Zootopia

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Judy Hopps - Zootropolis

Original title: Z Characters: Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde, Dawn Bellwether, Captain Bogo, Benjamin Clawhauser, Bonnie and Stu Hopps, Yax, Mayor Leodore Lionheart Directed by: Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush Production: Walt Disney Animation Studios Country: United States

Year: 2016 Broadcast in Italy: 2016 mm Gender: animation, action, comedy, detective story Episodes: 1 mm Duration: 108 minutes Recommended age: Children from 6 to 12 years old

by Gianluigi Piludu

Zootropolis (Zootopia in the American original) is Walt Disney's 135th animated film and 55th "animation classic" directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore. Made entirely in CGI computer graphics, the film is an action detective comedy, released in theaters on February 18, 2016. It tells the story of the optimistic and intrepid bunny Judy Hopps, lieutenant and new recruit of the Zootropolis police, exclusively populated city from anthropomorphic mammals, where he tries to prove his worth by investigating the disappearance of an otter with the help of the fox (cheat) Nick Wilde.

In the United States, its country of production, the film received critical acclaim, who praised the animation, the acting of the voice actors who give their voices to the characters and the script; highlights the relevance of the themes addressed by the film such as prejudice, discrimination (positive and negative), racism and stereotypes.

Zootopia is also the fourth animated film in film history to spend billions of dollars on box office sales worldwide. He has won several distinctions, including the Oscar for best animated film in 2017.

History

The zootropolis is a cosmopolitan city where only mammalian animals live and where each species coexists with the others; whether you are a predator or a prey, everyone is allowed in Zootropolis. Judy Hopps is a 9-year-old bunny who lives in Bunnyburrow a country village with her parents, where all of her family members are farmers. Judy during a school show declares that she wants to live in the big metropolis of Zootropolis and become a police officer, which plagues her parents who consider this job too dangerous for a little bunny like her. Leaving the show, Judy intervenes when she sees Gideon Gray, a bully fox, who hurts his companions. Gideon reacts violently, scratching Judy on the cheek and laughing at her and her dream of becoming a police bunny before leaving. Judy emerges sad from this mishap, but even more determined to fight crime.

Judy and her parents - Zootropolis

Fifteen years later, Judy entered the police academy thanks to an affirmative action program set up by the mayor of Zootropolis, but she struggled hardly with difficult screening tests. Despite his difficulties, he perseveres and ends up triumphing using his cunning and agility. A major in her class, she was appointed lieutenant at the Zootropolis Central Police Station by Mayor Leodore Lionheart (a lion) and his assistant, Miss Bellwether (a sheep). After greeting his family with emotion, he takes the train to Zootropolis. He moves to a small apartment in the center and starts the service the next day. Upon her arrival, Captain Bogo (a buffalo) head of the Zootropolis police department openly despises her for her small size and assigns her small assignments, while large police animals such as elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers and bears are tasked with investigating the case of the moment: the mysterious disappearance of 14 predatory animals.

Judy and Captain Bogo - Zootropolis

During her inspection tour, Judy sets out on the trail of a suspicious fox, Nick Wilde, who she follows to an elephant-run ice cream shop. Nick Wild wants to buy huge ice cream for his son's birthday, but the elephants refuse to serve a fox for fear of being deceived. Outraged by this discriminatory treatment, Judy steps in and offers the boy ice cream before resuming her service. Later, she meets the two foxes and realizes that she has been duped: Wilde and little Finnick (a Fennec small enough to pretend to be a fox cub), melted the big elephant ice cream and made twelve small ice creams that they can resell, making a good profit. After Finnick leaves, Judy accuses Wilde of lying to her and threatens to arrest him; but the cunning fox, shows her that her operation, even if dishonest, falls within the terms of the law, therefore jeers Judy for her naivety, revealing to her that despite appearances, prejudice and discrimination are actually present in Zootropolis. After mocking her by telling her that she will never become a real cop, Wilde leaves, leaving Judy once again sad and demoralized. Upon returning home, she receives a call from her parents, who breathe a sigh of relief when they discover that Judy has been given a non-dangerous assignment.

Judy and Nick Wild - Zootropolis

The next day, Judy resumes her usual round of surveillance as per contract, but leaves her area to go after Duke Donnolesi, a weasel who has stolen plant bulbs known as Midnicampum Holicithias. After a chase in the small neighborhood of Little Rodentia, she eventually stops him, saving a shrew that the thief had nearly run over. Unfortunately, instead of being praised, she is reprimanded by Captain Bogo for abandoning her contractual position and endangering the little inhabitants of Little Rodentia. Judy asks him to give him a real mission, but Bogo abruptly refuses. At that moment Mrs. Otterton (an otter) arrives at the police office asking someone to find her husband Emmitt. While Bogo deplores the fact that all of his detectives are busy, Judy takes the opportunity and announces to Ms. Otterton that she will take care of the case. Bogo threatens to fire Judy for insubordination, but his anger is curbed by the arrival of the assistant mayor the sheep Dawn, excited to learn that their new recruit will take over the investigation. Bogo grants the bunny a 48-hour ultimatum to find Mr. Otterton, if she fails she will be forced to resign.

