And for the decade or so after the first Shrek movie’s release, theaters really did seem inundated with CG children’s films that adopted this formula. Its main thesis seems to be that Shrek left a slew of embarrassingly bad imitators in its wake, supplanting Pixar’s signature earnestness with a toothless, pathologically topical irreverence as the industry standard. In honor of its 20th anniversary, The Guardian ran a revisionist retrospective on the first film that is frequently on-target and hilarious. By the time Shrek 3 rolled around in 2007, I was squarely in my “fuck you, dad” phase, and when Shrek Forever After was released in 2010, I was technically an adult with adult interests and adult responsibilities who would sooner be dead than caught waiting in line to see the Shrek swan song. Plus, the video game tie-in was excellent. When the sequel Shrek 2 was released in 2004, I was still a young preteen susceptible to the intoxicating burnish of mass media. The pre-9/11 years were weird and sublime. On the way home, I remember stopping at Burger King and getting a Shrek- themed Big Kids meal, replete with green ketchup. I remember being with my aunt and cousins in Indianola, Iowa, coming from the theater, listening to “Island in the Sun” by Weezer on the radio-off the band’s Green Album, which, coincidentally, came out three days before Shrek ’s official theatrical release.
Not because it’s my favorite movie of all time or whatever, but because for children born in the early-to-mid 1990s it’s something of a cultural signpost. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Shrek.