*WARNING: Contains minor spoilers for the two people who haven’t seen the movie.*
Chances are that you’ve probably seen Zootopia by now. I mean, once a movie makes over one billion dollars, it’s safe to say everyone has, right? But upon second viewing, Disney’s latest animated feature stands just as tall as it did when it hit theaters back in March. Following the escapades of Judy Hopps, the first bunny cop who’s stepping foot into the sprawling metropolis straight from the country, and Nick Wilde, a con-artist fox who gets pulled into Judy’s first big case, the film’s relative ease at weaving together a crime caper with social commentary on racial prejudices within a family friendly package staring anthropomorphic animals is a cinematic feat in and of itself. If for no other reason though, the Blu Ray release is worth picking up just to see how much went into making this film come to life from concept to big screen.
Watching Zootopia again felt like it was my first time seeing it. Once you know what the general plot is going to be, that gives you more time to focus on the city itself, with background action that’s always interesting enough to catch your eye. Whether its the internally impatient animals waiting for their turn at the sloth run DMV, or the dozens of rodents going about their business in Little Rodentia, there’s always something going on outside of the main characters themselves. This was a major focus for the creators, making sure that they captured what they felt a city full of animals who behaved like humans would look like.
Which is why the Special Features go into a huge amount of detail about how much work it took to make Zootopia feel as authentic as possible. If you loved the movie on its own, it’s hard not to have even more admiration for it after watching how much care was put into getting things just right. The map for example, was built with real life practicality in mind, placing the deserts of Sahara Square behind the arctic Tundratown, acting as a ventilator in the same way as an air conditioner. Melted ice from Tundratwon then goes on to create the waterfalls and rain in the Rainforest District, and so on. All logic that I never would have considered as a viewer, but that makes sense in the best way a city with four different climates could.
Aside from the environments, the animals themselves were researched heavily, leading to multiple trips to sanctuaries like Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida to observe the behaviors of each species. The hard part comes not only from adapting said behavior to a two legged version, but to get the scale just right. While previous animal films like Disney’s Robin Hood made its animals human sized, Zootopia stays true to their actual size. So making a city where lemmings can co-exist with giraffes and elephants was a unique challenge in itself, creating structures that accounted for these differences. The attention to detail didn’t end there, considering Judy and Nick alone consist of close to 10,000 individual furs each. My hands are cramping just thinking about it.
Once all of these details come together, the movie’s most memorable takeaway is still its plot and the themes across its 108 minute run time. While a few scenes early on come off as heavy handed with its take on racial prejudice, Zootopia does a brilliant job of sprinkling hints of these ideas until they’re forced into the forefront of the film at the start of the third act. If Frozen‘s big twist came from the fact that its Prince Charming was a two faced villain, then Zootopia doubles down by making its main character, the one who is discriminated against through most of the film, come off as the accidental villain as she turns the town’s underlying paranoia towards predators into a full on epidemic. All of this is proceeded by a highly entertaining crime caper where the “token” bunny cop that no one believes in uses her wit to force a team up with a criminal in order to solve a series of disappearances without the resources of the ZPD. With parodies based on everything from The Godfather to Breaking Bad, there’s plenty of humor to give even more life to an already excellent plot.
It’s surprising that everything came together so well considering how different the film was when it came to its original concept, all the way to late in its development. Using a concept where all predators would have to wear collars to measure their aggression levels, Nick would have been the focus in this version as he went through life seen as a vicious con artist, whether or not it was true. With a much more in your face version of the discrimination found in the final release, Judy would eventually be added in, and even took the form of a spy film before settling on what we ended up getting. In Nick’s case however, him being seen as a threat just because he’s a fox ends up shaping him in a huge way after the revisions as well, keeping that layer of development that makes him the most tragic character in the movie.
Even after the credits have rolled, there’s still plenty to see in Zootopia. the ZPD Forensic Files highlight many of the film’s easter eggs, many of which I had completely missed the first time around. Hidden Mickey’s, Pascal from Tangled, and a couple of elephants who are big fans of Anna and Elsa are just a few of the secrets that flew completely over my head. In depth interviews with the animators, a music video for Shakira’s Try Everything, (as famous pop star, Gazelle,) and a set of deleted scenes and characters in the form of the Gerbil Jerks, round out the full feature set of one of the best movies Disney has ever produced.
Aside from some heavy handed dialogue early on and Gazelle being placed on a pedestal, (I get wanting to get mileage out of Shakira, but why was she the ONLY voice of reason outside of Judy in the two minutes of screen time she had?), Zootopia could be looked back on as the best film Disney has ever produced. With plenty of visual humor, striking environments and cute, charming characters to keep the kids entertained while the adults ponder the expertly woven themes found in the film, not only is there something for everyone, but everything it does is done to the best of its ability. The special features only further prove how much passion went into getting this just right, and they succeeded in every way. Good job, Disney. You’ve delivered another masterpiece!
Final Score: 5/5