Imagine you are a kid in 1937 who has been waiting for hours in a crowded line outside the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. There is an energy as you and everyone else wait to see a new moving picture based on a fairy tale you love. “I heard it’s longer than a Silly Symphony,” says one patron. 

You inch closer to the ticket booth and take note of someone reading a Time magazine with Walt Disney on the cover, holding characters you have never seen before. You eventually purchase your ticket and take your seat in one of the soft red theater chairs while the lights dim with the projector shining onto the screen. The film is “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and for the next hour and a half, you witness not only cinema history but the rise of one of the most important animation icons in the world.

Let’s fast forward to the late fall of 2025 and times could not be crazier. Major Hollywood companies are merging and blockbuster animated films are wildcards. Disney still exists as a powerful entertainment business, but finds more success in theme parks and intellectual properties. Animation is still around the house of mouse but everything has switched to computers with attention geared toward either Pixar or streaming. 

It is Thanksgiving Day and you drive the family to a local movie theater which has not been done in your household since 2020. You all walk into a full room of families waiting to see “Zootopia 2” and because of everyone in there, including yourself, it is now the highest grossing animated film on an opening weekend.

HERD OF VOICES

“Zootopia 2” begins right where the first one left off with Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde becoming celebrities and a new team over at the police department. A chase gone wrong puts the duo on the line but the sudden appearance of a snake, the first reptile seen inside Zootopia in the last 100 years, sparks a case full of vibrant animals and thick plots. 

Ginnifer Goodwin, as well as Jason Bateman, reprise their roles of Hopps and Wilde along with other actors from the first film. The movie has around 70 voice roles with new cast members billing the credits such as Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan, character actor Danny Trejo and even Patrick Warburton. Other celebrities make cleverly named cameos including: Disney CEO Bob Iger (Bob Tiger), grammy winner Ed Sheeran (a sheep named Ed Shearin) and recent heartthrob Robert Irwin (koala Robert Furwin).

Byron Howard, one of the directors of “Zootopia,” and Jared Bush, Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation, helm the sequel with a screenplay written by Bush. Yvett Merino, from Howard and Bush’s 2021 hit “Encanto,” is the film’s producer while legendary composer and Disney regular Michael Giacchino comes back for the score. 

Walt Disney Animation (WDA) follows a similar model to Pixar’s Brain Trust, called the Story Trust, where people outside of a production’s main creative team can help fix or give suggestions pertaining to the story. This is one of the reasons why audiences will see at the end of the film, a description saying it was made by everyone at the Walt Disney Company. Another reason for this detail is most people at WDA work on almost every project like animator Nathan Engelhardt as well as storyboard artist Jeremy Spears on “Encanto,” “Wish” and now “Zootopia 2.”

BUSY SIDEWALKS

“Zootopia” was well known for developing advanced techniques for 3D animated fur to create a sense of photorealism with “Zootopia 2” growing what the team on its predecessor introduced. The directors emphasized how the innovation is now in how many characters they can fit onscreen at once. There is apparently a scene which features about 50,000 diverse animals who each have their own unique assets (all with the help of Presto, Pixar’s exclusive software). 

While Disney films are known for furthering the art of animation, it could be assumed the reasoning for crowding the screen could be, in part, due to the rise of foreign animation. One animated film from China has a scene where 200 million characters appear in one shot with every single one being individually animated. 

While the themes of prejudice and equality are still present in “Zootopia 2,” the issues of greed as well as cultural destruction are the main focus of the script. The reptiles and water mammals are portrayed as redneck creatures living in a swampy town on the verge of being destroyed by the city’s expansion. This is a very prominent issue in the rural south which is not often talked about and it was surprising to see it highlighted on the big screen. 

The addition of Gary De’Snake, Disney’s first CG animated snake, gave viewers a memorable original character which feels lacking in modern sequels. The design for Gary as well as Brian Winddancer, Zootopia’s mayor, and the Lynxley family gave the franchise a new flare with tones similar to recent indie animated series. Shakira returns for the film’s original song and while the lyricism of “Try Everything” still stands, the beat of “Zoo” feels more in tune with the movies.

There was a time when not only WDA but the entire Walt Disney brand was dedicated to pushing the definitions of storytelling through their golden age and renaissance periods. About 50 years went by in Disney’s history until their first official sequel, “The Rescuers Down Under,” was released while their first live-action remake of one of their classics, “101 Dalmatians,” was made. Even then, several years after the first sequels and live-action remakes of their films became prominent. Industry professionals say this conservative direction provides the most income for the studio but should this be the mindset which possesses a creative entity? At the moment, WDA seems to be on the right track but time will only tell if they can withstand the rising wave of independent animation.