Zootopia

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TsWade2
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

Post by TsWade2 »

DisneyJedi wrote:About time we got another anthropomorphic animal film from Disney. Last time we had something like that was Robin Hood. I'm not counting The Lion King into the equation because they didn't walk on their hind legs or wear clothes. :P
Agreed.
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jazzflower92
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

Post by jazzflower92 »

Why do I have a feeling that the Fox main character will get a lot of fan girls? :wink:

I mean whenever there is an attractive anthromorphic fox an immediate fandom will spring up. You know with all the fox characters done in animation over the years I still wonder if Reynard the Fox will have a big budget movie in this current decade.
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Sky Syndrome
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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Candy-Bonita95 wrote:anthropomorphic foxes are overdone.
Really? I don't think there's enough of them. I think anthropomorphic mice and ducks are overdone.
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Sotiris
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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SWillie! wrote:There was also The Rescuers and The Great Mouse Detective. Before that, there was a little bit of it in Pinocchio, Mr. Toad, and Alice in Wonderland. Any other ones?
Do you include Mickey & Co.?

Fantasia (The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Dance of the Hours)
Dumbo (the crows, Timothy etc)
Saludos Amigos
The Three Caballeros
Fun and Fancy Free
Melody Time (Blame It on the Samba)
Cinderella (the mice)
The Rescuers Down Under
Fantasia 2000 (Pomp and Circumstance)
Chicken Little
The Princess and the Frog (Louis)
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DisneyEra
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

Post by DisneyEra »

Anyone else getting a Chicken Little vibe from Zootopia. The Wall Street Gerbil? I'm not saying it will be like CH but both worlds feature anthropomorphic animals where humans don't exist. Still very surprised they officially annouced Zootopia nearly 3 years out.
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jazzflower92
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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DisneyEra wrote:Anyone else getting a Chicken Little vibe from Zootopia. The Wall Street Gerbil? I'm not saying it will be like CH but both worlds feature anthropomorphic animals where humans don't exist. Still very surprised they officially annouced Zootopia nearly 3 years out.
I don't think so because Chicken Little was copying the Shrek formula and failed. This on the other hand I feel is going to be a straight up original story that has in my opinion doing its own thing.
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SWillie!
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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Sotiris wrote:Do you include Mickey & Co.?
Funny, that never occurred to me. Is it weird if for some reason I don't think of them anthropomorphic animals? Haha even though obviously that's what they are. So yeah, I guess it's been sprinkled throughout a lot of Disney films. It'll be interesting to see how they handle it this time around. I love Robin Hood, but I'm afraid a more "modern" story will just feel like it's catering to the furry crowd.
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

Post by Lady Cluck »

Imagine a modern city, lived in and designed by wild animals.

The origins of Zootopia go back to Disney’s 1973 animated Robin Hood, featuring a host of creatures great and small, acting out the roles in that classic story. When Tangled director Byron Howard proposed a new animated film populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals, he said Lasseter “lifted me in the air like a baby Simba,” from The Lion King.

We’ve seen animals in the natural word and animals in the human world, “but we’ve never seen animals in a modern world designed by animals.” The plot is a buddy movie about a smooth fox named Nick Wilde and a rabbit cop named Lt. Judy Hops (no voice talent was announced for the 2016 title).

Howard and writer Jared Bush did share how various wildlife experts helped shape the characters. They showed concept art of a studious-looking wildebeest in a three-piece suit with glasses, but were warned that those animals are “impossibly stupid,” Bush said. So that character changed into a dopey, slack-jawed yokel named Gnu-pid.

They also displayed concept images of Zootopia’s title city. “One of the key concepts is if you squint at any frame of film you might think you’re looking at an animal in a natural environment,” Howard said.

He then showed a frame of a snow-covered Alpine mountain, which faded into an irregularly shaped white pyramid luxury hotel.
Just like New York has Chinatown and Little Italy, Zootopia has distinct regional neighborhoods like Tundratown, Sahara Square, Little Rodenta (the bad part of town, populated by vermin), and Burrowborough, populated by millions of bunnies.

They also showcased one more character: Gazelle, a creature named after her own species, who is an outspoken mega pop star — depicted in various outrageous outfits a la Lady Gaga.

And the major metropolitan newspaper in town? The Wall Street Gerbil. Obviously.
It's sad that we know more about this movie than we knew about Frozen a few months ago.

