To put it simply put, Shrek 5 has been a film that has been discussed for at least a
decade now. Originally being canceled once it was decided that “Shrek Forever After” would
be the final Shrek film, the movie once again became a possibility after Dreamworks was bought
by Universal. But even with that, the movie has been stuck in Development Hell for some time now,
with it being unclear when it’ll come out or what it will even be about.
However, we recently got a bit of confirmation that Shrek 5 IS coming… eventually. At the end
of the latest film in the Shrek franchise - that being “Puss in Boots - the Last
Wish” - we see Puss in Boots, Kitty Softpaws and Perrito taking a ‘borrowed’ boat to Far
Far Away in order to, as Puss says, “visit some old friends”. With this, we got to thinking:
What are some plotlines or elements that the next Shrek sequel could possibly focus on?
I’m ___ with WickedBinge, and these are some Shrek Sequel Ideas we Love and Hate.
Now, before we get started with our ideas, let’s address the elephant in the room - that
being the rumor that Shrek 5 is going to be a total revamp/re-imagining of the series. Now,
we can’t necessarily blame anyone who originally believed in this rumor,
given how “Shrek Forever After” ended with what was essentially a curtain call of the
series’ best moments in its credits as well as the character of Shrek
literally putting his book back on the shelf, signifying its temporary end. In many ways,
it seemed like the perfect wrap-up. Add in the fact that stars such as Mike Myers, Eddie
Murphy and Cameron Diaz aren’t nearly as popular these days as they were back in the 2000s, and a
studio like Universal would have all the more of a reason to totally reboot this series, giving them
a free pass to either remake the first movie or construct a new Shrek timeline altogether.
Needless to say, we absolutely hate this idea. While Shrek may be an older franchise,
it's still one with a ton of history that means a lot to its fans. To disregard all of those moments
and arcs throughout the previous four movies for the sake of a brand new ‘modern’ canon
would be disrespectful to say the least, and we doubt that it would really add much in the
first place. Thankfully, as we stated before, this seems to only be a rumor - and one that is
growing more unlikely by the day. The ending of “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” as well as
the minor cameos from characters like Pinnochio and Gingy seems to confirm that this movie takes
place within the original Shrek universe, and with how well received that movie has
been so far, we can’t imagine that Dreamworks or Universal would be too eager to rock the boat.
Phew, now that we’ve got the biggest rumor - and biggest worry - out of the way,
let’s move onto some other possibilities. One of the things fans may use as an argument
against more Shrek films is that Shrek essentially already had a full character
arc throughout the four films, so it’d be hard to think of where to take his character from there.
We’re sure the film’s writers know this as well, so there’s a chance that instead of
focusing solely on Shrek and his growth, the fifth film may instead focus on Donkey
or Fiona. With Shrek being the main star of his franchise and Puss having his own set of
spin off films, it could be argued that Donkey and Fiona have the least amount of character
development. Fiona mostly serves as just the supportive wife who only really got to put
her leadership skills to good use in the fourth film, and Donkey is the comic relief/best friend.
Don’t get us wrong, they’re both great characters who make a huge
positive impact on both Shrek’s life and the franchise as a whole. But, at the same time,
we do really like the idea of either one of these characters taking center stage while Shrek
supports them in their personal journey, instead of the other way around. If you ask us personally,
we’re leaning more towards Fiona getting that lead role. As we said before, she got to show
off a ton of her own strength and skill in “Shrek Forever After”s alternate universe,
and it would be cool to see her take on a challenge in the series’ actual canon. She
is still a princess, after all. Maybe she could go up against an evil (or seemingly evil) princess,
or use her leadership skills to help lead her home kingdom alongside her cousin? Or hey, maybe this
time it’s Shrek being the one who’s put in danger, and Fiona has to go save him? It could be really
fun to see the roles reversed, in addition to seeing the characters’ reactions to new
and unfamiliar situations. It’s the fifth movie in a series, after all, so why not mix it up?
But of course, Fiona and Donkey aren’t the only ones who could use some development
and spotlight - and after 12 years, we’d imagine that a certain set of triplets
aren’t exactly babies anymore. So, why not do a film focusing on the Ogre Kids?
