Many fans of the Shrek movies think they want to see Shrek 5. They don’t realize that everything about this sequel is a terrible idea. The fact that the film is going to come out during a certain era of online culture is only going to make it worse.
‘Shrek 5’ can’t lampoon Disney the way the 1st film did
Shrek came out during a very specific period of the American media landscape. In 1989, the Disney Renaissance began with The Little Mermaid. Over the next ten years, the studio produced some of its most beloved films, such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, as well as less beloved films like Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan. By the end of the 1990s, fans could see that Disney had a formula: coming-of-age romance-driven musicals based on preexisting stories.
Shrek came out at just the right time. When people were getting sick of Disney, the film spoofed several of the studio’s classics, such as Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, and Beauty and the Beast. The film’s ending transformation scene is essentially an inversion of Beauty and the Beast, as it features a human being becoming a monster instead of vice versa. Shrek had extra bite because it was produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of the driving forces behind the Disney Renaissance.
Without all this context, would Shrek connect with audiences? Not really. Moviegoers don’t seem to be sick of Disney right now and the ones that are seem mostly upset that the studio is remaking everything and ruining Star Wars. A new Shrek movie would not be able to deal with those problems.
Why memes could spell doom for ‘Shrek 5’
The other main reason why a new Shrek movie is a bad idea is the current state of the internet. Online culture has been obsessing over Shrek and its theme song, “All Star” by Smash Mouth. In some ways, Shrek is less of a movie and more of an internet punchline.
Hollywood might just work some of the less salacious Shrek memes into the movie. That would be beyond cringe. However, we saw some Spider-Man memes in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Shrek is a lot more important to internet culture.
The more recent movies in the series give us pause
On top of all that, there’s no good reason to think that a new Shrek film would be any good. The franchise peaked with Shrek 2 and the rest of the films — Shrek the Third, Shrek Forever After, and the Puss in Boots movies — have been lackluster. The series’ Christmas special, Shrek the Halls, is just plain terrible. There’s a reason why kids watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! every year and yet nobody ever talks about Shrek the Halls. Of course, a new Shrek could surprise me but I would bet on Shrek 5 being about as good as Shrek the Halls, just with a much larger budget and celebrity cameos.
Of course, we are at the point where every famous movie has to have a belated sequel or remake. A new Shrek movie is more or less inevitable. Even if now isn’t the best time for Shrek, he’ll never be gone for too long.
