Daily Dialogue — November 18, 2016

BELLWETHER: (Chuckles) Well, you should have just stayed on the carrot farm, huh? It really is too bad, I…I did like you.

HOPPS: What are you gonna do? Kill me?

BELLWETHER: Oohhh. No, of course not. He is.

Bellwether darts Nick.

HOPPS: No! Oh, Nick!

BELLWETHER: (Speaking into a phone) Yes, police! There’s a savage fox in the Natural History Museum! Officer Hopps is down. Please hurry!

HOPPS: No, Nick. Don’t do this. Fight it.

BELLWETHER: Oh, but he can’t help it. Can he? Since preds are just biologically predisposed to be savages.

Judy struggles to stay away from Nick as he descends into savagery.

BELLWETHER: Gosh! Think of the headline! ‘Hero Cop Killed by Savage Fox.’

HOPPS: So that’s it? Prey fears predator, and you stay in power?

BELLWETHER: Yeah. Pretty much.

HOPPS: It won’t work.

BELLWETHER: Fear always works. And I’ll dart every predator in Zootopia to keep it that way.

HOPPS: Ah! Oh, Nick. No.

BELLWETHER: Bye-bye, bunny.

Nick clenches Judy by the neck. Judy screams.

HOPPS: Blahhh! Blood, blood, blood! And death.

WILDE: All right, you know, you’re milking it. Besides, I think we got it. I think we got it. We got it up there, thank you, yakety-yak. You laid it all out beautifully.

BELLWETHER: What?

WILDE: Yeah. Oh, are…are you looking for the serum? Well, it’s right here.

HOPPS: What you’ve got in the weapon there, those are blueberries, from my family’s farm.

WILDE: Mwaah! They are delicious. You should try some.

BELLWETHER: I framed Lionheart, I can frame you too. It’s my word against yours.

HOPPS: Ooo. Actually…

BELLWETHER: (Recording) “…and I’ll dart every predator in Zootopia to keep it that way.”

HOPPS: It’s your word against yours.

BELLWETHER: Huh?

HOPPS: It’s called a hustle, sweetheart. Boom!

— Zootopia (2016), screenplay by Jared Bush and Phil Johnston; story by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush, Jim Reardon, Josie Trinidad, Phil Johnston and Jennifer Lee

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Bechdel Test suggested by Will King who also suggested today’s movie.

Trivia: According to the web site Skunk & Burning Tires, Judy’s voice Ginnifer Goodwin wasn’t acting during the tearful confession scene with Nick. She was, in fact, really crying when she recorded the dialogue. (Ginnifer Goodwin Shares the Tearful Tale behind Zootopia’s Apology Scene)

Dialogue on Dialogue: Commentary by Will King: “What’s so fun about this climactic scene is the sheer number of callbacks that all come together at once.

1. “…you should have just stayed on the carrot farm…” The film begins with Judy’s life in Bunnyburrow as a child living with her parents who are carrot farmers. She later gives up her dream and returns to the farm when she believes she isn’t up to being a hero police officer.

2. “Since preds are just biologically predisposed to be savages.” When Judy speaks at a news conference after solving the missing predators case, she makes a statement about the predisposition of predators, which not only violates her childhood belief that all animals can overcome their biology to live in peace, but it also destroys her relationship with Nick, a hustler who had begun to believe he could trust Judy.

3. “Hero Cop Killed by Savage Fox.” After solving the missing predators case, newly-appointed mayor Bellwether and Police Chief Bogo try to turn Judy into a propaganda tool by making her a media hero.

4. “Blahhh! Blood, blood, blood! And death.” As a child, Judy participated in a play depicting how animals once lived. She is “killed” by a predator, and these are the words of her death scene.

5. “…those are blueberries, from my family’s farm.” When Judy returns to the city after figuring out the mechanism for reverting predators to their violent state, she accidentally brings along a batch of blueberries from her family farm. Nick finds them and comments on how good they taste. During the chase prior to this scene, the blueberries are substituted for the serum in the gun, thus sparing Nick from reversion.

6. “…and I’ll dart every predator in Zootopia to keep it that way.” Judy first used her recording pen on Nick to grab his financial fraud confession which she uses to force him to work with her. Nick later uses the pen to capture Judy’s tearful confession about how wrong she was to make her bigoted statement about predators at the news conference.

7. “It’s called a hustle, sweetheart.” Nick first uses this statement to show Judy he’s untouchable by her efforts. However, after Judy uses her recording pen to capture Nick’s fraud confession, she uses the same statement to show him she isn’t as much a “dumb bunny” as he takes her for.

8. After her childhood play performance, Judy is attacked by a bully when she tries to get him to return some tickets he stole from one of Judy’s friends. While the bully is more powerful than Judy physically, and wounds her by scratching her face, Judy does get the tickets by being a good pickpocket while making the bully think he has intimidated her. Here, Judy is again wounded, and again plays the victim, all the while getting what she needs from the bully: Mayor Bellwether’s confession.”