Historically, Disney animated features don’t cover political issues, often favoring racial stereotypes and distressed damsels who neatly fit into domestic roles.

Ginnifer Goodwin provides the voice of Officer Judy Hopps (left) and Jason Bateman voices Nick Wilde in Disney’s “Zootopia.” (photo courtesy of Disney Pictures)

But “Zootopia” journeys down a different path, providing a dash of hope for the studio. For a third time, Disney Animation proves it need not rely on Pixar to tell a good animated tale.

The premise alone is incredibly imaginative. In the old days, animals gave into their basic instincts, but progress and evolution allowed them to step into a brighter future. They function just like normal humans, though many still maintain some characteristics of their roots.

Rabbits now farm land, often favoring carrots, but they still fear foxes. But that’s not the life Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) hopes for herself. She thinks big, dreaming of patrolling the streets of Zootopia, a metropolitan wonder for any species imaginable, as a police officer – a job normally reserved for enormous and fearless animals like tigers and hippos.

Through hard work, she does just that. But Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), a cape buffalo who cares little about hiring a tiny rabbit for good press, benches her. She’s a meter maid. So to prove herself, she volunteers to locate a missing otter. If she fails in her mission after 48 hours, the chief expects her to resign.

Without any help from the police force, Hopps seeks out an unlikely partner: con artist fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). The question becomes can young Judy overcome her prejudice against foxes? Or will she continue to see Wilde as just another liar and thief based on one bad experience from her childhood?

The two must traverse the four districts of Zootopia – Tundratown, Little Rodentia, the Rainforest District and Sahara Square – for a missing person, but along the way, they discover something more dangerous that might threaten the stability of the great city.

Zootopia is a metropolis filled with animals in four districts – Tundratown, Little Rodentia, the Rainforest District and Sahara Square. (photo courtesy of Disney Pictures)

A film’s trailers have never been more misleading. This isn’t just some cute kids movie with clever uses of animal characteristics. “Zootopia” depicts fear between species, namely carnivores and omnivores. The culture of fear reaches its pinnacle in one haunting scene when an enormous tiger sits next to a mother rabbit and her baby in the subway. The mother pulls her baby away from the tiger – a visual that should resonate with anyone.

Of course, the cross-species analogy is far from perfect. What do you expect, “Animal Farm” greatness? To compare marginalized people to animals who were actually savage at one point in history is not the same since no one race is historically more savage than another, despite what some say. But few analogies perfectly align. That’s the thing about comparisons, they resonate on some levels, not all.

What’s more disappointing is the lack of representation behind the scenes. This is the same dilemma “Planet of the Apes” and “X-Men” face when it comes to racial analogies on the big screen. It’s not enough to discuss these things without practicing what you preach, meaning they all lack diverse actors.

Most of the apes in “Planet” were white and so too were the humans, save one black character who died early. In the “X-Men” films, there were three blue characters (all played by white actors) and only Halle Berry to hold the mutant fort. And in “Zootopia,” Elba is the highest profile non-white character, and only Octavia Spencer, as Mrs. Otterton, and Shakira, as pop singer Gizelle, are noteworthy beyond that. It seems fundamentally troubling to discuss bigotry in such a clever way throughout the film and miss such a glaring oversight. It’s like all the white folks involved here feel above it because of the head nod to the topic.

Hopefully this criticism does not undermine the film’s importance. Disney Animation finally gave us a princess film full of female empowerment in “Frozen,” depicted a diverse superhero team complete with an Asian lead in “Big Hero 6” (one of the most underrepresented groups in cinema) and now has created an incredible resource for young viewers and something even more complex for adults.

“Zootopia” is an incredible film, the first contender for best animated flick, and likely the winner unless “Finding Dory” proves it can be more than an unnecessary sequel. The criticism is just to remind everyone that progress isn’t just something for the animals in Zootopia. Once you reach one goal, the task isn’t done. If we stop after a single victory, we allow token change to appease guilt without advancing us all to an actual utopia, something all mammals desperately need.