It’s gonna happen, and there ain’t no way around that. It was a successful title and muns means more muns. That being said, I’m excited about it. Usually I’m pretty predisposed to hating sequels, stories should end when they end you know, but there’s still an awful lot that can be said about the world and plot of Zootopia.

Starting out, I think the plot of the next story can tie in pretty well to that of the first one. Super secret antagonist assistant mayor Bellwether was, you know, a super secret antagonist, and since we only got to see what a bad broad she was for the last 8 minutes of the movie, (minus the 11 minute musical number of course) her motives weren’t very well explained. The only thing we got was she wants to be mayor and, wow, that’s certainly a reason to have 27 people killed. Or maybe mayor is like the supreme ruler of the animal world, in which case explain that in the hecking sequel. Anyway, here’s my pitch. What if the main and most deadly antagonist of the first movie, the orchestrator of the entire world spanning conspiracy that that story told, is just a small piece of the real thing? What if Bellwether ascending to mayor was just a single phase of a much larger plot and the people controlling her are still out there, still trying to tear the city apart, and (for reasons I’ll bring up in like 3 more paragraphs) are all sheep? This would serve to complement the style of storytelling of the first’s, with it’s increasingly escalating plot that started out with a simple missing person's case and ending on fate of the world bull-malarky, and continues expanding on the themes of the first movie by still overall being about discrimination and bias. So in 5 years or however long long it takes to make this movie, come back to this post and praise me for my prophetic readings because this idea rules, end of statement. (It would be super ridiculous if the sequel turned out to be about mammals trying to accept the presence of other types of sentient animals (birds, lizards, etc.) that existed on other continents. That would be ridiculous and why would I even say that?)

And Nick, oh goodness Nick, the con artist turned police officer. I can’t express the amount of sheer joy his continued character exploration would give me. In general, and I think a lot of people can agree, Nick is the best character. That’s a period there. Although we get to know him pretty well over the course of the film, there’s still a lot that can be said about his motivations and background. Nick is really not the type of person to expose his weaknesses easily. His whole pessimistic humor shtick is a way of hiding who he is, and from what we’ve seen he doesn’t really carry close relationships with anyone. The only person we ever see him interact with in a positive way is Finnick, and that could have been more about mutual interest than an actual longing for connection. The rest he keeps at distance, weighing his options and choosing the one that works best towards his personal objectives; he sold a man a skunk butt rug so he could bury his dead grandmother in it. That’s not a thing a caring person does. He’s been acting this way and observing the corruption of the city his whole life, yet in just 34 hours of knowing Judy he drops his life’s work of a persona and spills the beans on his tragic history, the whole thing about the mammal scout or whatever. It’s character growth at it’s best, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more to say about him to solidify this growth, really paint him as a scoundrel in the past to show just how much he changed over the course of the first film. If you can’t tell, I could write a very long analysis on Nick’s character. Actually give me a week, I probably will. Or all of this is meaningless speculation and romanticism of a character that appears on screen for half of a 2 hour movie, in which case, this stuff needs to be canon because hot dang does it make him an interesting fella. Imagine watching this absolute scumbag transition to justice dispensing cop while wrestling with his previous pessimism and old sense of humor, maybe he even shows that he really hasn’t moved past his previous uncaring self and ends up cheating his way through cadet training, completely oblivious to the fact that he doesn’t really want to make the world a better place but rather is just going through these motions because Judy sees something in him. Imagine the complications people. Imagine Disney finally managing to achieve every major movie studio’s overarching goal, which is of course to turn me into a vegetable overexerting myself analyzing their characters. Plus, as another little bonus for this idea, there was a whole lot of cut content from when the movie was still featuring him as the main character about his backstory. Specifically something about his relationship with his dad (taught him to be a scoundrel, or maybe contributed in some way to Nick’s openness to Judy, his dad was the only person who ever believed in him and he saw some of him in her) or about Wild Times (which could totally have still been a thing Nick did at some point before the movie) could work really well with this idea. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, search the bowels of the internet for Zootopia cut scenes and get ready to watch at least a documentary’s worth of them. And btdubbs if you think the collar idea would have been better than what ended up in the final version that’s why we’re not friends. Just, no matter what happens if Nick’s a central character it’s already a good movie, and if Nick is painted as as complicated a character I think he is, I’ll probably die. Next point.

