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Zootopia (NO SPOILERS) (LONG WINDED)
10 years ago
General
I went to see Zootopia last night, and wanted to give my overall feelings about the movie. I may revisit and to a 'review' but that would contain spoilers and I will wait at least a few weeks to give more folks time to see it before I do that. AS A WARNING, things appearing in the comments below will more likely contain spoilers as I am open to folks discussion their feelings as well there, and I only promise no outright spoilers in this article itself.
First, my overall FEELING about the movie.
Satisfied. I am extremely satisfied with what was produced on the five criteria for which I intended to enjoy the film (and yes, I went in with the intention of enjoying it, not criticizing it, so I am a miserable critic) They are as follows:
Animation: I'm going to see an animated film, so the animation is kind of important. The movies was beautifully animated and while I am not sure what new technologies were being used with this film, it felt far more rich and involved than pretty much any CGA film I have seen to date. The world is busy, the world is colorful, the world pulls you in. What I liked most is that they did not seem to be afraid of having a lot going on in each shot despite how much more time and effort and manpower that likely took. A shot in a regular movie with five people doing their own thing in a scene takes a few minutes and maybe a couple of takes to get right. With animation like this, it's dozens of people hours and hours, and Disney still went for broke and did it. Top notch.
Characters: As a writer and a cartoonist myself, I LOVE to create characters. So many characters I create no one ever sees. They are just playing around in my head, all day every day. I'm never alone. That said, character design and execution is super important. If you create characters that do not seem to be unique to themselves, I simply won't bond with them. Nick and Judy are something very special right away. I do not want to give too much away about them, but a LOT of films make the mistake where the character or characters do not seem to care about anything but the plot at hand. They doing want anything or like anything but what we are being shown. Zootopia gives me the impression that each character is a little deeper than just being a face in the crowd, and everyone is just a little more complicated than you see on the outside, even those who get very little screen time at all. If you come away from a film asking a bunch of questions about the characters that have little to do with the story line than then that means the characters made you care about that. It's rare these days and this was done beautifully.
The Universe: As I grow older I discover more and more how valuable this aspect is to storytelling, a fact I wish I had learned about when very young. Making great characters and coming up with a col story is fine, but so many films do this without really putting you in their world. You relate to the characters as if they were right beside you in this one, and not you right beside them in their world. Zootopia was different. The basis of their world was easy enough for a child to understand, but you are given little hints and glimpses of the deeper meanings and history there that they don't go into too much explanation of that makes it feel more like a world you could visit, and not just one where a story took place. I would be both surprised and immensely disappointed if Disney did not let us come back there, be it in sequel or some other fashion. It's too much space to leave to memory alone.
The Story: When we sit down to watch a Disney film we prepare ourselves for the cliche. It's kind of a staple of Disney. Their earliest successes were in the telling or interpreting of old fairy tales and literature. This story did not seem to follow that established formula. The flow was different, the character development, while it may have been easy to anticipate in spots, went a bit deeper than you expected in others, even if it was following your assumptions. I found the story to be well written, paced evenly, and lovingly executed. I was very satisfied with the style of storytelling in this film.
The Message: Disney does like to put messages in their films. Usually these messages are directed at children to help them understand the very things their parents want them to understand but in a fashion that is fun and enjoyable for the family. Sometimes this message is delivered repeatedly like a pie in the face montage and can be highly grating to experience. This obviously is for small kids with a short attention span. I do not begrudge them that, it's usually a good message like be honest with the ones you love or don't let your pursuit of popularity harm your family, that sort of thing. They are not bad messages, but usually they are not so deep that you can lay the foundation of a feature film on them. My Little Pony handles most of these sorts of messages just fine in 24 minute segments. The message that came bottled with Zootopia was something very different. On the surface it's something kids might get, sure, but the relevance was most definitely directed at adult viewers. And it was shown in such a way that makes it eerily familiar and far more relevant than anything I think Disney has EVER done before. It's an IMPORTANT lesson that it seems many are learning far too late. I came away from the film actually feeling that Zootopia, for everything it was, might just help some to understand a hurdle mankind has tripped over far too many times.
I could likely go on for pages and pages about the movie, little things I noticed, so many questions I had, but these would involve a greater likelihood of spoilers and certainly would be hard to slog through if you had not experienced the film yet. If you had not already gone to see it, GO. Also, take a friend. Or several friends. I have not been to a movie more than once in a theater since the 90s, but this one I intend to see again before it goes off the big screen, and I WILL own it on blueray when it comes out.
If you like, feel free to drop a question or two, maybe you were left with some similar to mine, or just want to discuss your own feelings on the film. Chat away below but understand that I will allow spoilers in the discussion below. Read on at your own risk.
First, my overall FEELING about the movie.
Satisfied. I am extremely satisfied with what was produced on the five criteria for which I intended to enjoy the film (and yes, I went in with the intention of enjoying it, not criticizing it, so I am a miserable critic) They are as follows:
Animation: I'm going to see an animated film, so the animation is kind of important. The movies was beautifully animated and while I am not sure what new technologies were being used with this film, it felt far more rich and involved than pretty much any CGA film I have seen to date. The world is busy, the world is colorful, the world pulls you in. What I liked most is that they did not seem to be afraid of having a lot going on in each shot despite how much more time and effort and manpower that likely took. A shot in a regular movie with five people doing their own thing in a scene takes a few minutes and maybe a couple of takes to get right. With animation like this, it's dozens of people hours and hours, and Disney still went for broke and did it. Top notch.
