YMMV / Zootopia

A-G

• Adorkable:
  • Judy thumps her foot very quickly and adorably when she's highly excited or upset, and when she chases after Weaselton, who has just robbed the florist, she cheers at the chance of getting to apprehend a criminal.
  • For how smug and suave he might be at first glance, Nick can be surprisingly goofy and childish at times, such as when he excitedly starts touching Bellwether's wool or when he gives the "victory toot-toot" after he and Judy have commandeered the Subway car.
  • Clawhauser is a sweet, chubby, exuberant, campy fanboy, who also happens to be a feline, giving him an appealing face and expressive friendly tail behavior.
  • As an adult, Gideon is very meek and humble around Judy and also stutters a bit. He also wears a charming pink apron while delivering his baked goods.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Along with the clear messages of discrimination and prejudice, a lot of the backstories that fuel the vitriol of the movie tend to stem from petty bullying. Judy and Nick were victims of childhood bullies who, despite using racial vitriol, were likely just mindless vindictive kids (and, in Judy's case, grew out of it as soon as they grew out of bullying). Bellwether, meanwhile, grew to resent predators due to her boss, despite being an advocate for prey and predator equal rights, still mistreating her due to his obnoxiously self-absorbed attitude. A double message may come from differentiating bias and prejudice over indiscriminately cruel behaviour and not letting a handful of nasty individuals reflect your opinion of a whole group of people.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Has its own page.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Tasers designed especially for non-human animals.
• Applicability: Due to the open-ended nature of the film's themes about prejudice, many viewers, critics, and professors alike have come up with many different interpretations of the film (class divides, racism, white supremacy, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, political divides, etc).
• Award Snub: Fans were upset when Shakira's "Try Everything" wasn't even nominated for "Best Original Song" during the 2017 Academy Awards, and lost to Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop The Feeling!" from Trolls of all films during the 2017 Grammys.
• Awesome Music
  • Michael Giacchino, of course, delivers an awesome score that's equal parts world music and urban sensibilities. The behind-the-scenes video "Scoretopia" shows off not only the massive percussion section of his orchestra but that it included a special drum kit built especially for the film.
  • Try Everything by Shakira. An awesome, catchy song with an especially positive message. Furthermore, with this song, some in Furry Fandom felt they had received their anthem. Japanese singer Dream Ami did two versions of this song; some commenters say they even rival the original Shakira version in terms of greatness!
• Base-Breaking Character: Dawn Bellwether. Fans are split on whether she's one of the best or worst of the villains in the Disney Revival, partly due to being the fourth twist villain in a row after Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Big Hero 6, and partly due to The Reveal not happening until the last ten minutes of the film, giving her very little time to establish her true nature. Some fans find her to be an entertaining villain with interesting motives and one of the most balanced between plausible and surprising among the twist villains, as well as expected for the genre. Others see her as trite and derivative, and believe The Reveal makes everything we saw of her characterization prior to it worthless.
• Catharsis Factor: Dawn Bellwether is the mastermind behind the predator attacks that leaves Zootopia heavily divided. It's immensely satisfying when Judy and Nick trick her into confession in her game and get her arrested by the ZPD.
• Cliché Storm: Despite being seen as a very good film, some claim that Zootopia has a lot of cliched buddy cop elements. The fact that it ends on a dance party doesn't help. But this might be expected, considering that the movie's entire plot was changed just eight months before the release date from being a gloomy dystopia to the final product, and the creators had to work hard to adapt all the production work already completed.
• Common Knowledge:
  • In fan fiction, there are often OCs for species such as domestic dogs and cats by authors who consider Zootopia to be just another Disney World of Funny Animals. However, in Zootopia, humans never existed, so logically, such species could not exist either, and the creators specifically stated that they omitted those species for just that reason. ^note  Some animals, like sheep and pigs, are depicted to look like their real-life domesticated species, but the creators have said this was artistic license because the average audience wouldn't recognize a wild sheep or pig if designed realistically.
  • Some pieces of fanart show the characters searching something on a "Poodle" search engine, an obvious spoof of "Google." This ignores the Google stand-in called "Zoogle" shown in the movie for a brief moment when one of the polar bears taking Nick and Judy to Mr. Big is scrolling through his "Zoogle Photos."
