different animals and voice talent.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. Shrek the Third fell solidly into the latter category.

So why make a fourth Shrek film? Well, money obviously. But after watching Shrek: Forever After, I get the feeling that it’s also an apology: Shrek: The Movie We Should Have Made Last Time, Before We Put This Ogre To Bed For Good.

Shrek: Forever After opens on the scene we’re used to: Shrek still has those disturbingly Teletubbie-like babies to look after, Donkey is up to his same old shenanigans, Fiona is haggard and disgruntled with Shrek because of their weird kids, and the citizens of Far Far Away still love their green hero — maybe too much.

When Shrek runs into “magic contract expert” Rumpelstiltskin after a birthday party, he’s in the throes of full-blown midlife crisis, and wastes no time signing a lengthy piece of parchment that promises him a full day of his old pre-Finona life in exchange for another day from his past. Immediately Shrek is transported to an alternate universe of anarchy that rivals the one Marty McFly created when he ripped the space-time continuum in half in Back to the Future 2.

Shrek is confronted with his life as it would have been if he’d never rescued (and married Fiona). For starters, no one in Far Far Away remembers him; Fiona is the leader of the Ogre Resistance; and Puss in Boots is nothing more than a chubby kitty.

It’s a reinvention of the Shrek universe, and for the most part, it works. The characters retain enough of their old personalities to make us remember why we love them, but their new lives are so strikingly different that the story feels fresh all over again. Shrek: Refreshed!

Mike Myers as Shrek and Cameron Diaz as Fiona seem a little bored with their character’s voices, but Eddie Murphey as Donkey and Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots are as funny as ever, and you’ve got to wonder at times if Murphy isn’t just ad-libbing the whole thing.

And Walt Dohrn’s Rumpelstiltskin is a treat. The Dreamworks animation team really shows off their skills with Rumpelstiltskin’s effusive facial expressions. A little more of that magic and a little less 3-D is exactly what the animation industry needs.

Shrek: Forever After isn’t perfect. The film has its tired moments, but it’s such a drastic improvement over Shrek the Third that I’m willing to accept Dreamworks’ apology. In fact, I’m willing to add Shrek: Forever After to my DVD collection and pretend the third movie never even existed.

• Amanda Seyfried seems to have forgotten her Red Riding Hood for her Esquire photoshoot, and girlfriend is smoking in a black lace body suit, or a corset, or well, anything. To hell with Jennifer’s body!

• Robot Chicken has its sights set firmly on two genre targets this year for the full-episode treatment like they gave Star Wars. Both James Cameron’s Avatar and the Twilight series are going to get the Robot Chicken treatment, with Avatar getting spoofed with its own action figures. I expect teary Twihard YouTube protests in 3-2-1.

• There are 20 Phrases To Make You Sound Brainier. My favorite? “Avatar, on a contextual level, is an abomination. But when divorced from its own merits, the sensory experiences are ceaselessly winning.” Best part? You can replace “Avatar” with “Rachel” or “Ben” or any friend and get away with calling your friends pretty but stupid to their faces.

• I don’t have a specific fantasy angle on this clip, but I think anytime you can bring the sun to a town above the arctic circle in the middle of winter, you’ve performed a kind of magic, and from the looks on the kids faces, I think they’d agree. Oh – and it’s a commercial for orange juice.

• The Telegraph spent a lot of time hanging out with Matt Smith on the set of Doctor Who. In addition to talking to his improbably mini-skirted companion Amy Pond, they got to look (but not photograph) the interior of the new, multi-level TARDIS, complete with swing.

• Friday I mentioned that it was a good year for Browncoats, as nearly the entire cast of Firefly had gigs. Now comes word that Summer Glau is joining The Cape, the “everyman” super hero show that NBC is piloting. She’ll play a low rent (blogger) Lois Lane to the low rent Batman knock-off the show is about.