There’s still much so much left that can be explained about the world, and the setting is way to thought out to be used in only a single story. I remember reading an article where one of the directors talked about how they started building the city in a Star Wars esq. manner, thinking that the world that the characters inhabit is much bigger than just the scenes we see them in. Really, think about all the little details that had to be thought through in building the setting of Zootopia. Someone, a real person with a finite amount of time on this Earth, had to go through and think, “Huh, I guess we need a huge vacuum tube to dispense smoothies up to giraffes,” and, “Hey guys, neat idea here, what if all the transportation has different sized doors for all the different scales of creatures going through them,” and “Wowie everyone, I just fell to my knees in a cold sweat and was gifted by ancient gods a neat idea about how the hippos would have to get blow dried after the came out of the water.” My 3 little essay points seriously do not give this world justice. Too much effort was put into thinking through the weird little systems and details that explain how this world functions to stop building on it after just a single movie. (I mean I guess that’s sort of how original ideas work but now you’re just being the party police and stop ruining my fun.) And even the things that were brought up in the first one could still use expanding on. You see in the big montage at the beginning that there are these huge outside air conditioners that regulate the temperature of the city, but barely anything besides “yeah they’re there” comes from it. How does having huge fans constantly blowing around the perimeter affect the lives of people living in the city? How are these things powered? *chough* Could the huge sheep conspiracy that’s totally a thing have have had something to do with Bellwether destroying the turbines, thus putting an end to diversity in the city by making animals that can’t survive in this climate have to leave? And of course the question everyone left the theater asking, what do carnivores eat in this society? Do they eat the corpses of other animals? Is it like a stupid cannibalism thing? Do they eat plant based proteins and insects? Yes. https://twitter.com/thejaredbush/status/659005573338259456 But we’ve still yet to get that fact in canon. The bottom line of this whole thing [or at least the one of this paragraph (XDLOL)] is that this world is enormous, a fully realized and extremely interesting backdrop to any tale that could be told using it. So even if the fantastic, lovable foil characters and the important thematic messages of the first movie are left behind in the dust, it’s worth revisiting even if only for its setting.

They’d have 0 trubbs coming up with new ideas for the next movie, lots of it’s already been done. If you’ve seen any sort of behind the scenes stuff (and anyone still interested in this movie 6 months after it’s come out really should have by now) you know that there was *tons* of it, and lots of things they thought of over the course of production were cut. My favorite example of this definitely has to be the Palm Hotel. Wait what? You’re telling me you don’t remember the appearance of a multi-storied skyscraper dwarfing tree themed Savannah hotel complete with rendered interior in the movie? Well that was definitely a thing. For just a brief moment 10 and a half minutes in (you know during the “wow its a big place” train sequence) we get a close up this huge metallic palm tree styled building, which, in earlier drafts of the movie was intended to be a major location, having even gone as far into production as having 3 different rooms fully rendered out before it was cut. That’s just one of many examples though, again *tons* of different settings, details and characters had to be scrapped before the end result of the movie, and are just begging to be brought back. There was a district planned that didn’t make an appearance but has been confirmed canon called the Meadowlands, a place inhabited almost entirely by sheep (It’s almost as if...), there was this whole thing about a sheep antagonist that dressed up as a wolf to do misdeeds (my prophetic vision...), a badger lady who was a friend of Nick’s who was a doomsday prepper for the sheep apocalypse (is coming true...), some pig villain that we know nothing other than she was going to be the mayor (right before our eyes.), and of course all the junk about Nick back from when he was the protagonist, like Wild Times (Which I’ll restate, is totally a thing that could have happened), BugBurga (Which was a thing. They ate bugs.) and dad backstory. There was also this thing way back when in Jack Savage territory wherein our protagonist, Jack Savage, sailed across the ocean and found a continent full of animals he’d never seen before but I doubt that a continent full of unknown animals will come into play in the sequel at all. Honestly why do I even bring this stuff up? That aside, too much cut content, work already done, bing bang got em. Ready for a conclusion?

