Well, the years start comin’, and they don’t stop comin’. This month, we got a new trailer for Shrek 5, set for release in 2027, 26 years after the first film. It’s the second teaser and second social media reckoning the film has gotten, the first look dropping one year ago amid online hate for its visuals and mockery of its plot predictability. One thing remains consistent in both previews: our lead characters possess an uncanny quality that fails to capture the iconic comfort and recognizability of the prior films. Perhaps with enough media coverage, the disappointing designs will go the way of the Sonic the Hedgehog debacle.
In the original Shrek (2001) storyline, Fiona (Cameron Diaz) is a thin princess by day and a curvy ogre by night. She finds true love with Shrek and chooses to remain an ogre for all-time. These unconventional happy endings, set to a cacophony of burps and farts, remind audiences that you’re beautiful just as you are. There are people out there who get you.
Almost three decades later, the first two Shrek films continue to be praised for the cultural mark they’ve left and the fun that they still bring for the whole family. The third and fourth films receive fewer accolades, but none have ventured to such egregious deviation as Shrek 5 appears to in these new clips.
Fiona looks like an entirely different character. The filmmakers have put her back in her original dress and hair from the first film, seemingly for this very reason. Her face and body look smaller and younger, as though she’s somehow hired an injectionist in Far Far Away, but she doesn’t truly have filler face. She just has someone else’s face.
She bears a resemblance to Anna from Frozen (2013), and most of the shots in the trailer follow suit: Shrek is beginning to look like the very films the original was meant to parody. The story, its world, and its characters were once satires of Disney, using crass humor, janky visuals, and unexpected twists to achieve their unique identity. Now the two blend together, taking away Shrek’s edge and individuality.
The kicker? They aged Shrek’s (Mike Myers) design. They gave him wrinkles for the passage of time. Both ogres have a bad case of A.I.-face, but Shrek at least looks like… Shrek. Fiona looks like Shrek’s daughter. The comments section of my TikTok rant on this subject is full of folks insisting that she must, in fact, be Shrek’s daughter, while other viewers defend her for getting a “mommy makeover.”
Whether or not this is intended as a joke, it’s disheartening to hear. One would hope that in a swamp in a fictional land, an animated ogre could be freed from the anti-aging, anti-fatness beauty standards of today’s world. What does it tell audiences that Shrek can age but Fiona must look younger than ever despite having teenage sons? What does it tell children that even women who are loved for who they are and once felt confident in being different ultimately decide to change themselves and follow the masses?
It’s happening in tandem with 13-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams becoming the face of a weight-loss drug ad campaign. We’re watching pop stars who once sang about owning their bigger size shrink down rapidly, like Lizzo and Meghan Trainor. We’re witnessing a decrease in choreography for concert performances as musicians either starve themselves or join the Ozempic train. They can’t be entirely individually faulted for the pressures getting to them; they’re each a reflection of a larger pattern. Now, it seems that modern body trends have seeped into animation.
At their worst, these new designs are sinister and patriarchal. At their best, they are lazy. It’s particularly disappointing in the wake of such a creative, smash-hit spinoff film: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022). The Spider-Verse-esque animation style and depth of storytelling made this a standout. It gives the impression that DreamWorks and Universal offered more creative liberties for a side character’s film and are trying to play it “safe” for Shrek’s main plotline.
There is a disconnect between what audiences are asking for and how production companies interpret it. You feel nostalgic, so you want a legacy sequel to Freaky Friday (2003)? We’ll give you a great script, but we’ll douse it in washed-out color grading and questionable wardrobe. Craving The Devil Wears Prada 2? We’re scared of you guys, so we’ll try to cover every base imaginable with celebrity cameos and cancel-culture satire, ultimately losing the original’s focused charm.
Meanwhile, one of the buzziest summer shows doing this people-pleaser dance is currently in full swing: Love Island USA (2019—) shows the most overt, real-time reactions to social media fan responses. They’ve removed cast members from the villa on more than one occasion when videos of said cast members saying racial slurs have circulated on the internet. After facing complaints for the clout-chasing, unlikeable cast of last season, the producers seemed to select (still drop-dead gorgeous) normies for Season 8, coaching them to talk about their retail jobs and service work to ground the narrative amidst the political frustration and economic hardship of the average viewer.
Bending the knee to the unceasing demands of TikTok users seems an impossible task, but the Peacock team is clearly making an attempt. What may seem like a trashy, vapid, heteronormative swingers fest of a show is not only 100% all of those things, but has become a cultural lightning rod, conversation starter, and community builder. So even though they’ll never fully create a utopia of diversity and inclusion, their efforts have not gone unnoticed by their audience.
Horror films Backrooms (2026) and Obsession (2026) both recently broke box office records, surpassing $300M in earnings each. Production companies have begun to comb through Reddit stories for film inspiration in the wake of Backrooms garnering an audience from internet lore. It’s a questionable takeaway — Backrooms was successful because a young filmmaker did not compromise on the integrity of his vision.
It’s similar to the frustrating result of Barbie (2023), which caused corporations to push for more films about toys or games, like Polly Pocket or Monopoly. Again, Barbie’s success would not have been a guarantee just because the toy is nostalgic and fun — Greta Gerwig’s unique vision and insightful script made it an instant classic.
A new $75 million A.I. partnership between independent film studio A24 and Google’s DeepMind can be added to the list of controversial public disappointments in recent cinema news. It’s hard not to feel disillusioned as a young creative, watching big-budget remakes and sequels lack the rejuvenation they deserve yet continue to bring in undeniable profit. An existing IP fills theater seats. As much as I want to believe the 1.4 million likers of my video who claim they’ll boycott Shrek 5, we all have some level of curiosity about what new narratives the characters we love will undergo. Maybe Curry Barker and Kane Parsons can empower other 20-somethings to get their original projects made and even the franchise scales.
It turns out all that glitters is not gold, after all. Knock-off Fiona: you’re not an all-star. I beseech you, DreamWorks, to bring back love’s true curvy form.
Analysis Courtesy of Risa Bolash