• Draco in Leather Pants: Bellwether the Big Bad. Despite being a conniving, hypocritical, self-centered sociopath who positively smiles when it appears Judy has been fatally wounded, many fan-fictions try to portray the character in a sympathetic light, even to the point of having them find true love with a predator once released from prison on parole.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Has its own page.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Although the final film is loved as is, there are a good portion of fans who would have loved to see the original Darker and Edgier tone and setting present in early versions of the film.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With Frozen (2013). Breaking the earlier film's record at the box office in its opening weekend,^note with a caveat; Frozen burned off demand with a Wednesday opening, and has a larger five-day opening. many people have begun comparing between the two films and preferring one over the other. The Frozen fandom hasn't taken kindly to the criticisms. It doesn't help that, since its initial release, Frozen has received severe Hype Backlash, Zootopia itself pokes fun at "Let It Go", and both films, oddly enough, borrow significant but different elements from Wicked.
  • The fandom later got one with Moana thanks to it ultimately competing with that movie for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 2017 Oscars. It's kind of a downplayed example, however, as most Zootopia fans have no problems with Moana itself and even consider it a good movie, too; they just feel that Zootopia deserves the Oscar more thanks to its stronger, more topical story.
  • There are also fans who think that while Zootopia is good, Kubo and the Two Strings is a better film that deserves the Oscar more.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Has its own page.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The setting of Zootopia has proven great fan fic fuel in and of itself; it's an interesting enough setting that OC-focused Elsewhere Fics can still retain a lot of what made the original so compelling. In fact, one of those even became popular enough to attract Recursive Fanfiction of its own. It's also not uncommon to see fanfic trying to flesh out the setting's history: how Zootopia was founded, how animals got anthropomorphized, or other backstories going into the movie.
  • It's quite common to create all manner of new cases for Judy and Nick to solve together now that they're both on the police force. In these types of stories, it is common to see Nick and Judy promoted to the rank of Detective as it is a position that better fits their skill set and size.
  • The film's Darker and Edgier What Could Have Been setting has become a highly popular premise for fan fics, usually treated as an AU, a What If? scenario if Judy and Nick had failed to expose the conspiracy, or a past- or future-Zootopia.
  • The anthropomorphic world created creates plenty of crossover opportunities with other franchises sharing that feature. One popular pairing is having Judy and Nick take on that most infamous mammal criminal: Sly Cooper.
  • A common complication of shipping fics is the ZPD's policy on fraternization. IRL, there's no standard policy on whether police officers are allowed to sleep with one another or not, as such authors speculate a lot on what the ZPD's might be. This leads to fics where Nick and Judy have to keep their relationship secret from Chief Bogo lest he reassigns them to different partners or even fires them in some cases.
  • Nighthowler and its effects are a can of worms all of its own. Such as an earlier draft that had Nick turned savage but not mindlessly aggressive. He'd then make a move to protect Judy. A variation of that is Nick being exposed to Nighthowler at some point but struggling and managing to control his feral side.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Fans have taken to calling Gazelle's backup dancers the "glitter tigers."
  • The Darker and Edgier early draft is known as "Zystopia" or "Zoodystopia," as are dark fanfics set within it.
  • Judy Hopps is occasionally referred to as "Judy Hipps" by viewers and the fandom, in reference to her noticeably pear-shaped figure.
• Fanon:
  • There's a theory that birds and reptiles are sapient in this universe, they just live in separate cities. One challenge about having sapient birds which is frequently overlooked is that given the incredible detail that was put into modelling the mammals of Zootopia, many of the "cheats" commonly used to anthropomorphize birds in animation (e.g., Toothy Bird, Disembodied Eyebrows, and especially Feather Fingers) would look downright odd in the "realistically animated" Zootopian world. Bird characters are often included in fan fics without any concerns about how they are opening doors or operating technology. Regarding reptiles, during an October 2016 podcast involving a Q&A with the directors and writers of the film, the possibility of a city of reptiles was acknowledged as possible but then given a Shrug of God.