• This amused me to no end, and I’d like to know what goes through someone’s mind to have them do Hutts and Recreation as a mashup of Star Wars and Parks & Recreation. I suspect it’s large doses of a psychotropic substance.

• Despite losing its Mary Jane, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark on Broadway is apparently moving forward according to the Green Goblin, Alan Cumming. Oddly, he says he has “flying rehearsal” two weeks before he has “rehearsal.”

• SyFy’s next dark fairy tale reimagining is Red, which like the Amanda Seyfried movie above, is about Little Red Riding Hood fighting werewolves. SyFy tweeted the first look at their own Red, Felicia Day. I think it’s fair to say they’re going for a contemporary look.

• There’s a rumor of a Dr. Who game for Nintendo Wii. The little game system that could is being targeted because it fits neatly into the same “family friendly” demographic that Dr. Who has always attempted to occupy. Plus I’m guessing a Wiimote is a very early-edition sonic screwdriver when you come right down to it.

• Entertainment Weekly tries to settle the debate of Batman vs. Superman that’s raged for so many decades, and comes down squarely in the Superman camp, because just like Spock in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizards-Spock, Superman beats everything.

• There is a new Shrek film, and it’s a rip off of It’s a Wonderful Life. Shrek Forever After is what they are promising us is the last in the series, and I intend to hold them to that, even if arson is involved.

• Does Wonder Woman deserve the Smallville treatment? There seems to be a decent case for bringing her youth to the small screen.

• Chris Weitz gives a long interview about Twilight: New Moon. I can’t think of anything nice to say, so I’ll stop.

• We still have no idea who is donning Captain America’s tights, but we do know that he’ll have to battle professional villain Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull.

• As we prepare for a new Nightmare on Elm Street, we get a new Freddie Kruger action figure, both pre-burn and post-burn Freddie.

• Finally, Robert Rodriguez showed up at SXSW with a sneak peek of Predators, his “fresh take” on the classic franchise, that he swears will make us forget the films that came before were connected.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Please send an email to thetorchonlineoracle@gmail.com and be sure and include your city and state and/or country.

Q: As I understand it, the real-life Spartacus only lived a short time after leading his famous Roman slave rebellion. Assuming Spartacus leads the rebellion next season, doesn’t that mean the show can only be three seasons long, at most? — Mark, Milwaukee, WI

A: Not surprisingly, not much is known about Spartacus in his pre-gladiator days, but the rebellion he led took place in 73 B.C., and Spartacus died in 71 B.C.

Robert Tapert (left) and Steven DeKnight

Or did he? Contrary to the famous ending of the Stanley Kubrick movie, Spartacus’ body was never found — an historical truth that the producers of the new Starz TV show Spartacus: Blood and Sand could certainly exploit.

In any event, there’s no reason why a “season” of the show has to correspond to a year of real time.

What do the producers themselves say?

“Anyone who knows the history of Spartacus obviously knows where this has to go,” Spartacus creator Steven DeKnight tells the Oracle. “There’s been a lot of talk based on [co-creator] Rob [Tapert's] work with Xena and Hercules — everybody says, ‘Well, Rob doesn’t care about history.’ But that’s absolutely not true. Rob does care about history, and we are following the broad strokes of the Spartacus story. We can’t be slaves to every detail — we bend history, we try never to break it.”

So how long will the show go?

“I have a five-to-seven year plan,” DeKnight says. “Definitely enough for five — it could go longer, depending on Starz and the viewership. Definitely at least five planned out. There’s so many great moments in Spartacus’ story, in history, that I’ve never fully seen explored.”

Q: I know we’re supposed to be in an “animation renaissance,” but I think I’m done with animated movies for a while. I tried to sit through the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs recently, but found absolutely unwatchable — a hyper-frenetic mess on one hand (for kids, I guess) with a bunch of stupid, but ironic quips (for the adults, supposedly). And it got good reviews! Obviously, Up was night-and-day better, but even that struck me as muddled in the middle and just generally over-rated. What do you think? — Madge, Baton Rouge, LA

A: We’ve written before about the animated movie renaissance, but the Oracle has come to reluctantly agree with you.