Characters: As a writer and a cartoonist myself, I LOVE to create characters. So many characters I create no one ever sees. They are just playing around in my head, all day every day. I'm never alone. That said, character design and execution is super important. If you create characters that do not seem to be unique to themselves, I simply won't bond with them. Nick and Judy are something very special right away. I do not want to give too much away about them, but a LOT of films make the mistake where the character or characters do not seem to care about anything but the plot at hand. They doing want anything or like anything but what we are being shown. Zootopia gives me the impression that each character is a little deeper than just being a face in the crowd, and everyone is just a little more complicated than you see on the outside, even those who get very little screen time at all. If you come away from a film asking a bunch of questions about the characters that have little to do with the story line than then that means the characters made you care about that. It's rare these days and this was done beautifully.
The Universe: As I grow older I discover more and more how valuable this aspect is to storytelling, a fact I wish I had learned about when very young. Making great characters and coming up with a col story is fine, but so many films do this without really putting you in their world. You relate to the characters as if they were right beside you in this one, and not you right beside them in their world. Zootopia was different. The basis of their world was easy enough for a child to understand, but you are given little hints and glimpses of the deeper meanings and history there that they don't go into too much explanation of that makes it feel more like a world you could visit, and not just one where a story took place. I would be both surprised and immensely disappointed if Disney did not let us come back there, be it in sequel or some other fashion. It's too much space to leave to memory alone.
The Story: When we sit down to watch a Disney film we prepare ourselves for the cliche. It's kind of a staple of Disney. Their earliest successes were in the telling or interpreting of old fairy tales and literature. This story did not seem to follow that established formula. The flow was different, the character development, while it may have been easy to anticipate in spots, went a bit deeper than you expected in others, even if it was following your assumptions. I found the story to be well written, paced evenly, and lovingly executed. I was very satisfied with the style of storytelling in this film.
The Message: Disney does like to put messages in their films. Usually these messages are directed at children to help them understand the very things their parents want them to understand but in a fashion that is fun and enjoyable for the family. Sometimes this message is delivered repeatedly like a pie in the face montage and can be highly grating to experience. This obviously is for small kids with a short attention span. I do not begrudge them that, it's usually a good message like be honest with the ones you love or don't let your pursuit of popularity harm your family, that sort of thing. They are not bad messages, but usually they are not so deep that you can lay the foundation of a feature film on them. My Little Pony handles most of these sorts of messages just fine in 24 minute segments. The message that came bottled with Zootopia was something very different. On the surface it's something kids might get, sure, but the relevance was most definitely directed at adult viewers. And it was shown in such a way that makes it eerily familiar and far more relevant than anything I think Disney has EVER done before. It's an IMPORTANT lesson that it seems many are learning far too late. I came away from the film actually feeling that Zootopia, for everything it was, might just help some to understand a hurdle mankind has tripped over far too many times.
I could likely go on for pages and pages about the movie, little things I noticed, so many questions I had, but these would involve a greater likelihood of spoilers and certainly would be hard to slog through if you had not experienced the film yet. If you had not already gone to see it, GO. Also, take a friend. Or several friends. I have not been to a movie more than once in a theater since the 90s, but this one I intend to see again before it goes off the big screen, and I WILL own it on blueray when it comes out.
If you like, feel free to drop a question or two, maybe you were left with some similar to mine, or just want to discuss your own feelings on the film. Chat away below but understand that I will allow spoilers in the discussion below. Read on at your own risk.
I'm not experienced enough to separate my feelings on the movie like this, but the way you've done it and the way you've explained what you think of the different aspects makes me reflect on the movie in a different way aswell, so thank you for that.
Taking all of your points into account, what I liked most about the movie was the completeness that you feel watching it. There's nothing you can really separate from the movie without taking away from it and you are absolutely right about the characters. There's hundreds of questions I want to have answered, and as weird as this sounds, I hope they cash in on that ;b
Glad I'm not alone in that aspect.
Zootopia was entirely different. Not even just on a standpoint that maybe I related to them because I'm a furry and they are furry. Nick and Judy felt natural to themselves and you could spend time actually considering what they might be like in their day to day lives. Even the side characters had more feel to them though, and questions you could ask about their lives. The suggestion about Emmett Otterton being in a perfect marriage is left with some questions because of where he spends so much of his time. One has to ask, does he always go there alone? Does his wife approve? Will things be different after his experience? I think all of us KNOW a guy like Clawhauser. Big Ben loves food, sure, and Disney's had characters like that, but you are given the impression from his character that he's got other things going on. He seems like he's a bit of a technophile, and while he's not the most fit for his breed, he DOES care how others feel about him, and his feelings get hurt in a way we can absolutely relate having NOTHING to do with his relationship with sprinkle-endowed circular confections. Even Finnick which we see so little of has a LOT going on that we just do not get told. They could give that little guy his own movie with the questions one immediately has there. How did he and Nick meet? Does he live anywhere or out of the van? How long have he and Nick been pulling their scams? The suggestion is there that they met when Nick was 12 based on the conversations in the film. The world of Zootopia is so rich that I felt like I was watching a movie that was a single story out of a series that surely had five or six seasons.
And I think that's what really locked it as one of my favorite Disney movies. As I move around in the world I look at people living their lives and I know each and every single one of them has their own story, and I am seeing a tiny moment of it. That is how the real world looks to me, and the way they handled any character that was reasonably more than an 'extra' for the background made me feel the same way. They have their own rich story. From the driver of the limo to the somewhat irritated elephant trying to teach a Yoga class while an apparently burned out (Yak?) bludgeoned her with questions she probably knew he knew the answers to locked in dynamics that made their world completely relatable despite how no human had ever lived there.
More longwindedness, sorry about that, but yes, I agree wholey. o.o