  • There's also a widespread fan theory that only mammals are sapient,^note  This includes all land mammals as well as water-based mammals like Pinnipeds and/or Cetaceans as there is no evidence shown of birds or reptiles being anthropomorphic.^note There's also no evidence of birds or reptiles being wild animals, either. The purely Doylist explanation is that directors left non-mammals out of the movie because they felt it would make the Fantastic Racism element even more complicated than it already was. Beyond this, it seems like the filmmakers hadn't really internally reached a hard conclusion about their status, and the dialogue they wrote is inconsistent as to whether "mammals" or "animals" is the word which is substituted for "people". The fans, however, trying to make sense of this from a purely in-universe perspective, often reached the conclusion that based on what is apparent from the work itself, it seems clear that whatever strange phenomenon caused all these animals to evolve sapience at the same time must have only affected the mammals. There is a very large body of world-building analysis and fanfiction that seems to take this completely for granted as if it were canon.
  • Judging by its widespread appearance across multiple fanfics, the idea that "chomper" is a common Fantastic Slur against predators seems to be this. ^note The term originated in the first draft of the setting, in which teeth were referenced as the distinction between predators and prey. It never appeared in the finished version.
  • At least as far as written fan fics go, mammals have an interesting way to avert Through a Face Full of Fur: the Luminescent Blush of a character with a fur-covered face is visible on the inside of their ears. Nick usually manages to play off his blushes since his ears are naturally red.
  • In works that portray Nick as a human being, he is very often portrayed as a black man, although many also have him head-canonned as Irish. This is mostly because of his Irish-sounding surname (Wilde), how Irish people are often associated with red hair and they were often stereotyped as distrustful, streetwise scoundrels.
  • Virtually all fanfics that feature Nick's mother give her the name "Marian." And while it's not quite as widespread, it's still fairly common to see Nick's father being named "Robin."
• Fanon Welding: Due to some of the characters looking identical and both taking place in a World of Funny Animals, it's not uncommon to have fans interpret Zootopia as being the present-day incarnation of the world from Disney's Robin Hood, with Nick being depicted as a descendant of Robin Hood and Marian.
• Fourth Wall Myopia: A lot of the criticisms leveled against Bogo's actions as discriminatory and unfair, both by the audience and by characters like Nick and Judy, rely on knowledge that Judy really is an animal with extraordinary skills and drive that could surpass that of several more experienced officers combined, something that Bogo doesn't have any first-hand knowledge of, as he had no direct hand in her hiring. He just had her word to go by about her skills, only had her on the force for a day and a half before she started being deliberately disobedient and causing problems, and he answered her only call for backup to find no evidence of her story. When Judy later proves what she's capable of, Bogo's opinion of her completely flip-flops and he actually shows her respect, now having seen what the audience already knew.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Also with Beastars after the anime adaptation gained a lot of traction. The two works are often compared to each other, with their similar premises and focus on social issues within their respective animal societies, as well as having a rabbit and a canine as the main characters.
  • With Kung Fu Panda 3, despite their dueling releases and World of Funny Animals settings, discussions regarding the two films usually go amiably, particularly as they share a decent portion of their fans. Even as Zootopia surpassed Kung Fu Panda 3's popularity in China and overall domestic gross, fans of the latter like Zootopia enough that they've acknowledged it to be well deserved.
  • Robin Hood (1973) fans tend to like this film as well. One category of fan art shows Nick Wilde and Robin Hood hanging out together for leisure time.
  • Turning Red shares a similar premise of "you can be what you want to be" and Meilin Lee defies her family's expectations and strives to keep her anthropomorphic panda form for good, much like Judy wants to prove herself as a valuable police officer among mega fauna.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • This film is especially popular in China, France, Japan, and Korea. In fact, it's so popular in China that not only did it become the highest-grossing animated film ever in China during its release, the Chinese Film Bureau also decided to extend its theatrical run with an additional two weeks, a courtesy rarely given to foreign films, and it's proven leggy enough to encroach on Disney's biggest earner in China - Avengers: Age of Ultron. It's also the highest-grossing animated film ever in Russia.
  • The lion's share of the merchandise is also in Asia. For instance, the US Disney Store only has 22 Zootopia items, which is a bit pitiful for a movie that's only a year old and made a billion dollars, but the Japanese Disney Store has 140 items.
  • Zootopia merchandise and promotion can be seen more in other countries than in the U.S. in general. For example, Nick and Judy have yet to be on a Disney on Ice show in the United States, but they were featured on Disney on Ice in Dubai.
