Happy Zootopia 2 Day on Disney Plus! You know what I'd REALLY like the third movie to be about?
Nick and Judy are in the middle of a sting, but when they arrive, they find out the MacGuffin they were looking for is really a Living MacGuffin.
At first, no one knows what to do; there aren't birds in Zootopia, and that opens up the "reason" as to why and the movie can then explain if they aren't there for a specific reason. The A plot would be that either Nick and Judy keep the egg in secret to figure out who it belongs to and they investigate it or the egg hatches soon after they get it and the baby bird was stolen by an antagonist and just wants to find its mama, so Nick and Judy become its surrogate parents while searching for clues to return the baby bird to Mama, and possibly, find out if the reason why birds don't live in the city is related to their mostly mammal population or something else entirely.
Now the B plot? Aka whatever is the personal growth for Nick and Judy?
I'd like it to be Nick's parent(s).
I know the fandom has heavy speculation and there is a little bit of information available, but that's what I think would bring us full circle. My theory is Nick's dad is either dead or MIA and his relationship with his mother is estranged, but I don't know if that was because he changed after he was traumatized as a kid by those awful scouts or did something external happen to him after it that caused him to not be in his mother's life anymore and vice versa. I'd love to unpack what happened and this time, Judy is getting Nick to slowly open up and heal instead of bottling it up and building a bridge over the hurt. By finding their baby bird's mother and returning it safely, it could be a parallel to Nick either forgiving or just reconciling with his living mother (or father; I am also open to the idea that saving the city twice means Papa Wilde comes home to claim his son and there is tension between them, if he is in fact not actually dead or missing) and that could also be the B plot. I think Judy is perfectly suited to help Nick unpack his past trauma and be willing to move forward with her as her partner (whether the writers decide they are a canon romantic couple or they keep it ambiguous again) and I think that would be such a great place to end the tale (ha!) or segway into a limited series after Zootopia 3.
I loved seeing Nick find the words after a whole movie of being too nervous or scared to tell Judy how he felt, and I think they could truly unpack an "unready parent" trope exceedingly well, given how well the writers did with both bigotry and revisionist history as the conflicts in movies one and two. The third one's theme could be anything from being about immigration (using the birds' migration as the metaphor, for example) to parenthood and its many, many complications as well as how it relates to childhood trauma. I really have enjoyed the emotional intelligence that Zootopia 1 and 2 have shown us, where they remind us of the fact that you can be biased without realizing it, and you can cause further harm to your relationship by being avoidant and not wanting to have the hard conversation to unpack your trauma and move past it. I think that would be a great way to tie it all together AND at the end, having "raised" a baby bird together, Nick and Judy go full canon into a romantic relationship and end the franchise on a very sweet, affectionate kiss. Or God save me, a wedding.
The second choice is probably too risky, BUT...
I'd really love the third one to have the same baby bird idea, but be about the pressure of a fox and a bunny dating in public as the B plot.
Now, we have only seen tiny peeks into their world, so let's use Antony the anteater as the example. Antony seemed surprised, but not horrified or disgusted, so my guess is that Zootopia probably operates like any given American metropolitan area where most couples are "like with like," and then you have a marginalized population of animals that date interspecies. You could REALLY play around with the dynamics of what happens when Nick and Judy go from just partners and best friends to lovers and them realizing they have to be willing to deal with other people's discomfort of their romantic relationship if interspecies dating is unusual in Zootopia. You could also have a small arc with Judy taking him home and Nick notices some odd behavior in Bunnyburrow, but he didn't encounter it when he was just Judy's BFF, not her boyfriend. Of the two of them, I could see Judy being defiant when people act weird around them about it and Nick being the one who might reconsider dating if it means any harm could come to Judy or her reputation. Not that he'd ever want to give up loving her; I feel he'd be willing to make the sacrifice to hide their relationship and Judy would want it out in the open, not caring about what others think, and he doesn't either, but if he saw it hurting her ability to be a cop--the thing she loves to do--then I could see him considering keeping it secret. There are a LOT of really juicy conversations they could have about it, especially since Disney itself has had some things to say about interracial dating and mixed race couples, both good and bad, over the years. It'd be too on the nose for Disney, so I'm setting the idea aside for myself to explore in fanfiction later on, but MAN. I'd really love to hear Disney take a full on stance backing up the idea that love is love, and frankly, if you wanted to even extend the metaphor beyond interracial dating into gay and lesbian couples getting used to being viewed as "unusual" the first time they go out, you could do that as well.
If nothing else, the baby bird idea seems likely, so I would also settle for just an entire fucking movie of these two doing the same antics from the infamously funny and brilliant episode of Batman Beyond, "The Eggbaby."
Give me Nick in a cop uniform chasing after a suspect...in a papoose.
I need it because reasons.
Here's to Zootopia 3! Wilde Hopps Nation, let me hear you! What do you think about the third one?
