Continuity mistake: Rumpelstiltskin looks completely different in this movie than he did in the previous film Shrek The Third; Prince Charming momentarily talks to Rumpelstiltskin in the tavern during the third film, and the character looks completely different, has a different voice and different demeanor.
Plot hole: In the second Shrek movie, we find out that Fairy Godmother and the King had a deal that Prince Charming would save Princess Fiona from the keep, hence becoming her true love and breaking the curse. In the fourth movie, we start with Rumple monologuing about how he almost had the Kingdom by signing a deal with the King. Why would the King be so desperate to try and reverse the curse by signing a deal when he knows he has a prior attempt through Prince Charming, assuming it would take the same time for the messenger to return with news about Charming and Fiona either way?
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Suggested correction: It is stated in the intro that when "days turned into years" of waiting for a Prince to rescue Princess Fiona, the king and queen resorted to more desperate measures - enter Rumpelstiltskin.
Continuity mistake: When Shrek and Fiona are fighting the dragon, the amount of chain between Shrek and the dragon changes after he wraps the chain around the dragon's tail.
Puss in Boots: Feed me, if you dare.
Donkey: Man, you are a cat-tastrophe.
Puss in Boots: And you, are ri-donk-ulous.
Shrek: You know, I always thought I'd rescued you from the Dragon's Keep.
Princess Fiona: You did.
Shrek: No. It was you who rescued me.
Question: Why did the king and queen disappear when the king signed the contract? The deal was that Fiona will be saved from the curse if he did - but Fiona wasn't saved at all. Was the contract void from something?
Answer: Rumpelstiltskin used a contract that 'made all their problems disappear'. He didn't reference any specific problem and the king and queen assumed it would cure the curse. However, it just makes the king and queen disappear, and since they have disappeared, they will no longer have any problems.
Question: In the beginning, the king and queen are shown riding in a carriage. However, before watching this movie, I viewed Shrek 3 where the king had turned into a frog and died. If he died in 3, how did he come back to life in this movie? This was before the king and queen signed any contract and vanished, so magic was not involved in his being alive.
Answer: It was stated in this scene that Fiona was rescued from the tower, meaning this scene took place at the same time as Shrek 1, when the King was still alive.
But they didn't have kids in the first?
Question: What happened then to Prince Charming or Fairy Godmother? In Shrek 2, they did mention that it was the Fairy Godmother who cursed Fiona. So how come Prince Charming never rescued her instead of Shrek (since he was never born in Rumpelstiltskin's timeline)? The King and Queen may have disappeared but at least Prince Charming could have still saved her.
Answer: It is not known why it took Charming so long to rescue Fiona. She was in the tower for several years. Shrek 2 picked up after she was rescued and it was too late for Charming. Since Shrek was never born and Charming was so late, I would think there was nothing from stopping the King and Queen from signing the deal with Rumplestiltskin. The deal was for Fiona to be rescued from the tower in exchange for the Kingdom. He never said "who" rescued her. She rescued herself. It was a trick from the beginning. Not sure of their whereabouts after the deal. Fairy Godmother probably could not change the alternate reality if she did not know what happened to everyone.
Answer: Although they never say explicitly what happened, my guess is in the alternate reality where Shrek never came to rescue Fiona Prince Charming was killed by the dragon (like all the other knights who tried to save her) and then Fiona escaped on her own shortly afterwards.
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