So it’s at this point in standard essay form when you’d go back and restate your main ideas and theses and all that, but looking back at this thing I really don’t even know what those could be. It’s pretty much just like my fanfic about what the sequel will be about, and then a whole lot about Nick. So I’ll leave it at this. The important thing to keep in mind Disney, who I’m sure is not only a singular entity but also someone extremely concerned with my personal patronage of their movie, is that Zootopia is so good I would watch any sequel, prequel or squeakquel you release if it so much as takes place in the same world as the first. Or just anything with Nick. Heck, even if you do a dystopian “what if?” sort of deal where you bring back the lame collar plot line I would throw at least multiple dollars at it. So um, I guess all points up until now are moot. I’ll buy any trash you put out. And that’s the honest truth boys. See ya.

Okay guys this is it. This is the answer to the big question everyone has been asking. Just what are Nick and Judy’s classpects? I’ve been doing extensive research and I’m pretty sure Judy is the Knight of Life and Nick is the Heir of Rage. Continue on to hear my reasoning, or just scroll past it all and trust I got it right, because I can assure you I did.

Judy is total knight of life. Life is all about the refusal to accept limits and rules, to be dominatingly optimistic about everything and generally just being a positive force, the antithesis of doom. I could totally see Hope as another possible aspect, but Hope is more about, well hoping, than actually taking action. Hope heroes blindly believe that the world is a fantastic place and anything could happen, but don’t necessarily work to realize these goals. All of their power comes from being optimistic and just kind of creating things with their will, and Judy’s more of an active type of optimist. There’s also the whole thing about breaking rules that’s typically associated with life, and Judy does some awful shady stuff throughout the movie. Remember the whole pen thing? Yeah that’s blackmail. The whole stunt about trying to cross the fence? I don’t care what you say it’s still trespass. Anyway, knight makes a lot of sense for her in context. It’s all about applying your aspect to achieve objectives, and Judy is like the embodiment of application of Life, her refusal to accept boundaries and limitations as well as hecka optimism allows her to achieve all sorts of impossible carp. The class also means you second doubt your ability with an aspect a lot, complementing the hard working Life aspect beautifully to make someone that is absolutely competent at achieving all of their goals but still believes that they aren’t. A perfectionist, if you will. And I think think we can all agree that it’s not a stretch to call Judy a perfectionist. The only thing that doesn’t make much sense with this idea is the Knight’s challenge, which is to stop second guessing themselves and realize how competent they are, pretty much meaning that Judy’s challenge is to stop being a perfectionist, which doesn’t work very well with her character growth over the course of the story but oh well. You get as close as you can. Anyway here’s what you’re really here for.