  • The film is so popular in Korea that there is a book containing the film's script with a CD teaching Koreans English. ^note The popularity of the film in Korea is unusual, taking into account the fact foxes in popular Korean culture are depicted in a negative light, in contrast to their Japanese and Chinese equivalents, since the Korean equivalent, the gumiho, is normally depicted as vicious and vampirical in nature. Though this may count as having Shown Their Work; the oldest gumiho stories revolve around the poor, gullible fox spirits getting tricked by the wily humans.
  • Zootopia is so popular in China that Shanghai Disneyland will receive the first Zootopia-themed park expansion, despite speculation that Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida would be getting such an expansion.
  • Character-wise, Finnick was only in a couple of scenes, but he was so popular in China that children wanted their own pet fennec foxes.
  • Subverted at Disneyland Anaheim where "Nick" and "Judy" have had regular meet and greets at California Adventure and they are a popular attraction for photo shoots.

H-P

• Harsher in Hindsight: Shakira, the voice actor of Gazelle, who acts as the voice of reason for predator/prey relationships in Zootopia, was attacked by a pack of wild boars at Barcelona Park in 2021, with her son present. Fortunately, they survived the whole ordeal.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • At one point, Duke sells bootleg DVDs of movies that aren't even out in theaters yet. Ironically, Zootopia was leaked online before it even came out in the U.S. because it was released in many international theaters back in February.
  • With the news that Gigantic has been shelved indefinitely, Duke's "Giraffic" movie becomes doubly hilarious since it features the text "Weaselton Exclusive" on its cover. His pirated DVD is as close as we're going to get to having Gigantic in the Disney Animated Canon, so in a sense, it is exclusive to Weaselton!
  • Della Saba voicing the young Judy becomes hilarious when she later voices Aquamarine, who is pretty much everything Judy didn't want to become.
  • Six years later, Idris Elba would once again wind himself up in a wacky adventure involving cops and foxes.
  • One scene of the film has Chief Bogo tell Judy: "Life isn't some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and your insipid dreams magically come true!" Fast forward seven years later, and Bogo is shown singing "When You Wish Upon a Star"—and, more specifically, the line "your dreams come true". Guess Bogo must have had a change of heart since giving that reality check-laden speech to Judy...
• Ho Yay:
  • Clawhauser's heart-melted expression, complete with a squeal when learning that Bogo has the Gazelle app that he needs to consciously snap himself out of, is a favorite moment of shippers, as is their dance at the end, which involves Clawhauser intensely shaking his butt in Bogo's direction, and Bogo smiling at Clawhauser before beginning his own dance.
  • Even though they are barely in the movie for a minute, Gary and Larry, the two wolf guards in Cliffside Asylum, often get shipped with each other. In the movie, they appear to be quite close: Larry touches Gary's chest to stop him howling, and then they howl together with their faces inches away from each other.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: As mentioned above, some viewers are beginning to get annoyed about the Hidden Villain being the Plot Twist and feel that the cliche is getting old. Particularly since Disney has used this trope four times in a row now.
• LGBT Fanbase: The movie has gotten quite the following, especially among Bara Genre fans, because all the animals were realistically sized, so the big animals are big. Such as Chief Bogo, Mayor Lionheart, Officer Clawhauser, Koslov, and then there's Gazelle's rather "risque" tiger backup dancers.
• Magnificent Bastard: Mr. Big. Check here for details.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Flash's slow reaction to Nick's joke.
    • The face◊ Judy makes during this scene, used to express extreme impatience.
  • Gazelle's tiger backup dancers, also known as the Bara Tiger Strippers or Stripers.
  • Nick: "Does this make you uncomfortable?" ^note Originally in reference to the Naturist club, now attached to Rule 34 works
  • "I know I said I wasn't a furry but..." ^ExplanationAfter the movie came out and was a crazy beloved smash success, it ended up bringing in many people to the Furry Fandom. This led to them creating Fursonas, writing/drawing (sometimes NSFW) furry fanwork, or Eating the Eye Candy in regard to some of the characters, and even those who otherwise want nothing to do with the furry fandom grudgingly admitted to finding at least one character — usually Judy Hopps, thanks to her cute yet curvy design — rather attractive by human standards. Those people usually end up prefacing things like that with that line.
  • Disney's defictionalization of "Dancing with Gazelle" has led to a flood of edits on Tumblr.