Shrek and Fiona have three kids - Farkle, Fergus and Felicia. That’s three characters to use and
three potential plotlines or character arcs to explore. Maybe one of the kids wishes to
actually become human instead of being an ogre. Maybe one of them falls in love with
a human and they have to deal with all of that potential drama. Maybe one or more of them want
to try and find other ogres, or they decided to team up with the other so-called ‘monsters’ of
the fairy tale world. Maybe the kids just want to go on their own quest after hearing about
all the cool journeys their father was able to go on. There really are a ton of possibilities,
depending on what sort of story the writers and directors want to tell. We’ve already seen
that the Shrek series has done a great job focusing on its themes and arcs,
so a coming-of-age story of sorts seems right up this franchise’s alley.
However, we have to say that we are actually feeling pretty mixed about this idea. While
the possibilities for a Shrek movie focused on the ogre kids are practically limitless, we at
WickedBinge have seen far too many film franchises start to fall into mediocrity once they shift
the focus onto what could be considered cliche kid/teen antics - such as the Ice Age series with
its subplots focused on Manny’s daughter, Peaches, or the Disney Direct-to-DVD sequels that focus on
the kids of our favorite Disney characters. That’s not to say that it would be impossible
for Dreamworks to do something amazing with these characters, it would just take a ton of effort and
fine tuning to make the potential plotlines both interesting and enjoyable for both new and old
audiences. Additionally, while some people would be happy enough to have Shrek in a supportive dad
role, other fans would probably just want a movie focused on Shrek himself - and, yeah, that’s fair.
Shifting from character spotlights to actual story ideas, we have to say that
the biggest potential story we could see a fifth Shrek film being focused on would
have to be the Return of King Artie and the subsequent quest for the Holy Grail. Now,
we know that Artie didn’t exactly leave the most, shall we say, positive impression on most fans.
While certainly not the most hated part of “Shrek the 3rd”, he didn’t exactly help matters either.
That being said, this film will likely have some sort of time skip,
be it small or large. Either way, Artie would have been king for a while - which means that
he would be overdue for some kingdom-wide threat, leading to him contacting Shrek and
Fiona and the whole cast going on some quest for a mystic item - likely the Holy Grail,
which was originally going to be a plot element in “Shrek the Third” - that could then save Far Far
Away. Because hey, what better way to restart a film franchise, after all, then with a huge grand
and epic quest? What’s more, it’d be a plot that you could easily play around with,
adding both humorous and interesting elements throughout it in order to further mix things up.
Overall, while we’re admittedly leaning more towards positive feelings on this idea,
we still have somewhat mixed feelings about it. While the set pieces and structure would be there,
providing a good baseline plot that the character arcs and themes could then bounce off of, there
are still a couple of things that would make us a bit concerned. One of those things is, of course,
Artie himself - who, we remind you, wasn’t shown or even mentioned in the fourth movie,
further adding to the feeling that he had little to no impact on the franchise
whatsoever. Dreamworks would likely have to do a bit of heavy lifting to make his character feel
interesting and make it seems like he actually adds something to the quest - and by that point,
why not just make an entirely new character or give his screentime to other characters that
need it? Some audience members may also see it as somewhat lame to try and go back and retroactively
‘fix’ elements of “Shrek the Third” instead of just focusing on the future of the franchise.
We should also mention that while there is some overlap between Arthurian Legends and Fairy Tales,
they are still different genres and we wouldn’t want Shrek to completely abandon its fairy tale
roots for the sake of an ‘epic’ medieval fantasy story - especially not after we’ve
already seen from Puss in Boots 2 how well the franchise is still able to utilize these
fairy tale elements. Overall, it’s just another case of ‘could be really good,
but there’s stuff that could go wrong with it’.
Moving away from potential plotlines, we should also mention that one of the
goals that many sequels try to accomplish is the expanding and development of their
franchise’s setting and universe. One way that the Shrek series could add in
some world building that could then lead to interesting story ideas or
subplots could be the introduction of fairy tale characters from different countries.
