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In the upcoming Disney film Zootopia, it’s all about the animals. Big ones, little ones and no humans. We got a chance to check out the early press day late last year and now we can bring you some additional details. In our last piece, we talked about the scenes we got a chance to see and the editing process. (You can check that out here.) Today we’re learning more about the animals.

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First of all, the animals are vastly different heights and weights, and the animators had to come up with a scale for it all. (The animators spent 18 months studying animals before production began.) There are different zones in Zootopia and certainly different cities like little Rodentia. We got a chance to see our hero, the bunny rabbit Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) run through there and the destruction it caused. You have to stack almost 100 arctic shrews to reach the height of one giraffe and that means all public transportation has to be designed for all the animals. We got to see some seriously clever solutions to that, one of which you can see in the photo below. Fun fact: There are over 80,000 characters in this film!

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Size does matter in Zootopia. Well, most of the time. Judy wants to be a cop and no one thinks she can do it because that’s not what bunnies do. Cops are water buffalos and rhinos. They’re not bunnies. Well, Judy is determined and she’s not going to take no for an answer. Zootopia is a place where everyone does what they’re supposed to do and other than transportation, they don’t really blend well. For instance, there is a scene where a little creature wants to get ice cream from an elephant shop (which we talked about in the last piece). Judy just won’t stand for that, nor will she allow Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman) to behave like a con artist because “that’s what foxes do.” One little guy who breaks with tradition is the crime boss arctic shrew Mr. Big (voiced by the incredible Maurice LaMarche) in the pic below, which gave us one of the funniest sequences we saw the entire day. He’s got polar bears doing his bidding and the voice of a certain mobster from The Godfather. I dare you not to snort soda through your nose when you watch it.

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You’ll also notice that there are no reptiles and birds in Zootopia. The filmmakers told us that they did this on purpose though they thought about adding them. Swamps and eyries may have been too much for the first film. When you see the complexity of Zootopia’s city planning, you’ll understand why concentrating on the mammals was important. Also, considering the way they tend to remain with their own kind, you’ll understand. They did say that a possible sequel might visit those lands.

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I’m serious about the city planning. It’s astounding. The arctic creatures live in a cold zone, which is air-conditioned and the heat removed from the air there is what keeps the jungle part of the city warm and so on. The neighborhoods are: Tundra Town, Sahara Square, Rainforest District, Little Rodentia, the Burrows, Meadowlands, Outback Island and the Nocturnal District. This is a film you’re likely going to have to watch over and over to appreciate all the details.

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Excited yet? Here is the official info on the film: “The modern mammal metropolis of Zootopia is a city like no other. Comprised of habitat neighborhoods like ritzy Sahara Square and frigid Tundratown, it’s a melting pot where animals from every environment live together — a place where no matter what you are, from the biggest elephant to the smallest shrew, you can be anything. But when optimistic Officer Judy Hopps arrives, she discovers that being the first bunny on a police force of big, tough animals isn’t so easy. Determined to prove herself, she jumps at the opportunity to crack a case, even if it means partnering with a fast-talking, scam-artist fox, Nick Wilde, to solve the mystery. Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Zootopia, a comedy-adventure directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore and co-directed by Jared Bush, opens in theaters on March 4, 2016.”

Check out the trailer below. Zootopia will hit theaters on March 4, 2016.

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Jenna Busch

Jenna Busch is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Legion of Leia and has hosted and written for sites like Nerdist, ComingSoon.net, Metro, Birth. Movies. Death., IGN, AOL, Huffington Post and more. She co-hosted Cocktails With Stan with the legendary Stan Lee and has appeared on Attack of the Show, Fresh Ink, Tabletop with Wil Wheaton, in the documentary She Makes Comics, on NPR and Al Jazeera America, and has covered film/TV/gaming/comics for years. She's currently a co-host on Most Craved. She's been published in the comics anthology Womanthology, is a chapter author for Star Wars Psychology: Dark Side of the Mind, Game of Thrones Psychology and Star Trek Psychology and more, and owns a terrifying amount of swords and 20-sided dice. There are also those My Little Pony trailer voice overs that give one nightmares.

1 CommentLeave a comment

  • i like how descriptive you where and made sure your information was up to date i have just learned about many aspects myself and should they do another it will be interesting where they go thank you for the knowledge and have a nice day