  • "It's not like a bunny could go savage."
  • "It's called a hustle, sweetheart."
  • "My mommy says she wishes you were dead."
  • "Wow. This fandom really hates Nick Wilde." ^ExplanationA HUGE amount of fanfiction involves Nick being put through considerable physical, emotional, or psychological trauma, usually for the sake of catharsis later when he ends up winning. A similar sentiment exists with regards to the disproportionately large amount of Netorare fanworks that exist in the fandom's NSFW space most of which portray Nick as a spineless milquetoast being cuckolded by a completely unrepentant Judy.
  • "I Will Survive"/the "pro-life" comic ^ExplanationA fan comic, that the creator claims was to intended to show how even a One True Pairing can break up under the right circumstances. Unfortunately the creator chose an unplanned pregnancy as the rock Judy & Nick's relationship crashes upon. Judy reveals that she doesn't want the baby and takes a pro-choice position while Nick, who is suddenly very religious, takes an obvious pro-life stance leading to the end of their relationship. The author has claimed it's not a pro-life Author Tract, but it's been noted that showing Judy striking Nick so violently undermines her position and Nick is the one who gets the Title Drop as the last thing he says before leaving Judy forever. It quickly gained notoriety for being extremely heavy-handed with overdramatic dialogue and portraying Nick and Judy as horribly out of character. Many Remix Comics have been posted.
    Nick: I'm thinkin' Arby's.^explanationOne of the more famous Remix Comics of the above, narrated by Brendaniel himself.
• Moe:
  • Judy and Mrs. Otterton. ESPECIALLY Mrs. Otterton.
  • Judy and Nick as children are completely adorable, as are the little jaguar and cougar from Judy's play.
  • It's hard not to find Bellwether adorable, with her short stature and wide-rimmed glasses. It's what makes her reveal as the Big Bad all the more shocking.
  • Despite her limited screen time in the film's prologue, Sharla gained her own set of fans not long after the film's release. This is due to her charming performance as an astronaut at the school play and being one of Gideon's easiest targets for bullying.
  • Officer Benjamin Clawhauser has gotten this reaction from many fans as well because of his adorable personality and the fact that he's a chubby cheetah.
  • Finnick, especially when he's pretending to be a baby.
• Moral Event Horizon: Bellwether crosses it when she shoots Nick with the Nighthowler serum (which he thankfully switched out prior with blueberries) in an attempt to make him kill Judy, also calling forth the police so they’ll arrive to see their top officer getting killed while also covering her tracks. Considering how friendly and supportive Bellwether had been to Judy in all their previous encounters, it really drives home how twisted the little sheep really is and how far she'll go to get what she wants. Futhermore, she chooses to simply stand there and watch her ex-friend be eviscerated, not even flinching, instead looking smug, when she assumes Nick had killed Judy.
• Never Live It Down: Clawhauser gets a donut stuck in his neck only once at the beginning of the film, but this situation is featured heavily in fanart, even pieces that clearly take place at a different time.
• Older Than They Think: Has its own page.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Gazelle has only a few scenes but is no less excellent for it, from the light-hearted cell phone apps enjoyed by Officer Clawhauser and Chief Bogo to the more somber moment when she voices her unhappiness with the unrest following the discovery of savage animals, describing it as "Not my Zootopia", plus the Dance Party Ending.
  • Flash the sloth, who is an Ensemble Dark Horse with Wolverine Publicity and has a trailer focusing on him, appears in exactly that one scene which is in the trailer, plus a brief gag at the end of the film.
  • Finnick, to a lesser extent. Despite barely being in the movie, he has a lot of fan art based on him, and a video uploaded to YouTube that shows all his scenes has gained a lot of comments, with people either talking about how much they love him or how they wish he was in more of the movie. However, given his voice actor unfortunately died back in 2020, he will probably remain a One-Scene Wonder canonically.
  • Manchas. It helps that he's the only mammal we actually get to see go "savage" on-screen, and this leads to one of the more heart-pounding and frightening action scenes in the movie.
  • Bobby Catmull, one of the students seen during Judy's Elementary School years during a play, has a small role and is only seen playing instruments, providing background music. He is never seen again after that scene but has gained a following since the film's release.
