Fans of Zootopia 2 might have been confused seeing a familiar feather in a post credits scene. And now some light is being shed on how exactly it ended up there. Giving this film and Moana something in common, a big name behind the Zootopia sequel reveals that they had to “borrow” an item from the Disney princess in order to make things work. What item was that, exactly?
During the Zootopia 2 post-credits scene, thanks to a single feather drifting to land beside Judy Hopps’ carrot-shaped pen, it’s basically confirmed that birds do actually exist in the Zootopia universe—much like the snakes they believed had gone missing from their world. But it looks like the feather imagery was thought up at the last minute, and without the time to animate a whole new scene, the animators actually had to borrow the graphics from another movie entirely.
Back in January, Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation and the co-director of Zootopia 2, Jared Bush, said, “A little trivia about this image. For this moment, we didn’t have time to build a bird, so the shadow that passes and this feather was borrowed from Moana. What character from Moana cast that shadow? Hawk Maui.” In the most recent edition of Empire Magazine, Bush elaborated slightly on the choice, adding, “We actually didn’t have a bird built that we could use. So our animators decided to use the hawk Maui. But Dwayne Johnson is already a dik-dik in this world. That would be confusing for people.”
This obviously isn’t confirmation of any real crossover, or confirmation that Maui exists in the Zootopia universe, but rather just a cool tidbit of information and some interdepartmental cooperation. But it does seem to confirm, alongside another piece of evidence in the form of a post-it note stuck on ZPD’s internet modem, that reads, “P@Rt3izFr&BrdZr2.” The generally accepted decoded version of that message? Part 3 is for real, and birds are too. So it seems that, much like the sequel brought reptiles to the universe, Zootopia 3 will be introducing birds into the mix.
What are your thoughts on the cameo? Do you have a favorite moment from Zootopia 2? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. And don’t forget to check out the ComicBook forum to see what other fans are saying.
