Bremenfest

Zootopia will be shown for Family Movie night on Thursday at 8PM.

Synopsis

The modern mammal metropolis of Zootopia is a city like no other. Comprised of habitat neighborhoods like ritzy Sahara Square and frigid Tundratown, it’s a melting pot where animals from every environment live together — a place where no matter what you are, from the biggest elephant to the smallest shrew, you can be anything. But when optimistic Officer Judy Hopps arrives, she discovers that being the first bunny on a police force of big, tough animals isn’t so easy. Determined to prove herself, she jumps at the opportunity to crack a case, even if it means partnering with a fast-talking, scam-artist fox, Nick Wilde, to solve the mystery.

Plot

Zootopia is a gleaming metropolis populated by anthropomorphic mammals, divided into several districts including Sahara Square, Tundratown, Little Rodentia and Rainforest District.

This film begins with a jungle which fades into a children’s play about the history of Zootopia. One day, Judy Hopps, a rabbit from rural Bunnyburrow, fulfills her dream of joining the Zootopia Police Department as the first rabbit officer, however she is regularly assigned parking duty by Chief Bogo. During one of her shifts, she is manipulated by Nick Wilde, a con artist fox. Judy unlawfully arrests Duke Weaselton at Little Rodentia and is reprimanded by Bogo until Mrs. Otterton, an otter, arrives pleading help on locating her missing husband, one of the many recently missing predators. To Bogo’s dismay, Judy volunteers and agrees to resign if she cannot solve the case within 48 hours. With Nick as a key witness of Mr. Otterton’s disappearance, Judy locates the fox and coerces him to assist her with the investigation lest he be charged with tax evasion, which he openly admitted and Judy recorded with her carrot pen.

After acquiring Mr. Otterton’s license plate number from Mystic Springs Oasis, Judy and Nick track the vehicle from the Department of Mammal Vehicles to Mr. Big, an arctic shrew crime boss in Tundratown. Mr. Big spares their lives after learning that Judy had rescued his daughter earlier, and informs the pair that Mr. Otterton is his florist and had been picked up by his chauffeur Manchas, a black jaguar, to bring him to Mr. Big to talk about something important. However, en-route, Otterton suddenly “went savage” – reverted to a feral state – and attacked Manchas before running off. Judy and Nick locate Manchas at his home in the Rainforest District for questioning. Manchas describes the attack on him and mentions that Otterton had been yelling about “night howlers“. However, before he can reveal anything else, Manchas suddenly goes savage himself and chases the pair, but they manage to escape. Judy calls the ZPD for help, but when Bogo and his reinforcements arrive, Manchas is nowhere to be found. Bogo demands Judy’s resignation, but Nick takes a stand, insisting they have 10 more hours to solve the case. As the pair leave the Rainforest District, Nick opens up to Judy, revealing that he was bullied by prey animals as a cub for being a fox and subsequently became a con artist, resolving to live out the “sly fox” stereotype, as no one saw a fox as anything else.

Nick realizes that the city’s traffic camera system may have captured how Manchas disappeared, and the pair consult Assistant Mayor Bellwether. They then discover that Manchas was captured by wolves, which Judy assumes is what Otterton had meant by “night howlers”. Judy and Nick locate Cliffside Asylum, where the wolves have detained the missing predators (including Mr. Otterton), all of which have gone savage, and eavesdrop on Mayor Lionheart consulting with a doctor about their condition, revealing that he is keeping the savage predators hidden from both the public and the ZPD, and that the cause their strange behavior is unknown. The pair escape, inform Bogo and the police swarm the area, arresting Lionheart and those involved. Bellwether subsequently becomes the new mayor.

Having developed a friendship with Nick throughout the case, Judy requests that he joins the ZPD and become her partner, which Nick happily considers. However, during a press conference, a pressured Judy describes the savaged predators’ condition as them reverting to their natural instincts. This seemingly confirms Judy’s bigotry against foxes to Nick, who angrily walks out on her offer. When fear and discrimination against predators spreads across Zootopia, a guilt-ridden Judy resigns. During this time, Gazelle holds a peaceful protest and publicly asks for the harmonious Zootopia she loves to be restored.

Two to three months later^[2], Judy has returned to Bunnyburrow and rejoined the family business as a carrot farmer. However, she later learns from her parents and reformed childhood bully, fox Gideon Grey, that “night howlers” are toxic flowers that have severe psychotropic effects on mammals. Realizing that the flowers are Otterton was referring to and that they must be the cause of the outbreaks, Judy returns to Zootopia, where she reconciles with Nick. They then locate Weaselton, who explains that he has been collecting night howlers for a ram named Doug, who owns a lab hidden in an abandoned subway station. The pair find the lab and discover Doug creating a night howler serum which he has been injecting into predators via paintball-like pellets fired by an air-powered sniper gun. Judy and Nick hijack the lab (which is on a still functional train) and race to the ZPD with the evidence, but are pursued by Doug’s henchrams, who they barely manage to defeat. The train is destroyed in the process, but Nick manages to save a case containing Doug’s sniper gun and the night howler darts.

Just short of the ZPD, the pair encounter Bellwether who insists she takes the evidence. Realizing she is the mastermind of the conspiracy, Judy and Nick try to flee, but are knocked into a pit by her henchrams. Bellwether shoots a night howler dart from the evidence case at Nick and frames a call for help to the ZPD. Nick seemingly becomes savage and corners Judy, but it turns out the pair were acting in order to trick Bellwether into openly admitting her prey-supremacist scheme to take over Zootopia and rid it of all predators, and that they replaced the dart gun ammo with blueberries from the Hopps’s farm. With Bellwether’s monologue recorded on Judy’s carrot pen, the ZPD arrive and arrest her and her henchrams. Upon being informed and interviewed on the matter, Lionheart denies any knowledge of Bellwether’s plot, but admits to have illegally imprisoned the savage predators, claiming it to have been done for the “right reasons”.

Later, Judy is reinstated into the ZPD. An antidote is discovered for the effects of the night howlers and all the infected predators, including Mr. Otterton and Mr. Manchas, are cured. Months later (about a year after Judy started her job at the ZPD), Nick joins the ZPD as the first fox officer and Judy’s partner. The final scene has almost all of Zootopia attending Gazelle’s concert while Bellwether angrily views it on a television in prison.