  • Sharla the black sheep, another student from Judy's Elementary School, only shows up during the film's prologue. She plays an astronaut and later gets bullied by Gideon Grey, which motivates Judy to protect her and even risks getting a cut in the process. While she's never seen or mentioned again in the movie, she gained her own set of fans, where she's depicted as a successful female astronaut as an adult. Some fans hope that if a future Zootopia animated series or sequel ever happens, they hope Judy might someday reunite with Sharla and Gareth again as adults.
• One True Pairing: The fandom was exploding with Judy/Nick before even the second trailer. After the movie, it exploded even more. Many people came in just expecting a friendship but came out adoring the relationship and wanting more. Their relationship has already been favorably compared to genuine popular canon Disney couples like RapunzelxFlynn and AnnaxKristoff.
• Popular with Furries:
  • While other movies like Disney's Robin Hood have been hugely popular with them, this movie appears to be tailor-made for the Furry Fandom, as evidenced by the fact that Disney encouraged actual furry groups like Furlife to promote the film on social media in exchange for freebies, which definitely played a role in it becoming a surprise hit.
  • The first trailer actually specifically defines the word "anthropomorphic" and makes a pun that the movie is "like nothing you have ever seen be-fur."
• Portmanteau Couple Name: WildeHopps,^note Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps Clawbogo,^note Benjamin Clawhauser and Chief Bogo and Wolfeyer^note Wolfard and Fangmeyer are commonly used ship names. "WildeHopps" has received Director Rich Moore's official blessing.

Q-Z

• Questionable Casting: Octavia Spencer, who had already won an Academy Award by that point, gets cast in the fairly minor role of Mrs. Otterton that doesn't give her much of a chance to use her acting chops. While she isn't the worst choice for the role, and she doesn't necessarily phone in her performance, it feels like a character that easily (and probably should've) gone to a lesser known actor.^note Thankfully though Disney and Pixar gave her a role that required much more screen time in Onward
  • Tiny Lister as Finnick. While he fits in that he has a very deep voice that's supposed to go with that character the movie doesn't really do much with the casting of an actor specifically known as one of the most iconic scary black men in film as a cute, tiny animal. While he gives a fine performance almost any actor with a deep voice could've played the character and it would've had the same effect.
• Recurring Fanon Character: It's somewhat well known that there have been a few prototype ideas of Zootopia before they, well, stuck with Zootopia. Naturally, this lends to a few characters that were formerly just Dummied Out or What Could Have Been cast members being inserted into fanfics, fan comics, and even fan art of their own. Either based on their original characteristics or the artists taking their own spin on said characters. There are also quite a few fan characters that have gotten popular in their own right.
  • Jack Savage and Skye Winters are one of the most popular of these What Could Have Been characters, coming from the Savage Seas version of early Zootopia. A male jackrabbit spy and a female arctic fox mechanic, usually act as gender-flipped counterparts for the One True Pairing of Judy and Nick and thus are shipped together quite frequently as a result. Although that doesn't mean either of them isn't exempt from being shipped with Judy and Nick.^note either as Judy x Jack, Nick x Skye or even Judy x Skye and Jack x Nick Some artists go out of their way to go even further and go for a One True Threesome^note (It's usually Nick shipped with the aformentioned two dumb bunnies) or Polygamy thing with all four characters.
  • The Conspiracy Theorist Honey Badger, Honey Badger, is also quite popular with the fans. A character who was conceived during the early Zootopia prototype where Shock Collars were given to Predators but was cut for the full movie. In fact, just like Jack or Skye, it's not uncommon for her to be shipped with Nick as well in fanart.
• Self-Fanservice: Considering it's Popular with Furries, it's somewhat expected.
  • Judy has moderately wide hips due to her physical training for the ZPD, along with breasts which are barely visible in the ZPD cadet training sequence even though she's wearing a skintight T-shirt. In fanart, Judy's breasts — besides having a tendency to appear bigger and/or more clearly defined in comparison — are sometimes drawn so large for her small frame that she shouldn't be able to stand, and her already curvy hips are occasionally elevated to Hartman Hips levels of width. In addition, fans have a tendency to draw the jeans that she wears as part of her casual outfit as skintight Daisy dukes, and due to her police uniform also being noticeably skintight in canon (which, coupled with her tank-top-like vest, gives the impression of a G-rated example of a bare midriff), some may give her a Navel Outline when depicted wearing it. Overall it's pretty common to see Judy in lewd fanart portrayed as either a shortstack or a bottom-heavy bunny.
