Reminds me of the time my 2 year old said “Over the past hundred years, cinema has grown to become the dominant form of visual storytelling and of course like any other medium, you have your typical debates on what the most effective form of storytelling is but I will not be talking about any of these debates. Instead, my argument for today is simply this: Why Shrek the Third is easily the worst of the Shreks and therefore should be stricken from the Shrek canon and I have a series of points starting with one: Too. Many. Characters. Okay. To recap, who is introduced in Shrek 1? Well, you got Shrek, Fiona and Donkey. Simple. Beautiful. Done. In Shrek 2, it gets a little more crowded. They introduced Puss and Boots. They introduced Fiona’s parents and of course Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming. So far, so good. That’s fine. In Shrek the Third, who do they introduce? They introduce the princesses? Arthur Penndragon? Merlin? None of these characters are core characters. Gun to my head, I could not tell you a single thing they do. Hey, you know what ruined Spider-Man 3? Too. Many. Characters! Hey, you know what ruined The Amazing Spider-Man 2? Too. Many. Characters! They’re just overstuffed with fluff. Why? Just... Number Two: The Villain. Every good movie deserves a strong villain, right? Show of hands, who... who is the villain in Shrek 1? That’s right: Lord Farquaad, charismatic, comedic, wonderfully portrayed by the incomparable John. And then Shrek 2, who are the villains in Shrek 2. Well, the iconic Fairy Godmother. You know she has that beautiful song and her, her bumbling sidekick of a son, Prince Charming, you know. He compliments her beautifully, it’s all good. Now, can you recall who the villain is in Shrek the Third? I’ll wait. Yeah, you’re having trouble, you know why? It’s because the villain in Shrek 3 is Prince Charming again! Yeah, they got so lazy, they just recycled the weaker villain from the previous movie and made him the primary villain of Shrek the Third. Awful! Now, before I continue, I want to talk about Shrek 4’s villain and I can already hear a lot of you say “THEY MADE A SHREK FOUR?!” Yes, they did, and it’s a delight because the villain is Rumplestiltskein, a well rounded, quirky villain, with quips and wonderful, pity little, you know, he’s, he’s a, he’s a strong villain but this, this is lazy. This is lazy writing. They’re just reusing... YAH! Number 3. Shrek the Third is superfluous. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, let’s recap what the purpose of each Shrek movie is. Shrek 1 introduces us to this wonderful character and this world. It’s the origin story. In Shrek 2, they do worldbuilding, and they flesh out these characters, you know. They create more of a world. In Shrek the Third... they, I don’t, they have, they have babies? I guess that’s the big takeaway from Shrek the Third but guess what, guess what? Shrek 4 opens with a montage of the babies! You don’t need to see Shrek 3, like there’s no point, there’s no purpose. Shrek 4 recaps everything perfectly with the baby montage which leads me to the Shrek viewing order I’ve carefully crafted here. First, you start on the left with Shrek 1 and obviously, you go to Shrek 2 and then when you finish Shrek 2, you BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP, just skip 3, go right to 4. Nothing of merit, nothing of importance have been lost, I promise you and coincidentally, this is also my Shrek ranking order, from best to worst, it’s 1, 2 and 4 and I just would love to pretend that 3 never happened which leads me to my final nail in the coffin argument. You know who else ignores the events of Shrek the Third? Um, Shrek 4 ignores Shrek the Third. They ignore Shrek 3 hardcore. At no point, shut up, at no point do any of the characters reminisce on the events of the previous movie. Donkey’s never like “Ayo, Shrek, remember all those crazy characters we, we conversed with?” Like, there’s just no purpose for Shrek the Third at all. And honestly I’m, Shrek 4 is largely underrated and I’m a little pissed that more people don’t uh, agree with me on this, on this sentiment. Oh, and one more thing, you see there is a light at the end of the tunnel here because Dreamworks has confirmed that they are indeed making a Shrek 5, coming out at some point in 2019 and you bet your bottom dollar I will be doing a frame by frame analysis of the first trailer as soon as it drops. I am so damn excited and I want to thank you all for joining me on this um, video journey essay of mine. God bless, drive safe.” He has a much higher IQ than I do.