I don't really like having another movie with an anthropomorphic fox as the lead considering Disney already has Robin Hood, not to mention there's The Fantastic Mr. Fox and others. But we'll see. It sounds like a Dreamworks concept to me.
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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DisneyEra wrote:Anyone else getting a Chicken Little vibe from Zootopia. The Wall Street Gerbil? I'm not saying it will be like CH but both worlds feature anthropomorphic animals where humans don't exist. Still very surprised they officially annouced Zootopia nearly 3 years out.
That's what the concept art brought to my mind, yes. I don't hate "Chicken Little" as most people do, but it's nowhere near being one of my favorites. I don't have a good feeling about this one, either, but admittedly it's a bit foolish to say that this early in the game. The Gazelle character sounds like fun.
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

Post by Mooky »

I'm just waiting for people who whine about the (im)plausibility of Cars universe to come in and state how much they love the idea behind Zootopia.
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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Mooky wrote:I'm just waiting for people who whine about the (im)plausibility of Cars universe to come in and state how much they love the idea behind Zootopia.
I'll try and look up my essay on the implausibility of the Cars universe later and you'll see it has zero in common with Zootopia.

The gist of it? The Cars inhabit a world that was built by humans (only logical explanation given the esthetic of the architecture) but at the same time humans do not exist. That is a paradox. The Cars have no arms or legs. They can't do anything. They can't even feed themselves let alone build cities.

An anthropomorphic fox could easily build a house. Mater? No, he cannot.
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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PatrickvD wrote:
Mooky wrote:I'm just waiting for people who whine about the (im)plausibility of Cars universe to come in and state how much they love the idea behind Zootopia.
I'll try and look up my essay on the implausibility of the Cars universe later and you'll see it has zero in common with Zootopia.

The gist of it? The Cars inhabit a world that was built by humans (only logical explanation given the esthetic of the architecture) but at the same time humans do not exist. That is a paradox. The Cars have no arms or legs. They can't do anything. They can't even feed themselves let alone build cities.

An anthropomorphic fox could easily build a house. Mater? No, he cannot.
I want a link to that essay.

Well, it seems they have learned cause they specifically said that the world aesthetic is tailor from the animals that inhabit it.
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Mooky
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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PatrickvD wrote:
Mooky wrote:I'm just waiting for people who whine about the (im)plausibility of Cars universe to come in and state how much they love the idea behind Zootopia.
I'll try and look up my essay on the implausibility of the Cars universe later and you'll see it has zero in common with Zootopia.

The gist of it? The Cars inhabit a world that was built by humans (only logical explanation given the esthetic of the architecture) but at the same time humans do not exist. That is a paradox. The Cars have no arms or legs. They can't do anything. They can't even feed themselves let alone build cities.

An anthropomorphic fox could easily build a house. Mater? No, he cannot.
If you're using anthropomorphism as a justification for foxes building human houses and subway stations instead of dens, well guess what -- cars in Cars have eyes and mouths, so there's at least some level of anthropomorphism involved there, too. They are also able to build roads, but they don't eat of course -- they use fuel. Face it, the idea behind both movies is the same absurdly fantastical idea, it's ridiculous to even pretend there's some big difference.

I'm going to quote something I wrote once in the Planes thread:
Out of all things wrong with Cars movies, I never understood why people tend to focus on humans (or lack of them) in their universe. The films have their internal logic and they stick to it. Is it so hard to imagine one of these scenarios:
- the Cars universe is an alternate/parallel universe
- the living cars are a result of a Divine Intervention
- at some point in human existence (alternate past/distant future), humans created artificial intelligence that gave 'life' to cars, planes, boats, other machines, etc. All human and animal life was then destroyed by a wide-spread plague (it happened in Planet of the Apes). The now-sentient vehicles continued living on their own and set up their own world.

The two movies may be terrible by Pixar- and film-standards, but you can't fault them for their own logic. If people are willing to accept talking foxes and uniform-clad rhinos in Medieval England (who made their clothes? who built their fortresses?), wooden puppets coming to life, cooking rats and humans riding interstellar marine ships, then I really think there should be no issues with the world of Cars.
Now imagine if I had written this instead:
Zootopia has its internal logic and it sticks to it. Is it so hard to imagine one of these scenarios:
- the Zootopia universe is an alternate/parallel universe
- animals talking and walking on two feet are a result of a Divine Intervention
- at some point in human existence (alternate past/distant future), all human life was destroyed by a wide-spread plague (it happened in Planet of the Apes). Animals evolved and set up their own world using human artifacts.
Is this really that much different from what may have happened in the Cars universe?
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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I cannot believe that people don't see the difference between anthropomorphic animals and anthropomorphic vehicles or objects.

