Zootopia
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In a world populated by anthropomorphic animals, Judy Hopps, a rabbit from a rural town called Bunnyburrow, fulfills her childhood dream of becoming a police officer in the urban city of Zootopia. Despite being the academy valedictorian, Judy is delegated to parking duty by Chief Bogo, who fails to recognize her talent. On her first day on the job, Judy is hustled by a con artist fox duo, Nick Wilde and Finnick. Later, small-time crook and bootleg film seller Duke Weaselton steals a bag of crocus bulbs known as Midnicampum holicithias. Judy abandons parking duty to arrest Weaselton, and is reprimanded by Bogo. Mrs. Otterton unexpectedly barges in to Bogo's office pleading for someone to find her husband Emmitt, one of fourteen missing animals. Judy volunteers and the city's assistant mayor, a ewe named Dawn Bellwether, praises the assignment. Bogo has no choice but to agree, but secretly orders Judy to resign if she fails after forty-eight hours.
Having ascertained that Nick was the last to see Emmitt, Judy blackmails him into helping her by covertly recording his confession to tax evasion. They track Emmitt to a limousine owned by crime boss Mr. Big, an arctic shrew, who Nick has a history with invoking him working for him, but their partnership ended after Nick gave him a rug made from a skunk's butt. He reveals that Emmitt suddenly went "savage", attacking Mr. Big's chauffeur Manchas. The two visit Manchas, a black jaguar, and he says Emmitt yelled about "Night Howlers" before the attack. Manchas then turns savage and chases the pair. Judy traps Manchas and calls the ZPD for help; however, Manchas vanishes before they arrive. Bogo demands Judy to resign, but Nick reminds Bogo that she still has ten hours remaining. While leaving the scene, Nick reveals to Judy that he became a con artist because, as a child, he tried to join the Junior Ranger Scouts, only to be mistreated and rejected simply for being a fox.
At City Hall, Bellwether offers Judy and Nick access to Zootopia's traffic cameras. They discover Manchas was taken by timberwolves, whom Judy surmises are the "Night Howlers". Following the wolves, the duo locate Manchas and the rest of the missing animals, all "savage" predators, imprisoned at a local asylum. Zootopia's mayor, Leodore Lionheart, ordered their capture, and is trying to ascertain the cause of their behavior. Lionheart and the asylum staff are soon arrested for false imprisonment and Bellwether becomes the new mayor. Judy, praised for solving the case, asks Nick to join the ZPD as her partner. However, he angrily rejects her offer after a reporter maneuvers Judy into saying predatory biology is behind the mysterious "savageness" epidemic. Judy's comments, broadcast on television, incite fear and discrimination against predators throughout Zootopia.
Wracked with guilt, Judy quits her job and returns home. There, she learns that "Night Howlers" are actually the crocus bulbs Weaselton stole; they contain a neurotoxin that has severe, lasting psychotropic effects on mammals that causes them to turn savage. Judy returns to Zootopia, tearfully reconciling with Nick. With the help of Mr. Big, Judy and Nick interrogate Weaselton, who admits he was hired by a ram named Doug. They find Doug in a laboratory hidden in the city subway, where he manufactures a Night Howler serum to be shot at predators via a dart pistol. Judy and Nick obtain a serum gun as evidence, but before they can reach the ZPD, Bellwether confronts them in the Natural History Museum, revealing herself as the mastermind behind a prey-supremacist conspiracy. The duo become trapped in an exhibit and Bellwether attempts to infect Nick as she summons the ZPD, but Nick had disabled the pistol by replacing its ammunition with blueberries and Judy reveals she recorded Bellwether's confession with her carrot pen that includes a microphone just as the ZPD arrives.
Bellwether and her accomplices are arrested, while Lionheart, still in prison, publicly denies knowledge of her plot and insists that imprisoning the infected predators was a "wrong thing for the right reason". With the cause of the epidemic identified, the predators are cured, Judy rejoins the ZPD and Nick becomes her partner and the first fox police officer.