  • Whenever Nick is portrayed as a human in fanart, his goofy fox-version appearance is frequently transformed into a Tall, Dark, and Handsome Lovable Rogue.
  • Fan artists also like to depict Chief Bogo without a shirt and give him humanlike muscles, particularly pecs and abs, as well as visible nipples on his chest.
  • Given Finnick spends most of his screen time pretending to be a baby, he's a bit...too popular with babyfurs.
• Shipping:
  • Bogo/Clawhauser is a popular pairing. This is primarily because they both are fans of Gazelle and use the same "Dancing with Gazelle" app. Clawhauser has an exceptionally elated response to finding this out, and they attend her concert and dance together by the end of the movie. Their Sensitive Guy and Manly Man dynamic, Clawhauser's Ambiguously Gay personality, the absence of any photos of a wife or children in Bogo's office, and their lack of interference with Judy and Nick shipping also help.
  • Naturally, there are the Judy/Nick shippers. The ship is supported by their last exchange of dialogue in the film, where Nick tells Judy, "You know you love me," to which Judy responds, "Do I know that...? Yes. Yes, I do." While it's ambiguous whether they mean "love" in a platonic or a romantic sense, the shippers obviously lean towards the latter. This was given a major boost when the director of the movie confirmed there was a deleted scene similar to some shipping fanart.
  • Nick/Finnick and Nick/Gideon have also been seen, given that they are the only foxes in the movie.
  • Gary/Larry, the two wolves who guard the entrance to Cliffside Asylum. Notably, this shipping is directly responsible for giving Larry his name; A fan pointed out to Byron Howard and Jared Bush that fans are shipping them, so the two, having never given Gary's partner a name, decided to christen him Larry.
  • There is a following for Gideon/Clawhauser (because they're both heavyset and soft-hearted, the former makes sweets and the latter likes to eat them), as well as Tiger Dancer/Clawhauser and Clawhauser/Gazelle (both because of Clawhauser's adoration for the singer).
  • Bogo/Gazelle and Lionheart/Bogo also have followings, the former because of Bogo's secret love for the singer, the latter because they're both big, well-built guys.
  • Despite (or perhaps because of) their antagonistic relationship in the movie, Lionheart/Bellwether is a surprisingly common pairing.
  • Quite a few fans pair Wolfard the wolf cop (who has the sheep disguise) with Fangmeyer the "tigress" cop. ^note The gender of Officer Fangmeyer has yet to be officially confirmed. Fans of this ship presume Fangmeyer is female or hold to the theory that there are two officers named "Fangmeyer" (one male/one female).
  • Gazelle and Finnick have also been paired quite a bit.
• She Really Can Act:
  • Ginnifer Goodwin delivers an exceptionally emotional vocal performance as Judy during her apology to Nick. According to the directors, Goodwin was actually crying during the recording session.
  • While Kath Soucie does some emotional performances every now and then, her performance as Young Nick is just heartbreaking.
• Spiritual Successor: Of Disney's Robin Hood, which was co-director Byron Howard's inspiration for doing this movie.
• Squick:
  • The fact that the elephants at the ice cream shop add toppings by shooting them from their trunks... and that nobody thinks anything of it until Judy points out that it's an In-Universe health code violation.
  • Clawhauser pulling a donut out of his neck folds. And eating it.
  • When Nick and Judy use a saber-toothed rabbit mannequin to distract the Big Bad and the mooks, a study of the mannequin (especially in the Blu-ray edition) shows that it is wearing a tunic made of leather and holding a spear where the spear-head is attached to the wooden shaft by a strip of leather. It's probably best not to think about where the leather came from or why rabbits had developed the skill of tanning.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Some fans felt Finnick could have had more screen time. Rich Moore has even said that if a sequel gets made, Finnick will be in it more. ^note However, with Rich leaving Disney, Tiny Lister spreading a rumor about multiple Zootopia sequels (albeit he probably believed Disney was making 2 sequels), and then tragically dying a year later, Finnick's future in the franchise, if he even has one, is up in the air.
