After months of speculation and promises that it will open sometime this year, we finally have an opening day for the much-anticipated Zootopia land in Shanghai Disney Resort (as it’s officially called). Sneaking in just at the end of the year, the area of the park will be opening to the public on December 20th, according to the official Disney Parks blog.
I for one can’t wait to see what the park has to offer. But that’s not all the good news we have for you!
A few days ago, during an interview about Once Upon A Studio with movie and pop-culture news site The Direct, producer Brad Simonsen (who also helped produce Zootopia) had this to say about Zootopia 2:
“We’re all super excited about it. And it’s a world that I was part of the first movie, and it was one of the most amazing experiences in my life, to be honest. And I know that this next one’s going to take it to another level and be, as you know, as good or better than the first. So we’re super excited about that project.”
This, alongside semi-verified rumors that the sequel has recently had its first internal screening using storyboards and scratch voices, gives us a good indication that things are going well at Walt Disney Animation Studios! There’s still no official information from the studio about its progress, but I think it’s safe to say it’s in good hands.
One of my biggest concerns with the sequel: will they focus on good storyline and deep characterization, or repeat the blunder that so many sequels fall into with trying to oversell OOC cringe humor and dramatics? There’s a particularly terrible risk of that considering how many puns went into the original film…
I hold out basically zero hope for the sequel, unfortunately. Sad to say, but Disney has been churning out absolute garbage the last several years as they continue to buy up and destroy franchise after franchise with their woke lunacy. Basically I expect Z2 to be a woke dumpster fire of epic proportions, which will be an unmitigated tragedy. I certainly hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it. If it actually manages to be good, it might be the first time I set foot in a movie theater since possibly 2017.
Please for the love of god, what actually the word ‘woke’ mean?? I have heard many different meaning from various people, neither explain it the same way.
Like, some said Super Mario movie woke,some said no, some said Barbie woke, some said not.
Its so confusing.
Its
The term “Woke”, or at least the correct version, was used many years ago (and i mean many) to mean “To be aware of social issues” i.e. racism, homophobia, equal rights, etc.
Nowadays, the term is used to refer to a film that has a minority character in it, i.e. PoC, LGBT, etc. However, it is mostly used for films that portray said characters really poorly to the point they aren’t there for the genuine reasons, world building or storytelling but for Diversity Points or pandering.
Disney is very guilty of this with some examples of them either adverting an LGBT character heavily only for it to turn out they appear in one scene only and are either never mentioned again or killed off soon after (and said scene removed in other countries), or featuring a PoC character (even if they’re a major character) who gets removed from advertising in countries like China (e.g. Flynn from Star Wars), or race swapping well known characters (and often the people acting as those characters dislike the original).
Like I mentioned, Disney is very hypocritical as well since for all they claim about being Diverse and supportive of PoC and LGBT people, they love to remove them when releasing the film in countries like China or Russia.
I think the best way (in my opinion at least) to tell what is Woke and what isn’t is how the film/show/game is done, if it’s done in a way that feels genuine and clearly has a lot of love and passion put into its world and characters, I don’t consider it woke at all. What I do consider woke is something created purely for a political statement, doesn’t feel genuine or even outright soulless, or advertising it purely on its diversity and not what the film/game/show is actually about.
Basically, there is a difference between something that happens to be diverse, and something that is diverse for the sake of it.
Sadly nowadays people will use the term “Woke” for quite literally whenever a PoC, LGBT or battle girl is in it. Regardless of how well they’ve been written.
This is a fairly good summary of what it is. Basically pandering and ramming an agenda down the audience’s throats, accompanied by absolutely GARBAGE storytelling and characterization, often heavily focused on Mary Sue protagonists. The soul is sucked completely out of the IP and it’s turned into a husk whose only purpose is to beat you over the head with “THE MESSAGE.” Most people obviously have no problem with “diversity” in media, as there have been great characters of various races going way back in film and TV, and most folks don’t even mind having a gay character or whatever as long as the story is well written and the characters are believable and relatable, but most often nowadays, the film is pure trash that craps all over the previously established characters and universe for the sake of pushing a political message, usually a sanctimonious and largely fallacious one at that, and people are extremely sick of it.
The original Zootopia is a great example of a film that is not woke but still has a message. It makes some interesting points about prejudice and discrimination, but it does this in a way that is respectful of the audience and doesn’t in any way sacrifice the excellent characterization and storytelling, nor does it sink to cliches. Most importantly, it’s fun to watch and leaves you feeling glad you did.
basically,the new all encompassing buzzword for all the things i don’t like ;p
This is an extremely oblivious response. See the comment above, not to mention a million other discussions/videos/etc. available on the internet to show why your response is a cop out and a straw man in the worst way.
notably&interestingly, the word mainly used by particular group that is politically motivated by certain former POS.
Your “woke” complaints are not appreciated.
Keep your politics away from the fandom please.
When Disney stops vomiting out woke trash dumpster fires and calling them movies, we can stop calling them out for it. You don’t speak for the fandom, btw, so yeah, we all will say what we want.
You don’t speak for the fandom…. Yeah look at tbe mirror sometime
I too am seriously concerned about the quality and content of Z2. I’m already mentally braced to not watch it or figure anything from it into my fan fiction, if it takes the direction of some of Disney’s recent stuff.