Disney started the renaissance with The Little Mermaid in 1989, but soon their films started to blur together: a story about a plucky, but ostracized outsider must learn to “own” his or her difference into order to end up saving the kingdom, village, or savanna — all set to truly memorable showtunes.

Two studios inherited Disney’s artistic mantle, furthering the renaissance: Pixar, which had a break-out hit with Toy Story, and Dreamworks, which had its first big success with Shrek.

But just like Disney’s films became derivative of themselves, most animated movies currently seem to follow either the Pixar/Toy StoryShrek formula or the Dreamworks/Shrek one.

The vast majority (like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) take the now-insufferable Shrek route: a gimmicky central story with hyper, ironic pop-culture-spouting hipster main characters, usually voiced by celebrities — a shtick modeled after Robin Williams‘ hammy, but memorable turn as the genie in Disney’s Aladdin.

This formula got old three Ice Age sequels ago. Sitting through Jim Carrey in Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who, the Oracle contemplated killing himself.

By contrast, Pixar (which is now owned by Disney) tells much more timeless stories: usually complicated morality tales involving sad or ethically compromised main characters. Examples include Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, WALL-E, and Ratatouille.

In the Oracle’s opinion, the Pixar model is a thousand times better than the Dreamworks’ one.

But I agree with you that Up, while beautifully drawn and acted, was ultimately muddled and overrated.

Q: There was this TV show around ten years ago about this guy who had the newspaper delivered to him (by a cat) a day early. He’d spend the episode trying to prevent the bad things in the newspaper from happening. Do you know the name of that show? — ScreamingMonkez, Birmingham,

A: You’re thinking of Early Edition, about a Chicago man who received a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times a day early. The show, which stared Friday Night Lights‘ Kyle Chandler and Fisher Stevens, originally ran on CBS from September 1996 to May 2000. ABC Family later ran reruns.

Incidentally, Stevens won an Oscar last night for a documentary he produced, The Cove. Yes, that’s why that guy looked so familiar!

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• Apparently not having had their fill of fantasy with Spartacus: Blood and Sand, the Starz network has obtained the rights to Pillars of the Earth, an “epic tale of good vs. evil told against the religious, social and political struggles of medieval Europe.” Man, Starz is becoming the place to be, isn’t it?

• Are people excited about the new V? I can’t seem to get my finger on that particular pulse. Well, if you are, we have promises from the powers that be that we’ll see more, more, more in the coming episodes. As for me, I just want to see mega-hottie Morena Baccarin rip her face off. Is that too much to ask?

• Okay, I thought the idea of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was genius. I freakin’ loved the title Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. So needless to say, I am super-stoked to learn that Tim Burton will be directing the upcoming film adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. A possibly risky move considering the novel was just released today.

• The part of Albus Dumbledore’s brother Aberforth has been cast, and it’s … Julius Caesar? Actually, it’s Ciaran Hinds, who played Julius Caesar on HBO’s Rome. From slain emperor to crazy old wizard. Not too shabby there, Ciaran.

• As a New Yorker, the Tribeca Film Festival has always held a special place in my heart. I love that in a city as commercial as New York there’s a festival that really honors the independent, artistic spirit of roll-up-your-sleeves filmmakers. And I’m proud that they’re honoring that tradition by opening the festical this year with … Shrek Forever After? Seriously? Wow, can’t wait till they open next year’s festival with that hard-hitting indie documentary, Transformers 3.

• I ain’t afraid o’ no spoilers. Bill Murray spills the beans on Letterman about the possibility of a new Ghostbusters movie. He doesn’t seem so into it.

• This is the kind of tweet that gets a big ol’ Marvel comics fan like me all in a tizzy. Hint: Anyone feel like assembling?

