Puss In Boots: The Last Wish - The Shrek franchise returns after 11 years

Kari Kamiya said:
The fanbase is a meme in of itself, but the Shrek franchise does have actual fans who like the movies and the characters for what they are, some are just animation fans as a whole who respect it. It's kind of a unique community.

The hatedom is more autistic than the fanbase, though. They fucking despise Shrek just because he's everywhere, and by God do they let you know they hate everything Shrek and what the character stands for.
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Oh come one now!

SHREK IS LOVE.

SHREK... IS LIFE. :semperfidelis:
 
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I don't like Shrek so this took me by surprise with how good it was.
If I ever have kids, this is something that I would definitely show them.
Great visuals and voice acting, solid story and the humor worked for me.
Muu said:
Avatar 2 makes a billion while this was a flop, we truly do live in a society. (:_(
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It didn't flop, it made it's money back but yeah, this should have been a major hit.
I honestly think that the general audiences, just like me, were like: "Puss in Boots 2? Really?"
Nobody was excited for this, they wrote it off before they saw it.

Also, Avatar 2 already made $1.7 billion, it's on it's way to becoming the highest grossing movie of all time.
 
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Mac Monster said:
What's wrong with Deaths design? I thought he looked pretty cool. I suppose you could consider him furry bait, but you could say that about any anthropomorphic animal designs. The only character designs I disliked were some of Jack Horners goons, who looked like tumblr rejects, but they were just canon fodder that were barely in the film at all.
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pic related
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Quijibo69 said:
Watched it, ok. Nothing to write home about. It's one of these movies that are really common now:
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I get the impression that it's one of those films that would've been "meh" tier like the original around the late 2000s/early 2010s but looks exponentially better nowadays because of how much everything else sucks.

Also I noticed that they aped Into the Spider-Verse animation for it which automatically makes me knock-off points because that animation style is fucking awful. What happened to just sticking with the original style?

Also, full disclosure, but IMO basically every Shrek-related film besides the original has sucked ass. Shrek worked as a parody of traditional children's fairy tales but it is REALLY dated by its over-reliance on pop culture references. And they doubled down on that bullshit with every subsequent film.
 
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ArthuriusMartyrius said:
Also, full disclosure, but IMO basically every Shrek-related film besides the original has sucked ass. Shrek worked as a parody of traditional children's fairy tales but it is REALLY dated by its over-reliance on pop culture references. And they doubled down on that bullshit with every subsequent film.
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THIS, I actually agree with. First Shrek, I'd argue, still holds up in a weird way. Mostly due to the gooey emotional center it has, which is BARELY enough to overpower said pop culture references. Every one after the first one relies on referential humor way too much.
 
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.Basic Blonde Boy said:
To be fair Avatar is also setting up to be a flop and Puss released during America’s worst weather conditions and the holidays. I also think they botched the release as it released Wednesday last week, but advertisements said Christmas from what I could recall. When I saw it Saturday, I was surprised it was even out.
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As some commentators have said, people aren't going to watch Avatar simply because its been fucking years and no one has ever talked of it since the original, or their being any spin offs to keep it in the public mindset, so they just weren't interested.
 
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Vyse Inglebard said:
THIS, I actually agree with. First Shrek, I'd argue, still holds up in a weird way. Mostly due to the gooey emotional center it has, which is BARELY enough to overpower said pop culture references. Every one after the first one relies on referential humor way too much.
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Do they?

I am going to be honest, I can’t remember any reference jokes in either Shrek Forever After or Puss In Boots. Shrek 3 had a few background gags, but nothing hit the level of the Cops or Burger King scenes from Shrek 2.

A lot of the issues of Shrek come from it getting too serious, Puss In Boots being heavily noted as a weirdly straight take on a fairy tale for a Shrek film, and a reliance on gross humor. The heart of the series will still present in 2, 4, Puss, and even parts of 3, but it is very obvious that 3 marks a transition in the series that makes it very different from before. I think the style change between films really destroyed the franchise at large.

The first was a Disney hate thread hiding a genuinely great subversion of Disney fairy tales. A story where the monster of those tales gets a happy ending with a strong message about looks. The second is a continuation on that plot line as now it isn’t building a small community of outcasts, but being accepted by the greater world. Stuff not shown in fairy tale stories like meeting the parents becomes a thing. The main story has the same theme of acceptance, but shows how society creates pressures to be a certain way, hence why Shrek caves and transforms to be fairy tale typical. This is hidden behind a frantic string of jokes though, some references, some crude, and lots of sarcasm.

The third is slower paced and riddled with fart humor and “ha dork” humor. The plot is good conceptually, but poorly executed. There is no longer an acceptance story that can be told with Shrek, so it starts becoming a story about the aftermath. It continues the post-happily ever after plot by introducing kids and the idea that Shrek needs to be a leader now as he is the king, both of which never have challenges explored. The idea of shifting the acceptance message to the villains of fairy tales is also a good idea. Execution got muddied though as Prince Charming is a weak antagonist without his mommy, Arthur and Shrek have a mishandled relationship and there are tons of side plots that go nowhere. This is without mentioning poor jokes and how they ruin impactful scenes like Harold’s death. The plot of Shrek training nerdy Arthur to be a good leader not by pulling out the sword and becoming the usual Chad, then him giving villains happily ever after to deafest them could be a good plot, but that isn’t what happened. Too much in too little time with no real focus. In a sense, make Shrek become a father through Arthur, which I assume was what they were going for.

Shrek 4 is a basic plot executed well. It is an average mid-life crisis leads to It’s a Wonderful Life. Basic, but fits Shrek seeing as he is very different from the start at this point. He is no longer the lonely monster, he is an attraction people love, a husband, a friend, and a dad. The movie makes his relapse to Shrek 1 Shrek pretty believable, then hits hard with the consequences of what that means. The love and care he loses, shown brilliantly by the crying scene after seeing his daughter’s toy. The problem with Shrek 4 is the overall lack of humor, making it off putting to Shrek and Shrek 2 fans.

I like to think of Shrek as the very strong non-fairy tale. It is the story of an ogre who gets his happily ever after and has to fight for it again and again as there is no one and done. He has to go through struggles of the happy ending sidestepped in fairy tales: Leadership, children, relationships. Maybe Shrek was a parody at first, but it evolved into something more. It is not a parody like Enchanted where it just says the thing would be stupid if put in the real world, yet ends like a fairy tale. It takes time to show what life would mean in such a world. Enchanted is a fairy tale put through the lens of life, Shrek is life put through the lense of a fairy tale.
 
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Watched it tonight and I'm glad I did and was really surprised the dog wasn't annoying, it's better than the first I don't know how DreamWorks do it but they always seems to make sequels better than the original.
death had the best villain since Shen in kfp2 the ending with the shrek tease was disappointed as I wanted it to be a separate franchise
 
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Scarlett Johansson said:
I'm genuinely excited about this because I've been hearing nothing but good reviews.
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Yeah it’s apparently meant to be brilliant and a huge return for the series, taking inspiration artistically from entrer the spiderverse and really fleshing out Puss in Boots character and giving him more to do.
 
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thegooddoctor said:
Yeah it’s apparently meant to be brilliant and a huge return for the series, taking inspiration artistically from entrer the spiderverse and really fleshing out Puss in Boots character and giving him more to do.
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All correct. Honestly the only negative about the movie (and this is more of a subjective thing) is they didn't do much with Kitty. There's a whole trust thing but it's pretty one-sided and Puss is the one in the wrong even though trust kinda works both ways. Not really as bad as it might sound here and I only really noticed in hindsight.
 
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