Zootopia's Big Problem

[battybuddy]

Honestly, I don’t even equate Zootopia to race specifically but to ANY form of othering.
Cause if you think about it as race, then that “race” allegory doesn’t work when you consider that originally it was kind of established that predators were kind of visibly in power.
We had the mayor lion leaning on his sheep subordinate. We had the fact that the cops were originally LARGE animals regardless of species. It was generally othering. Thats what I think made it work, and people trying to limit it to race ignore the general goals of the villain, she wasn’t trying to make any particular species look bad but the general concept of predators- and sure she was going based on who outnumbers who, but that was based on mob mentality and not race by itself.

[blazingroseninja]

NGL it would have been interesting to see animals that are considered predator AND prey especially during the part of the movie when prey animals get paranoid about predator animals. It would have put animals in both categories in an awkward position to say the least.

[ivanbluecool]

Honestly most if not all race based films or projects always have a biased perspective regardless of how someone makes it even if they are in the middle seeing both sides point of view.

Zootopia a prey tried to cause this entire mess to start a species war which would not end well regardless but probably turn president sheep into a martyr or start more problems. Even the happy ending in sure predators would probably keep an eye on the prey for anyone else who will try this stunt

[crimsong]

Honestly, I'm still impressed by how much they established this world in only two hours. We saw multiple districts, a bit of the criminal underbelly, the pop culture of the city and more. All while telling a compelling story.

Still, I feel like they should have put more thought into the "So many innocent predators" line... I get the context, but did they not understand just how that sounded?

[calebprescott]

In zootopia 2 I hope we see reptiles and birds

[OpticalSorcerer]

Definitely one of my fav revival-era films. I do hope we continue to see complex messages in the sequel. A lack of specific motivation for Bellweather was my only issue.

[juanca]

I just don’t know what will happen since Wish implies all Disney movies are in the same cinematic universe. Valentino mentions a utopia for mammals in the end, so I don’t know what to expect. Is Robin Hood in the past of Zootopia? If so, where are the birds and reptiles? Disney just can’t stop shooting itself in the foot, leg, hand, arm, and might as well their head.

[chaliceflame]

A problem I see within Zootopica is that it is implied that the rabbits produce a lot of off spring, but also Zooptopia society discourages eating other animals such as rabbits. So Zootopia would really be having rabbit overpopulation issues. I mean pick a lane...Either rabbits get birth control or other animals can eat the surplus rabbits.

[lapiswolf]

Thinking of these as races doesn't make sense to these since these are different specues, not different variations of the same species.

[SilvanaPuris]

In Disney movies, when they have animal characters, they are my favorites, and not just the ones about princesses. And Zootopia was something refreshing for me, it's one of my favorite movies, it's fine without a sequel I think. I also hope if Disney ever creates another movie with characters from the animal kingdom, it's great when they do it

[MaroonAngel]

Rewatching Zootopia recently, I actually had a thought that they have worked better for the villain of the film, where it was a political rival of Mayor Lionheart, a prey animal who wanted to raise the value and pride of prey animals and would've pushed an agenda of dividing the predator and prey animals and the nighthowlers plot was their means to set their agenda and remove Mayor Lionheart from his seat. Bellweather, at most, was an accomplish as she was mistreated by her superior, but hadn't anticipated things to go so far.

[callmecloudy]

God help Disney if they ever make a live action version of this movie

[thecap]

As stated by the creators, the movie is about prejudice. Not racism, sexism or any other ism.

Trying to find any direct 1 to 1 comparison will fail because it wasn’t designed to have a direct comparison.

[ricomannen]

I think Zootopia does a better job with its themes than Elemental does.

[lucymiau]

There are 2 main problems with this Movie and its depiction of Animals.
One problem is that there might be a missconception with Animals in Disney Animation. Normally, characters get a kind of an Animal skinsuit for leveling up their cuteness. The exceptions are Bambi which wants to portrait Animals and Brother Bear which is about the spirits of Animals. And then, there is Zootopia, where Animals get a human bahaviour-skinsuit. This changes the rule set when making a Movie about.
The other problem is that the Movie itself admits that there is a Predator-Prey-Relationship History between the Animals living in Zootopia but, handles this fact as a kind of a prejustice, too. It's confusing the messaging of this Movie. It even might be that the sheep lady is right about the idea that predator and prey can live together in one City.

[axelwust]

So essentially, Zootopia's problem was that it wasnt either too subtle or too overt. Which seems to be a common enougb criticism of it.

That said, im all for what it was trying to do, that is, make it similar to our prejudice, but not based it on anything, becase there is a fundamental problem with prejudice.

[pyronuke]

Believe it or not the earlier drafts of the film were even *less* subtle about the predator vs prey angle.

If you haven't looked into the behind the scenes production of this movie I'd encourage you to do so because it went through at least four distinct and interesting phases in the story writing alone. A fair amont of fans know about the collar phase, but this film actually started off as a spoof of 60's spy movies before transition into a film noir before the collars were even a thing.

[dissonanceparadiddle]

I don't understand why Disney doesn't do what's been working animated shorts and series have been doing incredibly well and what goes hand in hand with those things? buddy cop shows why in the world would they do a full sequel rather than a series

[lesterwilliamsjr]

I'm so tired of people comparing this movies world building with other stories. It feels like the only reason this movie is brought up besides twist villains and prejudice.

World building is important but good world building alone won't make a good story.

[themartyflorence]

I love this take. It is so easy for the viewers to point and go it is obviously based on racism. This to me is a very western take and ignores the divide between different classes, male/female, personalities, and the many more issues humanity faces. It just seems like such an easy take that they could have done more with, excellent as always