Puss in Boots: The Last Wish took inspiration from Into the Spider-Verse

It’s been more than 20 years since the original Shrek hit theaters, so it’s no real surprise that its continuing series of spinoffs and followups is evolving, visually and narratively, away from their original style. Their latest direction is not surprising. Trailer for their latest movie Shrek spinoff, The Last Wish: Puss in Boots, starts off with the usual CG look that’s become familiar over several Puss in bootsOutings include the sequel direct-to-video Three DiablosThe interactive Netflix movie The Puss In Book: A Tale of Epic TrappedAnd the TV Series 2015 Puss in Boots: The Adventures of Puss in Boots

The frame rate suddenly changes, and the action is now staccato. It’s as though the camera was filtering through a flashlight. It is like the background blurs into an anime-style blur, while the colors are flattened with a backlit effect which helps the characters pop against their bright backgrounds. It looks as if another animation company is trying to follow in the steps of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-VerseThis series incorporates anime style and 2D comic-book art in a way that is reminiscent of anime.

DreamWorks Animation

Animation directors have been talking a lot lately about “fighting the computer” to make more stylized and visually idiosyncratic movies. Ever since Pixar basically nailed photorealistic computer animation with 2015’s The Good DinosaurAnimation professionals have been working in the reverse direction and trying to make animated characters more playful, expressive, and cartoony. This is evident in movies like It’s time to turn redAnd The Bad Guys. This is the wolf character. Pussy in BootsTrailer is almost a dead ringer The Bad Guys’ Mr. Wolf.) 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-VerseWith endless narrative and visual experiments,, earned critical praises as well as a Best Animated Feature Academy Award.

It was inevitable that we’d see other animators trying some of Spider-Verse’s visual tricks, but because of the yearslong production times involved in animation, the rollout of those first visual homages has been relatively slow. These styles are in the latest version of Animation Today. Shrek spinoff is particularly odd, though, given how well-established that franchise’s look has become over the past two decades.

Puss in Boots The Last Wish once again stars Antonio Banderas as the title cat, a show-offy swashbuckler who retires after he realizes he’s down to the last of his nine lives. When he learns about a “mythical Wishing Star” that might restore his lives, he teams up with old nemesis Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek Pinault) and a yappy dog named Perrito (How we work in the Shadows’ Harvey Guillén) to seek the star. John Mulaney (Florence Pugh), Wagner Moura and John Mulaney are some of the antagonists who will be after them.

Puss in Boots The Last Wish premieres in theaters on Dec. 21, with DreamWorks promising “early sneak peeks” in some markets on Nov. 26.