In the modern world, where information is easily shared, Disney have decided to call the movie “Zootropolis” in the UK, which confused the hell out of me when I saw an advert for it. Disney’s official reason is:
In the UK we decided to change the US title (Zootopia) to Zootropolis to merely allow the film to have a unique title that works for UK audiences
That makes no sense.
But this website claims it’s to avoid marketing issues with a Danish zoo… which also makes no sense.
Stop renaming films, ffs.
That link also points out that:
So it seems to be a simple case of conflicting trademarks. Still, it’s interesting to note how early on Disney decided on an alternate title. Given that 'Zootopia’ is the name of the film’s setting, it’ll be interesting to see if the UK release has the dialogue changed to match the new title. It’s not uncommon for CG films to rerecord dialogue for international releases in the same language. Films like Shrek 2, Big Hero 6, and Cars have had minor characters redubbed by British celebrities. It has also become more common for in-movie text- like signs and newspapers- to be changed for international audiences. It’s possible that any signs in Zootopia referring to the city’s name will be altered for the UK release.
Whilst I kind like the idea, as I’m all against American Cultural Imperialism, I think this is just as bad, as it means there’s no canonical version of a film, just a product aimed at different focus-groups. I imagine it gives film collectors a nightmare, even more than it does for music collectors trying to get hold of the Japanese version of an album because it has a different bonus track.
Yeah, the naming conventions regarding this movie are a bit bonkers. I’m pretty damn sure that it said “Zootropolis” when I saw the trailer for the first time when it was paired with Star Wars 7. So I was slightly confused when I later saw it being referred to as “Zootopia”. And then Disney decided to call it “Zoomania” here in Germany which is really stupid because that word isn’t any more or less German or any more or less understandable for children than “Zootopia”. At some point I wasn’t sure anymore which of the two titles was the international one and it also made it a bit annoying to talk about the movie because many knew only one of these names and someone would always ask “Oh, that’s that movie. I thought it was called…”. Just a small hassle, but it was noticable.
You’re not exactly alone in this. I watched Inside Out on a plane. I don’t plan on buying it. Eventually Zooptopia will make it to my animated digital library though for sure. It’s just a more enjoyable movie.
The only food I remember from that movie is ice-cream and Popsicles; they didn’t really go into the ecology of any of it. They didn’t do that in Robin Hood either though.
The wife and I saw this last night and both greatly enjoyed it. It was cute and gritty at the same time. JoshL is right about this being Chinatown for Kids, though Jay Gittes was never as motivated as Judy Hopps was. (And most of the animals probably didn’t just impregnate their daughters but eat them too.) I was also reminded of Alan Moore’s Top Ten, except with animals instead of superheroes.
spoilers
[spoiler]I had guessed the secret villain’s identity as soon as she was introduced, based on her name and the Connie Willis novel about groups being subtly manipulated to follow the bellwether of the flock.
The plotting was really well done though. First act, bam, set up of characters and ultimatum to find the missing critters within 2 days or she gets fired. Second act, hooray, she finds the critters. Third act, because she found the critters (and because of someone else’s master plan), the society starts to crumble so she has to figure out what went wrong and save the day with the help of all the previous people she met. That’s so much more sophisticated than “here’s our characters, and they do some stuff until it’s time for a big setpiece climax.” [/spoiler]
I don’t remember seeing any Uplifted fish and bugs, so maybe only the warmblooded vertebrates are talking intelligent citizens and every other creature is fair game for, uh, game? Sushi bars are probably really popular.
I read an interview with the writers. They said that fish were on the menu originally, but it confused people in test screenings (“wait, are they smart, too?”), so they switched to insects and plant proteins. There are occasional fast-food bags labeled ‘Bug Burger’ in the background. They’ve done a good bit of worldbuilding beyond what made it to the screen, too: there are other regions/continents for birds and reptiles, at least.
My wife and I really enjoyed it. We concur with Djscman’s praise of the plot. (I didn’t guess the villain until later, but then again, I’m terrible at solving mysteries in fiction.) It was a gorgeously-realized world, to boot, and I liked that it wasn’t just a movie with animals in place of people—using their animal natures as a plot point was brilliant.
Visually, well done, but then it’s Disney and they are always at least ‘good’ in that department. The tone was interesting, and the noire-ishness of it surprised me. But then the world was odd and not really explained well enough for me. Fear of large carnivores is not irrational unless the film does a good job of creating a world where carnivores and herbivores live together in peace. This film just sorta hand waved the whole thing as far as I could tell. But I could have missed some subtlety since I was bored out of my mind through most of it. There were no laughs and the film plodded along at a snails pace. That I knew the entire plot pretty quickly didn’t help. I was in a packed theater with mostly kids/families and it was a very quiet audience.
There was no reason to fear. At one point they show a predator reading a book a train, reading a book, and the mother just pulls her kid away as if the smiling guy reading a book was just going to turn and eat him. I would say that’s irrational given the context of the society presented. Gazelle’s entire dance team consists of tigers that look like they;re having too much fun to turn around and eat her.
For me the tone and even art style was too serious and in your face regarding ‘bigotry=bad’ to ignore that half the population should normally be a direct threat to the other half (and apparently was fairly recently in this world’s history). That’s what I meant by hand waving. I could have ignored it if it had been more lighthearted I think. But it was in a sort of uncanny valley where I couldn’t suspend my disbelief because the subject/tone was too serious so that the lack of explanation jumped out at me.
And mostly it wasn’t funny. I can forgive and/or overlook quite a bit in a comedy if it’s, you know, comedic. :)
I watched this movie a few weeks ago, and it’s really stuck with me. Well thought out, funny, features a great mystery, and a great plot. What really stuck with me was the casual discrimination against foxes. I guess I get reminded of it because I currently work in an office with some casually racist attitudes that bother me a lot.
That is what I loved about the film. It has moments of hitting the message over your head for a bit, but the reality of some of the moments were jarring. The subtle scooching over in the seat, the protests. Visually stunning, great voice work, and a strong message about overcoming prejudice and social norms (a bunny can’t be a cop!) and casual racism and the hurtfulness “There is clearly a biological component…”
Also, that the main character is someone who overcame racism to get where she is, being able to spout it all out right back without even realizing.
I said to my girlfriend while watching, if I was a kid right now, this would be my favorite movie.
Catchy tune with a great message, really good message. I know there’s this crowd out there really, really afraid of rewarding mediocrity, but I think children and young people need to know failure is okay. Failure happens and you move on. It’s not the worse thing in a world not to achieve a goal because it’s going to happen to pretty much everyone multiple times.
I also loved the evolution of Sully and Mike’s relationship. We already know from Monsters Inc that they end up as friends, so it was really interesting to see them so antagonistic towards one another. I really enjoyed the emotional highs and lows of that friendship in Monsters U.
Yeah! That relationship felt real. Rivals turned friends. Sully the naturally gifted who can slack off and still get by, and Mike the hardest working student there, lacking in natural talent. Definitely the kinds of things you see in college. It took the expulsion to realize that they both had skills that worked better together.