Pretty much all of the fairy tale characters used in Shrek have been
ones that are familiar to both American and European audiences, their portrayals being
inspired by both classic western fairy tales as well as the Disney versions of those same
tales. The most diverse that things have gotten regarding characters has been Puss in Boots,
who was originally an Italian fairy tale but seems to originate from Spain in the
Shrek universe. In that sense, it could be really cool to see the franchise bring in
new settings and side characters from the fairy tales and legends of other cultures and countries.
While we obviously would want the writers and directors at Dreamworks to incorporate these
ideas correctly and with input from people of these cultures, we still really like this
idea and think it could be a fun time! Not only could it potentially breathe a bit of new life
and interest into the Shrek franchise, but it could also lead to some interesting new
plots as well. We saw how amazed Shrek was at meeting other ogres in “Shrek Forever After”,
so imagine his reaction to meeting other ogre-like ‘monsters’ from the rest of the
world. Taking a global journey and making new and interesting friends would add just enough
of a spin to the usually-cliche ‘road trip sequel’ plot, while still leaving plenty of
room for the original Shrek characters to shine as they discover magical new worlds.
For our final section, we’d like to take a look at some older ideas that may or may not end up
being inspiration for future Shrek content - that being the cut plotlines and scenes.
From an alternate portrayal of Shrek himself to an entirely different first movie,
Shrek is a franchise that has left a TON on the cutting room floor. But while some
of this content was probably better off being rewritten or written out of the final product,
sometimes the best way to figure out a new story is to take one of the ideas you had for an older
story and look at it from a different angle. And, if we go to the “What Could Have Been” section of
the Shrek TV Tropes page, there are actually a couple of big ideas that stick out to us.
As it turns out, a huge chunk of the first movie’s original draft was focused on Shrek’s parents and
his relationship with them. After this draft was scrapped, Shrek’s parents remained relatively
unmentioned, even after new ogre characters were eventually brought in. His dad only gets a brief
mention in “Shrek the Third” and his parents are seen in the first musical number in “Shrek the
Musical”, but that’s all they really get. So, it could be fun to finally bring in Shrek’s parents,
just to see what they’re like and how they compare to both Fiona’s parents and their
own son. Maybe tying that in with a storyline involving Shrek’s kids or a potential threat
to Far Far Away - a threat that, coincidentally, may be able to be defeated with a bit more ogre
power? Either way, it’d be kind of neat to bring these characters in without needing to
go full-prequel in order to properly see them. It does admittedly somewhat give off “Despicable
Me 3” vibes, what with the whole ‘long lost relative’ thing, but it could still work!
The other idea we found to be fairly interesting comes from the workshop phase for the second film.
Apparently, instead of focusing solely on the personal and emotional aspects of the characters,
it would have been more plot-focused and would involve Shrek helping to turn Far
Far Away into a democracy, with an election race between Pinocchio and Gingy that was
“rife with contemporary political satire”, which co-director Andrew Adamson reportedly
found hilarious. While we are ultimately glad that the directors decided to go with something
more emotional and timeless for the second film’s final draft, it may just be time to see Shrek’s
take on political satire. Politics have already gotten pretty crazy in the time since Shrek 2, so
it’d be nice to have a good laugh at it - just as long as there aren’t any super lame Trump jokes…
A plot like this could also bring some added depth to the kingdom of Far Far Away,
which is a place that seems to focus more on its human residents, making the
possibility of a ‘fairytale creature’ leader all the more of a shake-up for its citizens.
That all being said, we could understand if the filmmakers don’t necessarily want
to keep going back to the past - whether it be inside or outside of canon - and instead want
to focus only on new ideas that are inspired by more modern animated films rather than the
Disney Renaissance films and the comedies of the 90s and early 2000s. Ultimately,
with this section specifically, it all depends on your personal preferences,
but we for one would actually like to see these ideas be given a bit of new life.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking,
and tell us what we should cover next. Remember to hit that notification bell
and binge more of our videos. But most importantly, stay wicked!