Donkey. He's either hilarious, lovable, and part of the charm and soul of the series, or just plain annoying to the point of being The Load at times, especially in the sequels where his annoying tendencies are flanderized. Overall, the fanbase's opinion of Donkey is much like Shrek's own.
Fiona's human form. Some find her design to be adorable, beautiful, sexy, and more conventionally attractive than her ogre form, and wish that human Fiona would make a reappearance of some sort.note For instance, some fans were baffled by her exclusion fromShrek Forever After, due to the fact that Fiona in the alternate universe was still cursed, and would have wanted to see what human Fiona looked like as a warrior. Others find human Fiona to be unnecessarily uncanny due to dated CGI, and not as unique, iconic or endearing as ogre Fiona.
Broken Base: How the films should be regarded for their quality and influence, especially over time. There's little doubt that Shrek was far more universally beloved in its heyday, and that most people consider more emotional and story-based animated moviesnote such as the Pixar canon, the higher points of the Disney Animated Canon, and even DreamWorks' own How to Train Your Dragon to be superior. That said, there are those who consider the movies (especially the first two) to be just as fun and lovable as they were in the day, those who consider the series So Okay, It's Average, and those who find the series to be overrated and unendearing. The latter two camps generally consider the unanimous praise of the first two Shrek movies to be a product of circumstance, due to the fact that the Disney Animated Canon was running dry at the time. Members of all three camps (even those who enjoy Shrek on its own merits) bemoan how the series killed traditional animation and caused animated movies to become more crass and gag-based, but whether it retroactively ruins the series itself is a matter of debate.
A very strange one has popped up with Dragon Ball Z, mostly because of both series' memetic status as well as the fact that Shrek and Goku are both Memetic Badassesnote although Goku is one in a more unironic sense and were frequently treated as Those Two Guys in terms of Joke Character suggestions for the Super Smash Bros. series.
A more sincere one is with SpongeBob SquarePants, as many fans grew up with both animated franchises at the same time during the 2000s, they have superficially similar comedic tones, and both series were distributed by Paramount and Viacom at the time (with the Shrek movies getting promoted in Nickelodeon Magazine, which heavily featured SpongeBob naturally). Both series also have a similar Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing dynamic between their main characters, namely Donkey with Shrek being compared to SpongeBob and Patrick with Squidward. Shrek 2 and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie were even released during the same year and are fondly remembered by people who saw both as kids. Even their theatrical adaptations are compared and contrasted to each other, as fans of The SpongeBob Musical point to it as an example of what Shrek: The Musical should have been as a Screen-to-Stage Adaptation. And obviously, one of the biggest factors is both franchises' contribution to meme culture, with both Shrek and SpongeBob being two of the biggest meme sources out there.
Hollywood Homely: The ogres themselves, including Shrek and Fiona. They're repeatedly told to be horrifying, Mirror-Cracking Ugly creatures, but they hardly look that different from humans. They just have green skin and weird ears.
Forever After: The Pied Piper is a tall, dark and mysterious Bounty Hunter with an ability to control the form of anything he chooses through use of his flute. His past of overthrowing the Rat King to conquer his kingdom detailed in prequel comics, the Piper is hired in the present by Rumpelstiltskin to hunt down the Ogre rebels, to which the Piper proves himself capable of the job by humiliating Rumpelstiltskin's witch minions. Luring the Ogres into staging an ambush of Rumpelstiltskin's chariot, the Piper disguises himself as Fefe the goose to complete the trap before whipping out his flute and taking control of nearly the entire rebel army, forcing them to "fandango themselves into oblivion" as Rumpelstiltskin's captives.
The Wolf introduces himself as a Bounty Hunter come to claim Puss's life. He ends up inflicting a Curb-Stomp Battle on Puss, before letting Puss flee intending to build terror and humiliation in him. Throughout the rest of the film he appears taunting Puss with his presence and psychologically tormenting him. Finally confronting him again, he reveals himself to be Death, come to punish Puss for his arrogance and cavalierness towards his past eight lives. Puss flees again to wish for nine more lives but the Wolf confronts him. Facing his fears, he battles the Wolf and acknowledges that while he can never truly beat the bounty hunter, he'll never stop fighting for this life. Briefly throwing a tantrum, the Wolf quickly calms down, noting that he came to kill an arrogant legend, but he "doesn't see him anymore." Acknowledging they'll meet again, he walks off into the night, whistling.
Goldilocks is the leader of a gang of her and three bears. Hoping to find a wishing star, she tracks Puss down so he can help her steal a map to it from Jack Horner, only to find his apparent grave. Deciding to steal the map herself, she ends up there too late as Puss and Kitty have stolen it first. Following them while Jack trails close behind, she ends up in the magical forest where the wishing star resides. She proceeds to use her wits and combat skills to keep the bears on track, especially when they get into conflict with Jack or Puss and Kitty, and eventually reveals her wish is to have a real human family. Hurt by this, the bears still decide to help her, and when given the choice between saving the youngest bear or getting her wish, she chooses the bear. She then decides to help defeat Jack Horner, and afterwards leaves with the three bears to take over Jack's pie empire.