Judy examines the file and photos taken by city cameras and discovers that Mr. Emmitt Otterton had purchased one of Nick Wilde's resold ice cream shortly before disappearing. Judy goes to Wilde to ask him where Otterton went after he bought his ice cream. Wilde refuses to help the bunny, but Judy threatens to arrest him for tax evasion. Wilde will then be forced to follow and help Judy solve her investigation. Wilde admits seeing Otterton joining a naturist club. The club owner confirms that Otterton came that day to take a yoga class and that after the class he got into a white limo. After a visit to the motor company run by Flash the sloth, Judy and Nick find the limo that turns out to belong to Mr. Big (a spider mouse), the godfather of the Tundraville mafia, of which Nick has become an enemy by tricking him with a merchandise had sold.

Judy in action - Zootropolis

While inspecting the limo, in which they find Otterton's wallet amidst multiple claw marks, Judy and Nick are captured by Mr. Big's polar bears and taken to his mansion. The godfather, unhappy to see Nick accompanied by a policewoman, plans to kill them before his daughter intervenes: he is the young shrew whose life Judy saved her. Grateful, Mr. Big spares them and agrees to answer their questions: he admits he sent a limo to Otterton, who was his florist and had something important to tell him, but Otterton never came to the meeting. Mr. Big gives them the address of Manchas the melanistic jaguar, limo driver, the only one who can tell them what happened to Otterton on the road.

Judy and Nick go to the rainforest district, where Manchas lives. They find him at home, scarred in the eye and terrified. Manchas announces to them that it was Otterton who put him in this state: during the limousine ride, Otterton suddenly went mad with rage and attacked him savagely for no reason. Manchas also reveals that Otterton has started raving and talking about "night howlers". As Judy and Nick wonder what "night howlers" are, Manchas also goes mad and suddenly goes wild chasing Judy and Nick on all fours. Judy manages to handcuff the mad jaguar to a lamppost, saving Nick's life just in time and enlisting help from her fellow cops for backup. But when Chief Bogo and the brigade arrive, the jaguar manages to escape, to Judy's surprise. Bogo demands the bunny resign, but Nick bravely reminds him that Judy still has 10 hours to solve the case.

Production

Development of Zootropolis began when Byron Howard presented six story ideas to Disney Animation Creative Director and Executive Producer John Lasseter, three of which involved animal characters: an all-animal adaptation of "The Three Musketeers," "a cat doctor. crazy ... who turned children into animals "and a" bounty hunter pug in space ". The underlying theme of all these ideas was to make a film similar to Disney's Robin Hood, which also featured animals with anthropomorphic roles. According to Howard, Zootopia emerged from his desire to create something different from other anthropomorphic animal films, in which animals live in the natural world or the human world. His concept, in which animals live in a modern world designed by animals for animals, was well received by Lasseter, who responded by hugging and lifting Howard "in the air like puppy Simba". Lasseter suggested that Howard try to combine the 60s theme with animal characters, especially the space pug. This led Howard to develop and launch Savage Seas, an international spy film centered around an Arctic hare named "Jack Savage" who was somewhat similar to James Bond. It was around this time that screenwriter Jared Bush was hired to work on the film; he was thrilled to be working on a spy movie because his father and grandfather had worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Howard and Bush continued to develop the film with the assistance of the Disney Story Trust, the studio's creative staff who meet regularly to review and discuss all projects in development. The most delightful part of the spy movie turned out to be its first act, set in a city created by and for animals. To focus on the city of all animals, Howard eventually dropped the 60s setting, along with the espionage and international aspects, which led the film to evolve into a contemporary police procedure where Nick Wilde was the lead role and Judy Hopps was essentially her partner. For a while, "the filmmakers were very busy" in that version of the story, but then, in November 2014, the producers realized the film's plot would be more compelling if they reversed roles to focus on Hopps instead. than on Wilde. The change in perspective caused several characters to fall.

Disney's most recent work on fur animation involved the character from the 2008 movie Bolt, but the software they had used at the time was not ready to create the realistic fur of Zootopia's animals. Therefore, the studio's IT engineers developed the "iGroom" fur control software, which gave the character designers precise control over the brushing, shaping and shading of the fur and allowed for a variety of styles to be created. of quirky characters for each animal. The software was also able to control an invisible "imaginary" underlayer that gave the fur a degree of advantage never seen before. This feature was used to create characters such as Agent Clawhauser, who has a large head made entirely of spotted fur. Characters with a substantial number of locks of hair or fur included both the two main characters, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, who each had approximately 2,5 million hairs; a giraffe with nine million locks of fur; a gerbil with 480.000 threads; and a rodent with more locks of hair than the 400.000 that were on Elsa's head in Frozen.

Images Zootropolis, the animated film