The cars are inhabiting a world that they cannot have built. Please explain to me who built their houses and infrastructure, their entire technology? I'm sorry, but this IS different and you conveniently ignore my explanation. The Cars do not have arms or legs, yet there are all kinds of supplies and conveniences that are left unexplained. Nothing about their esthetic explains how these objects provided to them came into being. It does not make any sense. Their universe explicitly makes it clear that it is only inhabited by vehicles, yet the esthetic references human architecture and history. We are literally seeing human built houses in the backgrounds. The Cars cannot have built it.

A humanized fox can do anything it damn well pleases because it's basically a human. It has arms, hands, legs and feet. Their anthropomorphic world is easier to accept because it is a reflection of our world.

The Cars universe does not make sense. And I've never heard a successful argument explaining how it does make sense, because it doesn't. And it's quite easy to see why.
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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Lnds500 wrote:
PatrickvD wrote: I'll try and look up my essay on the implausibility of the Cars universe later and you'll see it has zero in common with Zootopia.

The gist of it? The Cars inhabit a world that was built by humans (only logical explanation given the esthetic of the architecture) but at the same time humans do not exist. That is a paradox. The Cars have no arms or legs. They can't do anything. They can't even feed themselves let alone build cities.

An anthropomorphic fox could easily build a house. Mater? No, he cannot.
I want a link to that essay.

Well, it seems they have learned cause they specifically said that the world aesthetic is tailor from the animals that inhabit it.
It's on this page: http://www.dvdizzy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... &start=180

I was venting :lol:

Anyway, that is what is most intriguing about the synopsis. That they're going to invent a whole aesthetic for their world. It sounds cool.
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DisneyEra
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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UmbrellaFish wrote:
DisneyEra wrote:Anyone else getting a Chicken Little vibe from Zootopia. The Wall Street Gerbil? I'm not saying it will be like CH but both worlds feature anthropomorphic animals where humans don't exist. Still very surprised they officially annouced Zootopia nearly 3 years out.
That's what the concept art brought to my mind, yes. I don't hate "Chicken Little" as most people do, but it's nowhere near being one of my favorites. I don't have a good feeling about this one, either, but admittedly it's a bit foolish to say that this early in the game. The Gazelle character sounds like fun.
I don't hate Chicken Little either. It was a product of it's time 8 years ago. And it's not like the other CGI movies of 2005 where any better: Robots/Madagascar. Though Madagascar went on to become Dreamworks 2nd franchise after Shrek. But still, I can clearly see the characters of CH in Zootopia. In CH characters drove cars, they even had cell phones!
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Sky Syndrome
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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PatrickvD wrote:I cannot believe that people don't see the difference between anthropomorphic animals and anthropomorphic vehicles or objects.

The cars are inhabiting a world that they cannot have built. Please explain to me who built their houses and infrastructure, their entire technology? I'm sorry, but this IS different and you conveniently ignore my explanation. The Cars do not have arms or legs, yet there are all kinds of supplies and conveniences that are left unexplained. Nothing about their esthetic explains how these objects provided to them came into being. It does not make any sense. Their universe explicitly makes it clear that it is only inhabited by vehicles, yet the esthetic references human architecture and history. We are literally seeing human built houses in the backgrounds. The Cars cannot have built it.
What you do think they do with their tongues? Just use them to talk and make silly faces? :lol:
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Disney's Divinity
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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Well, the majority of animals do not have thumbs or the brain capacity to build a civilization like humans, so… :lol: Still pretty implausible. Regardless, this did look much more interesting than Cars until I read it’s going to be a buddy film. :roll: Why isn’t this just being released under Pixar?

And the Gazelle character...I wonder if she'll wear a meat dress. :P
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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Disney's Divinity wrote:Well, the majority of animals do not have thumbs or the brain capacity to build a civilization like humans, so…
Its all about a movie following the rules of its own universe. With your thumbs and brain capacity example, in this movie's case they clearly have both.
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Re: Byron Howard's Zootopia

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