Mandela Effect: Many people remember the titular ogre saying "Change is good, Donkey". This line is never uttered at any point in any of the Shrek movies by any character. People may be confusing King Harold's line "Yes, he is a bit different, but people do change for the ones they love" in Shrek 2 with Shrek's line "That'll do, Donkey" from the first movie.
Memetic Psychopath: Some "Shrek is Love Shrek is Life" variants depict Shrek as a blood thirsty slaughterer, almost always depicted in a positive light and pseudo-serious religious tone for Black Comedy purposes.
Once Original, Now Common: One of the sources for fuel for the Shrek series, the general disdain directed towards Michael Eisner, was effectively cut off when Eisner was removed from Disney the year after the second Shrek movie hit theaters, along with other studios, including Disney, trying and failing at the Fractured Fairy Tale trend; Kung Fu Panda's critical and commercial success along with Disney Animation making another comeback sounded the death knell for this idea (the final Shrek film actually took itself more seriously with Rumpelstiltskin alone, and the Puss in Boots spinoff took on more of a high fantasy and adventure tone).
Popularity Polynomial: At its peak, Shrek was a franchise as big as the green ogre himself. The original Shrek won the first Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and Shrek 2 became one of the highest-grossing films at the time. After that, the franchise's formula quickly grew stale as it spawned a host of mediocre imitators, which seeped back into Shrek itself with the poor reviews of Shrek the Third. This led to the downfall of Shrek-style "snarky" animated movies and the rise of more drama-based animated movies such as How to Train Your Dragon and Frozen. However, Memetic Mutation led to an upsurge of ironic popularity for the Shrek series, which eventually grew into unironic popularity as its fans grew up and revisited the movies, and were able to appreciate them anew due to their wittiness and 2000s nostalgia. As of the late new tens, while not to the level of the early noughties, the first two Shrek movies are well-liked and appreciated as modern classics, and Shrek Forever After (and, to a lesser extent, Shrek the Third) has quite a few fans and defenders as well. The successful release of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish at the end of 2022 also helped bring a lot of people back, especially with the film ending with a Sequel Hook to a potential continuation of the main Shrek franchise, to many a fan's delight.
Recurring Fanon Character: Brogre memes frequently feature Drek, a blueEvil Knockoff of Shrek, as their equivalent of Satan. Because Lord Farquaad is also an antagonistic figure in Brogre "mythology", his relationship with Drek varies Depending on the Writer, from Drek being a disguise for Farquaad to Farquaad being The Dragon to Drek.
Sequelitis: This is the general consensus for Third. Fans are divided between whether Forever After is just as bad as Third or better. Reception has been much warmer for Forever After than for Third, however.
Sacred Cow: Is widely considered to be one of, if not the best DreamWorks franchise ever made. Its fanbase is still active to this day and criticizing it can led to some misunderstandings.
Suspiciously Similar Song: "Welcome to Duloc" has the same rhythm as "It's a Small World After All", fitting for a song welcoming you to a Disneyland pastiche.
So Okay, It's Average: Third and Forever After are considered this by fans and critics, with Forever After as the slightly better one of the two.
The Hungarian version has an extremely clever choice of voice actors and well-adapted cultural references.
The voices that they've picked for each of the main characters in Latin American spanish is nothing short of iconic for there, specially in Mexico. Special mention goes for Eugenio Derbez voicing Donkey, who was often a Fountain of Memes.
Even the most negatively recieved Shrek The Third was better recieved in Latin America due to the voice cast still giving it their all in funny moments.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: All four movies have this to some extent, with occasional mild cursing and direct references to adult situations such as drunkenness.
Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown's box art has Lord Farquaad's face located right above the ESRB rating, unintentionally predicting the "E" meme.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Frequently the case with these games. A shame, because in Shrek The Third at least, there actually was a decent amount of effort put into the enemy design and variety, but it goes to naught because of overly powerful Regenerating Health and enemies not dealing sufficient amount of damage.
The Problem with Licensed Games: Many of the games have received consistently tepid reviews in the territory between low 50's and high 60's on Metacritic. Some of the earlier games, such as Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown (which got an abysmal 0.5/10), Shrek: Super Party, Shrek: Swamp Kart Speedway and even the very first licensed game, are considered absolutely horrid.
The rare Shrek games that aren't considered absolutely terrible are usually considered fun licensed games in their own right. Notable examples include Shrek 2 and Shrek SuperSlam.
The pinball machine has also been received pretty well, being ranked 93rd overall on the Internet Pinball Database with a 7.8 average rating out of 10 and earns a good amount of money in public. It may have been a Palette Swap of Family Guy, but it had better sales too.
So Bad, It's Good: Because Shrek is so egregious in meme culture, watching and playing the games, even - or especially - the really bad ones can be a riot.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The first Shrek game was rated T by the ESRBnote Granted, this wasn't exactly a special case - the game was released during an odd time in the early 2000s before the E-10 rating was made, so it alongside other kid-friendly games (such as The Incredibles and Super Smash Bros. Melee) were being given a T rating due to having more realistic graphics..
of people