• While we’re on the subject of comics, here’s a great way to kill 20 minutes: a tour through the comic-book-cum-video-games of yesteryear.

• I have to confess, I never read any of Terry Brooks’ Shannara novels, even though they’ve called to me like sirens every time I pass them in the bookstore. Well, I should get crackin’, because he has three more on the way.

• Anyone else suffering from a little Hobbit rumor exhaustion? It’s cast, it’s not cast, it’s in 3D, it’s not in 3D, oh, wait, it might be in 3D. Just make the freakin’ movie already. (Incidentally, I’m currently reading The Hobbit again just for fun. Guess what? It’s just as awesome as you remember. Of course, the best part of the novel is not having to hear any rumors about the making of it.)

• After the more-successful-than-God run of Avatar, talk of a sequel is naturally in the works, but James Cameron doesn’t want to call it Avatar 2. He’s thinking he might call it Na’vi. I say he can call it whatever he wants, as long as we don’t have to hear rumors about it for years. Damn you, Hobbit.

• Daniel Radcliffe consistently proves he’s a bloody brilliant bloke, most recently for his work with The Trevor Project, a hotline to help LGBT teenagers in crisis. That’s right, a celebrity working for a cause that he’s not personally affected by and doesn’t tie in to a film he’s promoting. He’s just doing it because he knows he has a platform and he wants to use that opportunity for good. Wingardium levi-awesome.

• Finally, I’m trying to figure out an excuse I can come up with to post this next link … ooh, I got it. You all saw Look Who’s Talking, right? That was kind of fantasy … wasn’t it? Babies talking to each other? Yeah, that should work. Anyway, here’s 6 scientifically-proven facts that show that babies are completely evil, spiteful, petty A-holes.

Surprising absolutely no one, The CW has ordered a full-season pick-up for their teen vampire drama The Vampire Diaries. The show had the network’s most successful series premiere ever (with 4.9 million viewers), and it has proved to be a solid performer ever since, averaging 3.9 million viewers.

“When you have a love story that’s this powerful, and then you throw this genre element into it, with the great guy across the room who’s moody and brooding and sexy and dangerous, and also happens to be a vampire, then you end up with stories you can tell for days!” Diaries co-creator Julie Plec tells TheTorchOnline.com.

Regarding upcoming storylines, which are taken from a series of books on which the TV show is based, Plec says, “I like to say that if you look at the gross content of the books, we’re following it incredibly closely. But if you look at the timeline, it’s varying quite a bit. We’re telling some of the stories a lot faster, some of them a lot slower. But the core relationships are very specific, and very much what we’re playing with. We’ve got about five books that we’re hopefully turning into many, many seasons. The lead character in the books is actually dead by book three, she’s a ghost. It might take us a bit longer to do that!”

Meanwhile, Shrek the Musical, the Broadway musical adaptation of the hit film, announced that it will close on January 3rd. The musical has been troubled ever since its opening on December 14, 2008. The show, which cost an eyebrow-raising $24 million to mount, saw mixed reviews (see our review) and spotty ticket sales. It’s since grossed $37.7 million.

The show was the first production of Dreamworks Theatricals, a division of the movie studio, and has been the subject of much speculation over the course of its run, with many wondering if Dreamworks was keeping a money-losing production going in order to avoid the embarrassment of a flop.

Up, the latest computer-animated movie from Pixar Studios, opens on Friday, which means it’s a good time to ask: are we still in the middle of an animation renaissance?

Most observers agree that such a renaissance began in the late 1980s. Walt Disney Studios had virtually created the art-form of the animated feature film, in an original “golden age” that began with the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 and continued until the 1960s.

But by the 1970s, the studio’s animation arm was a shadow of its former self, directionless after the death of founder Walt Disney in 1966 and done in by a movie-going audience that had long since moved onto other genres.

