The Zootopia Lawsuit

Oh boy, talk about taking something great and putting a negative twist on it. As a big fan of Zootopia, I feel I should say something.

In this case I have mixed feelings. On one hand, from what is being accused there may be a case here, but without the original documents that Goldman supposed to have supply them with it is difficult to see the similarities. In regards to the characters, there clearly is enough of a difference to not count in the copyright (I've done research on character copyright in the past, both to do an old post but also for anything I do in the future). The story of it being Goldman's 'An animator creating the story through an animated world' vs Disney's 'It is its own world' is also enough of a distinction to avoid it, but given we have yet to see the documents of Goldman's original story, the finer details mean I can't come to a complete view of it (on a side note in some countries it was called Zootropolis, so if Goldman did claim the name Zootopia, why was it not just called Zootropolis altogether to avoid that part?). Then again, I'm also a person who knows how big business rips people off from experience and am very firm on the stance of creators protecting what is theirs, so a bit split here (though from what I've seen so far, I'm siding with Disney at this point in time). After all, this is a lawsuit over the story as a whole, which is very difficult to prove and given how the legal system and lawyers work, it will be as messy and confusing as all hell (which is entirely the point).

I feel my biggest concern will be how the community will react to this. One of the first arguments I expect to see will be whether or not Goldman's version would have beeen as good as Disney's, particularly since Disney has won two major awards for their Zootopia. This would also lead to another point as to how well Goldman's version would have been vs Disney's over the future of the franchise and how marketable it is or how much it could have made in merchandise (I feel people would have still chosen Disney's over Goldman's as the Rabbit/Fox combo works a lot better compared to Goldman's Squirrel/Hyena one in my opinion). I also suspect we'll get a variety of nasty messages and fan art directed against Goldman and his characters for this and I'd rather avoid that. It would just be a great shame if we undid all the good the movie gave us by acting like beasts ourselves. While I too worry for the future of this franchise (I've made it quite clear in previous posts how much I love Disney's 'Zootopia' world and it's characters), I can only hope this can be resolved quickly and moved on (cause, you know, sequel and all that).