Zootopia: Hot Pursuit
| Zootopia: Hot Pursuit | |
|---|---|
| Park | Shanghai Disneyland |
| Land / area | Zootopia |
| Type | Trackless dark ride |
| Opened | December 20, 2023 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Height req. | None |
| Status | Operating |
Zootopia: Hot Pursuit is a trackless dark ride in Zootopia at Shanghai Disneyland. Based on Walt Disney Animation Studios' 2016 film Zootopia, it opened on December 20, 2023, as the centrepiece of the park's Zootopia land, the first Zootopia-themed land in any Disney park. Rather than retelling the film, the ride tells a new story set after it, in which guests become rookie police officers and join Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde on a chase across the city. It was Disney's first trackless ride in mainland China.[1]
History
Zootopia was Shanghai Disneyland's second major expansion, after Disney·Pixar Toy Story Land in 2018, and its eighth themed land. The film had been a major hit in China, and Imagineering worked with the filmmakers at Walt Disney Animation Studios on an original attraction rather than a book-report ride through scenes from the movie. Disney announced the land's opening date in October 2023, following previews for cast members and invited guests, and the land and ride opened together on December 20, 2023.[2]
The ride's music was composed by Michael Giacchino, who had scored the film, working with a large orchestra to adapt his themes to the chase format.[3] The attraction was nominated for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project at the 22nd Visual Effects Society Awards.
Experience
The queue runs through the Zootopia Police Department, where guests — addressed as new recruits — are greeted by Officer Clawhauser and briefed by Chief Bogo. The premise is set on Zootopia Day: Dawn Bellwether, the former assistant mayor defeated in the film, has escaped from prison with her hench-sheep and kidnapped the pop star Gazelle ahead of her festival concert. Bellwether interrupts the briefing by hacking into the department's screens to taunt the police, and Bogo reluctantly assigns the rookies to back up Hopps and Wilde.[4]
Guests board police-cruiser vehicles and leave the station through a tunnel. Because the vehicles are trackless, they can spin, slide and dart between scenes in a way that sells the idea of a pursuit rather than a parade past it. The chase slides across the ice of Tundratown, where Hopps and Wilde join the pursuit on a snowmobile; prowls through Sahara Square, dodging a freight train and passing Duke Weaselton hawking Gazelle merchandise; detours through Mystic Springs Oasis, with a close encounter with its unclothed residents; and climbs into the Rainforest District, where the vehicles board an aerial tram car that Bellwether sends plunging toward the ground before vines break the fall.[5]
The finale returns to Savanna Central, where Bellwether's escape ends with her stuck in the sign of a donut truck and seized by Clawhauser. Gazelle, rescued, performs "Try Everything" for the Zootopia Day festival, and Hopps and Wilde congratulate the recruits. The show mixes Audio-Animatronic figures — including Hopps, Wilde and Gazelle — with projected media, physical sets and effects such as the tram car's apparent free fall, and the trackless system lets several vehicles share and cross the same spaces during the larger chase scenes.