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.
Lesezeichen