DreamWorks Animation recently showed a sneak peak of Shrek 5’s character design, including news that the new cast would feature the original Shrek cast, along with Zendaya, and it also announced that the movie will be released by December 23, 2026. This upcoming movie could be a possible school trip for BASE students to go on to have fun and take a break from all the schoolwork.
The animation engine that DreamWorks is using for the movie is called MoonRay and it is the same engine that was used for Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. It becomes very understandable as to why Shrek 5 looks the way it does as Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was extremely successful with a Rotten Tomato score of 95%. It makes sense why DreamWorks would use this engine again because only the original Shrek and Shrek 2 are the only movies of the franchise that did well with Rotten Tomato scores of 88% and 89% respectively, as everything after weren’t really received well by the public. DreamWorks wants to apply the same techniques they used that made Puss in Boots: The Last Wish so successful.
On Social Media, there has been split talk about this new animation style of the characters and whether or not it’s good or bad, with some people even comparing it to the time that the first Sonic movie’s character designs were shown to the public. It has gotten so bad that the Sonic movie team has posted a video on TikTok that instructs “any green ogres looking for advice” to “take notes.”
There is serious debate on whether or not the animation style should be changed by fans, unlike the infamous original Sonic design, with some people arguing that DreamWorks should reuse the old animation style, while others understand that DreamWorks is updating Shrek’s style to fit with the modern times. This type of talk on social media might determine the fate of Shrek 5 as if there is too much backlash from the public about the animation style DreamWorks could prolong the release date of the movie to come up with a new animation engine and designs to use. If that happens the entire plan to have a school trip to see Shrek 5 could be entirely cancelled and forgotten by the time the movie comes out.
Ms. Floyd, the event planner for BASE high school when asked if there would be a school trip to go see the movie she states that “Yes, it could be a trip if it’s tied to an educational process”. She also provided the future requirements to go on this possible trip, “In order to go on the trip, good attendance and well-behaved, and students must agree to write something about the movie, it could be something fun or something they would like to share with others.”
When the school went to see Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, it was great community bonding for the student body and all who were there could agree that they had a fun time and Shrek 5 could also be a great chance for some community bonding in BASE.
When asking some students at BASE about how they felt about how Shrek 5 looked they were not positive about it. “It doesn’t feel the same as the original Shrek”, said Sebastian Moise, 12th grade student of BASE. It also seems that student interest about the movie isn’t high as well. Kiara Julien, 9th grade student of BASE says “I think people would go see it just to hate on the movie.” Social studies and journalism teacher Ms. Witthaus says however “Shrek is such a classic and hilarious blast and I hope that our community gets to see Shrek 5 together.”
This type of reaction is to be expected from most of the student body as sequels of popular movie franchises have a historical track record of being not as good as the original or being completely terrible. Maybe as time goes on student opinion and interest will do better, but nothing is stopping students from going to see the movie themselves with friends or family.
Shrek is a childhood classic movie that most people remember fondly and Shrek 5 deserves to be checked out by fans of the franchise before immediately making the decision that it’s a bad movie without actually seeing it on the big screen.
