Zootropolis (Film) Critique 2/5

*****SPOILERS*****

 Clever Decisions

 
A play detailing how prey and predator came to live side-by-side starts the film. It instantly answers the real-life audience’s questions about how prey could cohabit with prey safely. Plus, from the first moments, we are aware that the predator’s murderous past is still at the forefront of everyone’s mind (without which Zootropolis citizens turning against predators in this film would have happened neither so quickly nor so strongly).
 
Judy’s father has the habit of sounding both wise and depressing at the same time.

Judy talks about her ambition to be a police officer. Her dad quips, “Ever wondered how we got so happy? We gave up on our dreams and settled.”

Another of his lines is, “If you don’t try anything new, you never fail.” That’s one of the ways crippling anxiety controls people. Because never failing, or avoiding the possibility of failure, is comforting.  

These sentences are clever and effective. But a happy individual whipping out depressing sentiments as the reason for his happiness? Hilarious.
 
Nick’s hustle with the giant, red, elephant-bought ice pop was pure genius.

First Nick melts it. Then he refreezes the liquid in the Tundra, creating many tiny popsicles. Then he sells these to the lemmings. As soon as one lemming notices the popsicles, all the others follow (something lemmings are known for), generating many more customers for Nick.

The lemmings throw their sticks in the bin. Nick collects these and sells them to the shrews as ‘red wood’ (the wooden sticks are stained red by the popsicles). So Nick says ‘red’ as an adjective to the noun ‘wood’, but because he’s selling it to builders, they would have heard it as the noun ‘redwood’. This technicality gets him off a criminal charge.
 
Judy declines her award, saying, “I’m not a hero. I haven’t made the world a better place. I broke it.” Bogo says, “Don’t give yourself too much credit.”

Working in the police for most-likely decades, Bogo would be exposed to the worst of behaviour. The recent unrest wouldn’t be anything new for him. His words demonstrate his attitude, feelings and experiences without actually talking about himself or hinting at his exact experiences (the very things that influenced his attitude and feelings).

But Judy had a positive attitude: she thought she could be anything, she liked the utopia of Zootropolis, and she loved her awful flat. So for her to see the city hating each other because of what she said? Her outlook is no longer positive so of course she thinks she’s to blame.
 
There are a few small details that I appreciate so much.

Judy doesn’t have a warrant to explore a fenced-off area. She throws the recorder-pen (with Nick’s confession) into the area and Nick follows it. Judy enters, saying she doesn’t need a warrant to enter somewhere if there is probable cause, such as a shifty character climbing a fence.

Judy resigns because she tore the city apart. She took on this case in order to save her job. Yet she loses her job (through resignation) because she solved the case.
Mr Big tells Nick, “Say hello to Grandmama,” when he instructs his guards to dip Nick and Judy in the icy water. Considering Grandmama is dead, the consequence of the ice dip is shown without death itself being stated.

Before escaping from Mayor Lionheart through the drainage system, Judy puts her phone in an evidence bag to keep it dry. A police officer using police equipment in an unorthodox way to solve a problem? Genius.

Nick becomes a police officer. He’s eating a popsicle like the one from his hustling days. This is a nice detail: not only does this connect Nick’s old and new jobs, but popsicles are how Judy and Nick embarked on their journey together, leading to this outcome.

The main female and male characters, Judy and Nick, don’t form a romantic attachment. There isn’t even any romantic tension! What is clear is a deep bond of friendship, love and trust. Usually the lead male and female end up involved and it drives me up the wall. Men and women are allowed to be friends; friendship isn’t a lesser relationship than romance.
 
Chief Bogo says, “Or maybe any predator looks savage to a bunny.”

He then accuses Judy of racism, even though he’s just treated Judy according to his stereotypes about rabbits rather than treating her as an individual. (And then right there he says Nick’s not trustworthy because he’s a fox.)

Bogo is being racist and is thus a hypocrite. Yet, unfortunately, such is the case with a lot of people in real life. So this hypocrisy shows that the filmmakers understand how flawed people’s attitudes can be, and how those who dislike something can still perpetrate it.
 
 

Clever Plot Points
 
The plot is put together so well. It has all the twists and turns of a police procedural drama whilst being easy enough for children to follow.

When seeing the photo in Mr Otterton’s missing persons casefile, Judy sees the otter holding a popsicle. The same kind of popsicle Nick sells. Also, Mr Otterton is a florist, and Weaselton stole from a florist.

The jaguar that drove Mr Otterton when the otter went savage talks about night howlers before going savage himself. Then Judy sees wolves taking the jaguar away and she thinks they are the night howlers.

But then Gideon calls a type of flower ‘night howler’, the kind of plant that turned Judy’s rabbit uncle savage. The same kind of flower that Weaseltown stole from the florist. It turns out these flowers are turned into gun pellets, shot to turn individual predators savage.
 
Even though the press conference turns out in shambles, Bellwether tells Judy she did fine. The reasons why are genius.

Bellwether is nice to Mayor Lionheart, even though the mayor is nasty to her. If Bellwether’s pleasant to unpleasant people, there’s no reason for her to be critical of the pleasant Judy.

Further, Bellwether’s been supportive of Judy since she graduated from the police academy, carrying this on throughout the film. So the sheep being nice to the rabbit about the press conference isn’t unexpected.

Bellwether said Judy did ‘fine’. This word isn’t positive. (At best, it’s neutral.) It’s there just to give Judy reassurance. When reassuring people, being critical or praiseworthy of their efforts can be detrimental. Plus not being overtly positive, Bellwether isn’t publicly aligning her views.

Later we find out Bellwether is the mastermind behind everything. Judy’s press conference sets off anti-predator sentiment, both in terms of words and behaviour, in the city. Judy thus aids Bellwether’s plans. So why would Bellwether be critical of Judy for unknowingly helping her out?
 
The sequence of events following Bellwether’s confession to Judy was one clever thing after the other.

Judy asks, “Are you gonna kill me?” to which Bellwether says, “No, he is.” Then she shoots Nick with the night howler, hence turning him ‘savage’. They play pretend because they’d replaced the night howler bullets with the blueberries from Judy’s farm.

Bellwether says, “It’s your word against mine.” But then Judy plays her pen-recorder that recorded Bellwether’s confession. “No, it’s your word against yours.” Just like Judy recording Nick led to them solving the case, so does Judy recording Bellwether prove it.