All that changed in 1985 with the arrival of a new studio chairman at Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who immediately saw the potential in trying to return the studio to its former glory. Katzenberg and Disney first partnered with Steven Spielberg on 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit, an homage to the golden age of animation.

But it was The Little Mermaid, with its clever, catchy Broadway-style score and sophisticated storytelling, that truly heralded a new beginning for the medium.

In the decade that followed, the studio had an astounding run of animated critical and box office hits, including Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tarzan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Beauty and the Beast — still the only full-length animated feature film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. (In 2001, acknowledging the break-out success of the genre, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences created an award for Best Animated Feature, but making it even more difficult for animated films to claim Best Picture nods.)

Most of these animated Disney films followed a similar formula: a plucky, but ostracized outsider must learn to “own” his or her difference into order to end up saving the kingdom, village, or savanna — all set to truly memorable showtunes.

By 2000, however, this second Disney golden era had sputtered to an ignoble end; the studio’s animated output in the 00s has consisted mostly of modest successes or outright flops — something that ironically coincided with their decision to stop producing traditionally animated films and concentrate solely on CGI. (Needless to say, this explains the studios’ much-hyped decision to return to hand-drawn animation with The Princess and the Frog, their next release, coming in December.)

But while Disney was flaming out, other studios were eagerly joining the animation fray — most notably Steve Jobs’ Pixar, which actually partnered with Disney to release the wildly acclaimed Toy Story and subsequent critical and popular hits such as Monsters, Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. (After a increasingly contentious relationship in the mid-00s, Disney acquired Pixar outright in 2006).

Meanwhile, former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg had moved on from Disney to form Dreamworks Animation, the animation wing of his much-hyped Dreamworks SKG movie partnership with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. The studio floundered a bit until they finally hit pay-dirt with Shrek in 2001. A string of hits followed, including Over the Hedge, Ku Fu Panda, and Bee Movie.

Still another studio, Blue Sky, found success with films such as the Ice Age movies and Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who!

Meanwhile, the less said about Robert Zemeckis’ 2004 dud The Polar Express, the better; Beowulf, Zemeckis’ 2007 film that used the same mix of CGI and “performance capture” technology, was only marginally better.

Like Disney in the 90s, the two dominant studios, Pixar and Dreamworks, each have a unique sensibility for their films — though their two styles are very different from those first Disney films. Both mostly eschew Broadway-style songs, for example. Meanwhile, Pixar creates quirky characters endowed with a strong moral sense acting out classic, timeless tales, while Dreamworks’ films usually center around some version of the irreverent (and often cloying) pop-culture-spouting hipster first seen in Disney’s Alladin.

Ironically, most of the films in the animation renaissance that started with The Little Mermaid have usually been fantasy films (and only very rarely science fiction), once again proving the durability and popularity of the fantasy genre. But incredibly, despite the obvious popularity of these films with audiences, Hollywood has nonetheless maintained its virtual moratorium on live-action fantasy-themed films.

So are we still in the middle of an animation renaissance — albeit one that has evolved since the late 1980s to meet a new generation of viewers?

By one measure, there’s absolutely no doubt. The best-received animated films are frequently among the years’ highest grossers. Shrek and its two sequels have grossed over a billion dollars in the U.S. alone.

Audiences now love animated films, children and adults alike.

But how’s the quality? By this measure, it’s never been better here too: critics tend to love these animated films, at least the ones produced by Pixar and, to a lesser extent, Dreamworks. Indeed, by some measures, WALL-E was the best-reviewed film of 2008, animated or not (though, after a terrific first thirty minutes, its charms were mostly lost on this particular writer). Meanwhile, Ratatouille was one of the best-reviewed films of 2007. And with a RottenTomatoes.com rating of 100%, Up seems poised to be the best-reviewed film of this year.

And there’s absolutely no doubt that, in terms of new technologies and the resources spent on these films, the genre has never been more impressive.

