Much of the appeal of any Disney park is that you can step inside some of your favorite universes – be it Star Wars at Galaxy’s Edge, complete with walking, talking, beeping BDX droids, or a bar fit for Jack Sparrow at The Beak and Barrel. And while guests can visit Zootopia at Shanghai Disney, there’s now another way to explore the animal-filled metropolis.
Opening today – November 7, 2025 – at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, is a new immersive 4D show, Zootopia: Better Zoogether!. It replaces the long-standing It’s Tough to Be a Bug show (themed to the film A Bug’s Life) inside the Tree of Life Theater near the front of the park and marks the park’s first new attraction in years.
The Zootopia show debuts as the Animal Kingdom park undergoes major changes, including a new Indiana Jones-themed ride and an Encanto attraction in the upcoming Tropical Americas land. TechRadar had the chance to preview the new 4D show ahead of its opening, experiencing the production – created by the same animation team behind Zootopia 2 – and getting an up-close look at an all-new animatronic from Walt Disney Imagineering.
It’s a fitting debut for an attraction so deeply connected to the Zootopia universe, arriving just weeks before Zootopia 2 hits the big screen on November 26, 2025. The show even premieres a new location – Marsh Market – that will appear in the film, features the same voice talent, and was developed by the same storytellers behind the sequel. It’s a perfect example of synergy between Disney Parks, Walt Disney Imagineering, and Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Zootopia: Better Zoogether! runs for about 10 minutes and takes guests through various celebrations centered around Zoogether Day – a day similar to Earth Day – exploring different biomes. Along the way, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde guide the story through an investigation. It’s engaging and feels similar to the shorts we’ve seen from Walt Disney Animation Studios on Disney+.
The art style and animation are nearly identical to the film universe – a major plus that elevates the experience. It feels very much like a Zootopia story, and while it’s not a full-scale themed land, it still pulls you deep into the world of the film. It’s all presented as “CarrotVision”, complete with orange 3D glasses, which help to bring to life the “third” dimension. Meanwhile, Disney has also added a fourth dimension through effects, such as fans, wind machines, smoke, and water sprayers.
All of this enhances the immersion and has you looking beyond the screen’s walls – at times up or down, left or right – to see where the next special effect might come from.
The real star, though, is the use of the original voice cast – Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy, Jason Bateman as Nick, and Nate Torrence as Benjamin Clawhauser – along with a brand-new animatronic version of Clawhauser. Set on a rig on the right side of the theater, the animatronic swivels and rotates, feeling like a one-to-one recreation of the character we see behind his desk in Zootopia.
Clawhauser in this form is highly expressive, with detailed facial movements – from the eyebrows, cheeks, grins, and other emotional nuances – as well as realistic hand and paw articulation. It’s impressively executed. While Disney has another Clawhauser animatronic in a queue at Shanghai Disney, the eyes here are not screens, which heightens the realism.
Nate Torrence, who voices Clawhauser in the Zootopia films, also lends his voice to this attraction. Speaking to TechRadar, Torrence said he was thrilled to be immortalized in this form. For Zootopia: Better Zoogether!, he recorded lines at Disney Imagineering, where the team also filmed him for facial reference.
He recalled being aware of his expressions: “There were specific times when they came in and said, ‘we just want to see how you would say this and how you move around – like when you’re wincing from the water’. Stuff like that isn’t written into the process,” Torrence explained. “It was great to be included in that process.” He added that when watching the attraction, he became more self-aware of how he uses his hands – and even more animated himself.
Ginnifer Goodwin also shared insights into the recording process for both the attraction and the film. “It was explained to me that the way we move changes how we sound, and that makes us appear more human – in the same way we want our Zootopia characters to have human overlap,” she said. That expressiveness – like Torrence’s wincing – directly translates to Clawhauser’s animated performance.
While the attraction is billed as a 4D show, the animatronic is visible, moving, and interacting for most of the runtime before the character transitions to the screen for a musical number – something that will likely surprise and delight Zootopia fans.
Speaking to TechRadar, Priya Sampat, Lead Producer at Walt Disney Imagineering for the attraction, shared that the Clawhauser animatronic is more interactive than previous models, swapping projected eyes for mechanical ones and adding “additional functions in his face as well as his wrists to lean into what the characters are doing on-screen”.
You’ll also notice that the lighting on Clawhauser is intentional: it gets brighter as he moves, matching the biomes, and slightly darker when the focus is on the screen or other effects in the theater.
Sampat also noted that Imagineering worked hand-in-hand with Walt Disney Animation Studios to ensure “he’s represented correctly in the show”. That collaboration shines through in the visuals, as the same animation team behind Zootopia 2 worked on the attraction. The result fits seamlessly into the universe – a family-friendly experience that will leave you humming the original song created for it.
The various immersive elements go beyond standard 3D tricks – being sprayed with water spritzers as two otters describe a scene in Marsh Market, feeling your seat rumble during a chaotic chase through Rodentia, or being surrounded by smoke, fog, and wind as you race through Zootopia. These moments enhance pacing and keep you fully engaged throughout the show.
Zootopia: Better Zoogether! is open now at Animal Kingdom at Disney World, and admission into the attraction is free with a park ticket – there is also a Lightning Lane option. You’ll want to take time going through the queue as there are posters teeing up Zoogether Day that showcase excellent art, a mini entrance for guests from Rodentia attending the show, and a ‘Pawdora’ exhibit as you wait to enter the theater.
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jacob.krol@futurenet.com (Jacob Krol)