  • In another way, Gazelle. With such a well-known singer as Shakira for her voice actress, people expected her to have a larger role in the film, perhaps ending up as a possible villain. But she is simply the celebrity guest star with a few cameos here and there.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The villain's motivation is very unexplored outside of a single, very brief Motive Rant after The Reveal that amounts to wanting power. The film's moral on prejudice is told through its heroes, who are "prejudiced" in more institutionalized ways, but having a Politically Incorrect Villain whose bigotry is not really elaborated upon or given any meat is seen by some critics as a wasted opportunity to delve into the thought process of an actual racist. Prejudice is bad, but racists tend to actually believe in their preconceptions and claim that there is some kind of innate inferiority in the cultures and people they despise; the villain makes no attempt to justify or even explain where their hatred of the minority species is rooted, and ultimately just comes off as power-hungry. Granted, Bellwether's not far from many actual racists' line of thought, namely that being oppressed justifies for their own racism.
  • Some viewers felt that there were a lot of missed opportunities with the lack of non-mammals. However, some have theorized that the sequel might cover birds and reptiles to some extent, though given Disney's track record with reptiles, there is a chance they might not. Then again, Disney's views on reptiles have mellowed out in recent years, so there is a possibility they still could.
• Trailer Joke Decay: The DMV scene with the sloths is absolutely hilarious... and also overused in the trailers to a painful degree. One trailer was just the entire scene, unedited. When the film came out, some people had seen the scene so many times they cited it as the worst part of the movie. Additionally, the main character is begging to get on with it the whole time and being denied, and the fact that Flash's only moment where he isn't more than the "slow sloth" stereotyped gag is just the gag reversed for less than a minute at the very end of the movie.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Seeing animals with realistic eyes (like sheep and shrews) alongside those with Cartoony Eyes is a little unsettling. The effect might be intentional with Doug and the other rams to make them look scarier.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Judy, when she first enters the force as the movie frames her as being right for being disappointed that she's a meter maid on the first day of the force rather than getting more exciting cases when, realistically, most employees in any field don't get to do the more exciting parts of the job when they're first hired. This is especially true for cops!
• Viewer Species Confusion:
  • Mr. Big is often mistaken for a rodent (usually a rat or mouse, and in Disney+'s case, a vole) and sometimes an opossum (a marsupial). He's actually an arctic shrew (which isn't even related to those animals). It didn't help that his daughter Fru Fru was seen shopping in Little Rodentia, and Duke Weaselton called him "You Dirty Rat!", which adds to the confusion.
  • Clawhauser has been mistaken for a leopard or a jaguar, but he's actually a cheetah.
  • Chief Bogo has been mistaken for a bull (as in cattle), but he's actually a cape buffalo.
  • The lemmings that buy Nick's pawpsicles, even though shown emerging from Lemming Brothers Bank (and acting like lemmings), have been mistaken for hamsters.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Look at that fur detail! So fuzzy!
• Wangst: Although the creators have pointed out that the Big Bad's poor treatment by her Mean Boss was not the only reason for their disdain of predators, they didn't elaborate on the backstory either. This led to many feeling that the Big Bad's motivation was rather petty in the context of the movie. As a result, many fan-fiction writers tried to fix this problem by giving the Big Bad a more understandable Freudian Excuse, like being bullied by predators in childhood, giving them a parallel to Judy's backstory.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: For a Disney animated movie set in a World of Funny Animals, Zootopia touches on mature themes such as implicit bias, political/social unrest, bullying, and childhood trauma. It also features scenes set in a dark, abandoned asylum and a functioning drug lab.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?:
  • Zootopia has so many themes tied into the story that involve bias, stereotyping, and profiling that it is impossible to avoid political interpretations.
  • When Judy and Nick find the real culprit behind predators going savage, Judy maintains that "You can't rule Zootopia through fear." The villain coolly replies, "fear always works." It's not that different from many dictators' line of thought.
  • More than one reviewer has described this film as Disney's most openly political film since World War II's Victory Through Air Power, Education for Death, and Der Fuehrer's Face.
• The Woobie: Mrs. Otterton, a loving wife desperate to find her missing husband whose been gone for 10 days but unable to get the police to focus on his case in the midst of all the other missing mammals being investigated. It gets worse when he's found, but is completely savage. She has to see her husband tied to a post and not showing any sign of recognizing her or getting better.

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