5 reasons why Zootopia is overrated. · 2:44pm Feb 28th, 2017
The last Academy Awards ceremony disappointed me in a lot of aspects: DiCaprio gaving the Oscar to my dear Emma (I liked him more when he was a loser), La La Land losing to Moonlight by mistake (if Manchester by the Sea would've been the winner, the story would be different) and of course... Disney winning best animated picture AGAIN... It's time to talk about this seriously.
When I first watched Zootopia, I actually thought it was one of the best animated movies of the company and one of the best movies of the year. But as time went by, my opinion changed for the worse.
Disclaimer: I don't know why people think overrated is a synonym of bad. Because no, Zootopia is NOT a bad movie, simply the film is cataloged beyond its characteristics, which I will try to analyze. It's important to know this before reading.
Before I start, let me enumerate their attributes: the world is creative, the main characters are charismatic (Judy and Nick are easily the best Disney protagonists since Bella and Simba), the music, while not one of the best, goes well into the movie (I'm starting to getting used to Shakira's theme) and, although I don't like how the sociocultural issues were done, they are still there. Now, into the negatives.
1. The Plot.
Since the beginning of this fourth renaissance, Disney has begun to have simpler stories, almost without much risk within itself and even borrowing ideas from the competition (even Wreck-it Ralph, the best movie of this era in my opinion, has its problems). The first half of the movie brings out this. Okay, it has good parts such as explaining the world, Judy's parents saying unintentional racist things, the training setup and how tough life is for a newcomer. But once the mystery begins, it falls into many common tropes and it uses them without a useful or interesting twist. This makes it more predictable than it should (and yes, I know it's a children's movie, but still). And no, using a sloth joke won't fix them.
2. The villain.
What the hell has happened to the world of entertainment in general?! For some time, writers have been lazy at writing good villains and we have had many one-dimensional, flat and even boring ones. There have been exceptions of course, such as Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) and The Lich (Adventure Time), but this has been the norm lately. This has affected franchises such as Fire Emblem (Awakening and Fates), Kirby (Triple Deluxe, the Rainbow Curse), Pirates of the Caribbean, Terminator, the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (of which only Loki can be rescued), the decay of the figure of Voldemort at the end of the Harry Potter saga and, of course, the worst Joker in history. This movie is notthe exception: Bellweather is simply one of the company's most wasted villains (and even the people who actually liked the movie can agree with me in this). And to make it worse, they used the typical twist (poorly written and predictable, by the way) to justify it. This wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for this being the third movie in a row using it. I can give the pass to Frozen because it was the first one, but Big Hero 6 and Zootopia can't. This is something that can resent as the years go by. And this crisis of villains has a beginning date: 2010, a year after Disney bought Marvel. Coincidence? I do not think so.
EDIT: Both Doug Walker and Lindsay Ellis have uploaded a couple of videos that expand on this situation. Check them out.
3. It focuses so much on being so modern that it may end up being outdated.
This is the point I'm least concerned, but it has more importance than I expected. Let me explain: Oliver & Company wanted to look modern when it was released in the 80's. But by doing it, it neglected its story and characters. Now, 30 years later, it looks very dated for our time and by having no interesting story or characters, has been forgotten. True, Zootopia is better written and has better characters, but modernity continues to interfere. What will happen in 30 years when the cell phones have evolved or even disappeared? Will it still be at the forefront? In addition, in its attempt to be modern or to make an allusion to society has many elements that don't allow full penetration in it, being the most important: Why is there a parody of The Godfather? (You know that's a romanticized version of the Mafia, right?) Why is the dollar used as a currency? (And no, being an American production isn't justified) In fact, about the latter I asked myself this question when I wathced Sing (inferior to Zootopia in all aspects) months later: why am I bothered that Zootopia uses dollars as currency while in Sing not? And the answer was so obvious that I'm ashamed that I didn't realize it when I first watched it: in Zootopia they strive more to build a world and this goes from using anthropomorphic animals, therefore details like this can take the viewer out of the story. Instead, in Sing this is only used to give the film its own identity and an occasional joke. Therefore, it isn't required at the same level.
Inferior to Zootopia in every aspect, but it gives what it promises. No pretention whatsoever, unlike the Disney film.
4. The sociocultural topics.
Anthropomorphic animals are a great form to talk about certain topics... Racism is not one of them because that's a totally human ideology (that's why I want to pretend this film is talking about xenophobia and apartheid instead) and it's done in a very superficial way, almost without deepening the subject. And if this was not enough, nature-related act is demonized. Animals have to eat other animals to survive, you can't do that! And again, these issues are important now, but in 30 years? In addition, everyone has already said and analyze these themes to death, without any variation to the formula and all arriving at the same conclusion (at some point I wanted to make a thesis about this film, but I rejected it because, what can I say that the rest haven't said before?). Arthur C. Clarke once stated that if anyone could completely understood 2001: A Space Odyssey, then he and Kubrick failed as filmmakers. And that's what I see here. Being easy to interpret is a double-edged sword, it allows a greater openness to the people and so anyone can understand its message, but if everyone reaches the same conclusion the film will lose its relevance in the future (or at least until another Donald Trump comes to power).
5. The Undeserved Academy Award.
Why deny the facts? Kubo and the Two Strings is easily the best animated film of the year, but no, Laika has to wait ANOTHER year to win a prize. I can accept any other awards for this film, but the fact that it won the most important of the bunch despite having a better film in competition means two things: the jury still thinks animation it's only for kids and, for them, Disney and Pixar are the only animation companies that exist. Seriously, the last non-Disney or Pixar film that won the award was Rango (fairly enough), and that was 5 years ago. This makes me happy that the next year we'll have finally another winner, since Disney won't offer anything new and Pixar's propositions are their own version of Book of Life and Cars 3.
I was already pissed off not having Kung Fu Panda 3 (my favorite animated movie of the year) nominated and Kubo (the best animated film of the year) and Laika Studios losing to this film is... underwhelming and frustrating. But that's only me.
In the end, Zootopia represents fairly well the current level of the company: It's in a much, much better position than the 2000's decade and its current status is solid, but it's not the best. Not even in a time period where its two main opponents from the last decade (Pixar and Dreamworks) are declining, specially if you consider modern masterpieces like The Lego Movie are starting to redefine animated movies.
What do you think of Zootopia? Do you like it?
haven't seen kubo or zootopia all i know is just deal with it i mean its not gonna get better so i wouldn't complain but thats just me and plus i'm not a movie expert
I remember when I watched Zootopia for the very first time and to be honest it didn't really leave a mark on me. I thought once you got rid of the amazing visuals it was nothing that hasn't been done before to almost being the a clique. I do feel their are a lot better cartoons than Zootopia.
I actually quite like Zootopia, too was fun and hilarious to watch, but I can't and agree with you on that modernizing thing.