This can't really be called a spoiler, because it doesn't tell the plot. This is the rewrite my husband and I whipped up in the car on the way home. The real movie was a huge bummer. The jokes were flat; the music choice was off... and the plot was such a tragic waste. It was King Arthur, you fools! You had an archetype and you can't even follow the formula! But they recycled Charming as the bad guy and any good Grail Lit student knows that Charming is NOT the right bad guy for King Arthur. ::exasperated sigh::
My brief rewrite below.
In my version of Shrek The Third, Shrek is made the heir, freaks and runs off to find Arthur, the true heir. (The whole high school thing is rewritten with real jokes and actually humor.)
Tertiary Characters: We meet Merlin, who in his attempt to send them back to Far Far Away, accidentally sends himself, so he becomes the newest of the misfit gang (with Puss, Donkey, the pigs, Pinocchio, et al). Wackiness ensues, including my favorite scene where Merlin (with his big round glasses) tries to do the Puss Cute Look... and succeeds! Merlin serves as handy deus ex machina for Shrek's fatherhood anxieties and Arthur's anxieties about growing up (with handy parallels).
Bad Guys: Charming recruits the bad guys, including a very impressive and thoroughly ink-souled Black Knight (always in armor, very dour, perfect foil to Charming's, well, charm). But since Charming is really more of a follower than a leader (missing Poor Mummy), the Knight finds it very easy to take control of the kingdom, all under the guise of 'helping" Charming.
Shrek returns with Arthur, finds the kingdom in disarray, charges off to rescue Fiona and is instead captured by the Black Knight, who takes Arthur away in order to cement his own claim to the throne and leaves Charming and Shrek together in the Standard Easily Escapable Trap. Charming and Shrek have to work together (at least a little) to escape and Charming does a little growing up. Fiona and the girls kick a&&, which was about the only good part of the movie. Donkey, Puss, and Merlin (the chorus) futz up around the edges, with good jokes.
In the final showdown, Charming redeems himself a little by doing something selfless. Arthur acts like a King. The Black Knight bellows and threatens a lot... and for the final defeat, Arthur whacks off the limbs of the Knight one. by. one. (obvious Python reference) until it's just a helmet bouncing on the ground, whereupon Shrek, exasperated that they'd ever taken a silly tin man seriously, throws the head out to sea. Maybe sharks eat it. Or the Lady of the Lake tosses it back. There are plenty of possibilities here.
And at the closing party, a newly humbled Charming asks Doris, the Ugly stepsister, to dance. Happily ever after.
....... sadly, that was NOT the plot. And it would have been so easy.
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