Disney Animation's Jared Bush on the Importance of Letting Good Ideas Go in Storytelling

Walt Disney Animation Studios has been a master of storytelling for generations. However, that doesn't mean that telling those stories is ever easy. Jared Bush, the head of Walt Disney Animation, recently appeared at the Created in L.A. event for content creators to show fellow storytellers that sometimes telling a great story means letting go of what you hold most dear.

Jared Bush believes that online content creation and making animated movies aren't quite as different as many might believe. At their heart, both are trying to tell stories that will engage an audience. That storytelling can often be a struggle. At Disney Animation, it means remaking movies over and over again in an attempt to transform them from something good into something great.

Fans of Disney Animation, or animation in general, are likely aware of the iterative process that is used in making movies. The process of changing and fixing a story is never truly done until the last frame is fully animated. However, Bush revealed some new details about the production of the original Zootopia, including a peek at some never-before-seen early animation on the film.

When Jared Bush was hired to work on Zootopia, it was a spy movie, but by the time he actually began work, that version of the project was already dead. From there, the city of predator and prey animals living together was central to the film, but things were actually quite different.

In this version, prey animals ran the city, and predators were forced to wear "tame collars" that gave them a shock if their emotions got too strong. Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps were the lead duo of the film, but Nick, not Judy, was the real main character. Nick ran a "back alley amusement park" where predators could remove their collars and exist without the punishment inherent in their city.

Bush revealed a piece of early scratch animation that he says had never been shown publicly before. It showed Nick and Judy witnessing a "taming party" where a predator child received their tame collar. It's treated as a rite of passage, but it's clearly a bittersweet one, as Judy Hopps discovers for the first time. Check out the full video below to see the scene.

Bush says the scene was universally praised as emotionally powerful and seen as the best part of the movie. Bush became quite protective of it, but the rest of the movie clearly wasn't working as well as that scene. Specifically, the tame collar concept was a hindrance to the film, as it made Zootopia a far less enjoyable place to spend time. Of course, if the collars were removed from the story, the incredibly emotional scene would have no place.

Remarkably, Bush says he spent three years trying to make the "tame collar" version of Zootopia work, but the version of Zootopia we ended up getting, which won an Academy Award, came together in only three months after the plot had been trashed.

Zootopia wasn't the only movie to go through major changes for Jared Bush. He mentions that Moana once had brothers. The emotional moment of forgiveness in Encanto was once a scene that Abuela went through alone.

Even Disney's newest movie, Hexed, was once something very different, as Bush reveals the original story was about a six-year-old boy and his mother, who didn't realize her child had magical powers. Now it's about a teen girl coming to terms with her own magical abilities.

As a lesson for a room full of creatives, Jared Bush likely had something to teach. There are always going to be times that you attach yourself to an idea that you love and find yourself unwilling to let it go. However, sometimes that good idea is standing in the way of the great one.