So yes, the renaissance continues.

Are there any indications that it’s finally waning?

Both Pixar and Dreamworks have their tried-and-true formulas, and in Pixar’s case anyway, it usually works. But like Disney in the late 90s, there’s also a creeping sense that they’ve gone to their respective creative wells once too often. When it comes to popular entertainment created by corporations, true innovation tends to come after failure — by the television network in last place, for example. Why change the formula that’s working — and, more importantly, making fist-loads of money?

And the current slate of animated films is willfully, almost ridiculously male-centric — unlike at least the first few Disney films at the start of the animation renaissance. Female characters are currently few, and their roles needlessly peripheral and/or generic.

No renaissance lasts forever. But with no immediate signs of the quality of animated films abating, let’s enjoy this once while it lasts.

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Weak ticket sales may soon force the closure of Shrek the Musical, Dreamworks’ enormously expensive stage adaptation of their 2001 hit animated children’s movie about an ugly ogre and his love for a beautiful princess.

The show, which just opened in New York on December 14, once seemed as close to a sure bet on Broadway as possible. The original movie was a huge critical and commercial hit, spawning two successful sequels. The Broadway production had a sky-high budget of $24 million and stars theater veteran Sutton Foster.

The poor economy, combined with the show’s mixed reviews (see our review) have sent Shrek the Musical’s weekly revenues plunging from a high of $1.27 million in early January to less than half that two weeks ago. The show has been playing to half-empty houses, shocking New York’s theater community.

But it isn’t simply a question of the economy. Disney’s adaptation of their own animated children’s movie The Little Mermaid, which opened to horrendous reviews just over a year ago, is still playing to near-capacity houses.

Poor word-of-mouth and high ticket prices, typically over a hundred dollars each, are blamed for Shrek’s failure to date. According to Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, the producers are said to be mulling over options to try to save the show, including moving the time of the show an hour earlier on weeknights, to 7 PM, to better accommodate a family audience.

Three Torches (Out of Five)

Back in 2001, it was hard not to be at least mildly amused by Shrek, the animated Dreamworks movie about ironic, pop-culture-spouting fairy tale characters.

But two sequels and thirty thousand hip, self-aware animated characters later, Shrek seems a lot less fresh than it once did.

So do we really need the stage version that recently opened in New York at the Broadway Theater?

As with most of the recent Disney stage adaptations of animated movies such as Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, the musical is very faithful to the film, adding only a little backstory to pad the proceedings. This is probably essential, given that fans of the movies are these musicals’ primary audience.

But it raises the inevitable question: is this stage production even necessary? And at more than $100 a seat?

Sutton Foster (Little Women) proves she’s a theatrical pro, taking the thin Princess Fiona role and making it a comic tour de force, especially in the second act. Brian d’Arcy James is far less successful in the role of Shrek, doing a (mostly) limp imitation of Mike Meyer’s indelible movie portrayal.

Does the stage production improve on the movie in any way? Well, Christopher Sieber’s Lord Farquaad had the audience in absolute hysterics, often due to the ingenious/silly way they make the villain short (he plays the role on his knees).

And there’s an utterly charming scene when Princess Fiona, locked in a tower as a small girl, “grows up” while singing a song; the character is played in turn by three different actresses.

In other words, the play is not a disaster. There is a certain appeal in seeing the film’s noted irreverence translated on to the notoriously stuffy stages of New York. This may be the first Broadway production to have an extended sequence involving fart jokes–and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

This is not a bold The Lion King-like re-imagining of the movie. It’s simply the movie translated almost directly into another medium. But is such a translation necessary? Facial prosthetics and green make-up just can’t compare to the state-of-the-art-at-the-time CGI in the original film. And the production’s much-mocked stage dragon? Clearly that’s not where the musical spent its reported budget of $24 million.

The play is a pleasant diversion, nothing more and nothing less. But did I mention it costs $100 a seat?