In an interview with SFX Magazine, “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” director Joel Crawford discussed moving away from strictly-CG animation, stating that audiences have been primed for the stylistic switch-up:
“I think “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” opened up the mainstream animation industry to realize that audiences don’t just want a CG movie that looks totally like CG. I remember on the first Shrek movie there was this quest for realism, and it was so impressive what computers could create – it was like, ‘Wow, you can see the hairs on their arms!‘
Just like “Shrek” was a product of its era, “The Last Wish” has aptly taken advantage of the current state of animation. The “Puss in Boots” spin-off merged the 3D animation with a “painterly” aesthetic, a combination that prioritized artist-driven style over realism. The team behind the film was able to play more freely with the animation by not worrying about the pesky, relatively unimportant details CG-heavy work usually boasts. As Crawford put it, “the computer wants to make things perfect, but I think there’s also a longing for tangibility.”