Let me give you some backstory about coming up with Nick’s aspect. It took many hours. Moving on, Nick is the Heir of Rage. Rage is one of the most elusive aspects in all the comic, as the only heroes of Rage we see are Kurloz, who is mute and generally pretty mysterious, and Gamzee, who’s only personality trait is “nuts”. All of what we understand about Rage comes from it’s antithesis, Hope. Hope is all about blindly and passionately believing that everything will turn out all right in the end, no matter what happens or how grim things seem now, everyone will always come out stronger than before. The opposite of that then would be a skeptic, someone extremely pessimistic about all situations that applies logic to come to the conclusion that nothing will turn out all right, that the world is broken now and it will stay that way forever. That’s pretty spot on to Nick’s character, blatantly pessimistic person who actively enjoys using reason to shut down optimistic world views. The only problem with this aspect is the actual anger part of Rage, which is definitely not demonstrated by the level-headed and forgiving fox boy. The only argument I can have for this is at one point he had been an extremely angry person, maybe in his youth when he was first beginning to experience prejudice, but over time has learned to block that out in favor of conforming to his identity of a clever and malicious fox. And I mean, forgiving literally the only person who ever liked you after not having seen them for 3 months isn’t too much of a feat. As far as other possibilities go, I considered Doom for a while, but in parallel to Judy, Doom is more about action than thought, so a Doom player would very easily give in to all rules and authority figures, which isn’t the best for a fast talking law-breaker. I dunno, I guess it makes sense in the way that he conforms to what the world tells him to be, but it doesn’t make much sense personality wise. The Heir class means that the player manipulates their aspect, has lots of aspect related strengths, understand it very well, and in most cases consciously or unconsciously seeks it out. This would mean that an Heir of Rage would have an uncanny ability to tear apart any idea they consider illogical (check), would take on fatalistic and pessimistic ideals (double check), and would either consciously or unconsciously seek out ideas that disagree with their own to disprove them (It’s almost as if I thought about this for a while). The challenge of an heir also works very well in Nick’s case, being that an Heir’s journey ends with them realizing they need to step up and use their powers to benefit people other than themselves, demonstrated by John learning to use his windy powers to achieve session goals, Equius’ quest to learn to stand up for Nepeta instead of waiting in void, and Mituna stopping everyone’s doom instead of accepting it by sacrificing himself to save the group from a vague supermonster. At the end of the movie, Nick learns to apply his pessimistic understanding of the world to get up to some good quality policing. He’s still embracing his role as a clever and street smart person, but applying it to a higher cause. Even though his negative nature as a Hero of Rage assures that he’ll never truly have the optimism someone like Judy has, his heroic nature as an Heir allows him to still work for the greater good. It’s a neat contrast and makes for a complicated character, and, I don’t know if you knew this, but I take my boys as complex as possible. See ya.

Nick looks into your (*ENTER YOUR EYE COLOR HERE*), beautiful eyes. “(*ENTER YOUR NAME HERE*)... do you ever feel like, like nothing you do matters? That no matter how much you try or, or what you do to change yourself, you always just end up the same person as you were before? I don’t know, it’s kind of ridiculous. I call myself a better guy now, every single day, constantly in and out I repeat that I’ve put all the tricking and the stealing and the insincerity behind me, and I want so badly to believe that, that I’ve finally realized my purpose, that I’ve finally changed for the better. But, I don’t think that’s the truth. Why was it that the only difference present in me during the ‘most important days of my life’ was the slightest tune down on the smartass meter and 3 minutes of confessing my most innocuous sin? Why am I still not past the phase where I have to keep reexamining my life trying to find cracks in this good guy persona, thinking ‘as soon as I get rid of this humorous facade I’ll finally be happy’? Why, if it’s a facade, is my entire personality a crack? The more I contemplate this, the more sure I am that the only way I can live with myself is by constantly repeating ‘Nick you’re a good guy!’. Endlessly, (*ENTER YOUR NAME HERE*), just constantly spewing out a chorus of self-redeeming nonsense, ‘you tried your best’ and ‘you’ll get better if you keep trying’! I don’t think I’m as good a person as I tell myself (*ENTER YOUR NAME HERE*). No, no I’m sure that I’m not.  And the scariest thought of them all is I think I’ve always known that. I’m just so attached to the only person in my life that ever gave me even a remote sense of validation, something I’d given up on so long ago but still hadn’t forgotten, that I can’t allow myself to think anything except things that would please her, so afraid that I might lose I her I choose keep myself in this constant state of inexplicable euphoria. I don’t know. Or, I guess I do know? Damn, this is getting complicated.” You turn to him, your light hearted grin a facade to your real feelings. You barely know what to say, but something slips out of your mouth before you have time to stop it. Before you even hear yourself you know what it is, a bomb flying through the air, waiting, biding its time to destroy the pathetic ruins of the grand capital it had once been sent towards. And suddenly, in a voice trying so desperately to sound more knowing than it really was, “Nick never and that’s not true and stop being sad.” He turns to you, not with a condescending smirk but with a real, genuine smile, “Wow thanks (*ENTER YOUR NAME HERE*), that’s such good advice. You always know just how to cheer me up.” You laugh. “Yep, that’s just how I roll” you say sarcastically, but actually not. And then you get married to this beautiful fox boy. See ya.