by James Coulter
On Nov. 7, 2025, Zootopia: Better Zoogether opened in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The new Zootopia-themed 4D show replaces the former It’s Tough to Be a Bug attraction, which had run for nearly 25 years since the park’s opening day and closed earlier this year on Mar. 16, 2025.
My Personal Thoughts
I haven’t been able to visit the new attraction in person. However, I have watched video footage of the 9-minute show on YouTube. Personally, I feel it’s okay. I love the Zootopia movie, but I felt this attraction was, at the most, serviceable, something families can enjoy between riding Avatar: Flight of Passage and the Kilimanjaro Safaris. Not great, but good enough.
I never experienced the former It’s Tough to be a Bug attraction when it was open. As a kid, I was scared at the prospect of being “stung” by my theater seat and especially by feeling bugs “crawling” along my legs. (A similar attraction, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, literally traumatized me with its mice escaping from the screen. There was no way I was going to suffer a similar experience.)
So, I don’t really have the same nostalgia for the Bugs show that other guests may have. And personally, as forced as it might be, a show based on a recent popular movie like Zootopia is a much better fit for Animal Kingdom than one based on a Pixar movie that hasn’t been relevant since it first premiered in the late 1990s.
What Other Critics Are Saying
I appear to be alone in that assessment, as other critics claimed that the former attraction fit better with Animal Kingdom’s overall theming than the new show literally based on talking animals.
Tom Corless from WDW News Today, while admitting that Better Zoogether was “perfectly serviceable”, felt that the attraction “undermines the entire idea of this park”, even going so far as to claim the show evokes “some weird dystopian future where humans died and all animals live together in harmony and do not eat each other.”
“No matter how you felt about ‘It’s Tough to be a Bug’, it fit in Animal Kingdom again because there was an edutainment aspect,” Corless argued, writing how the new show, in stark contrast, is “a 9-minute Zootopia short that in no way connected to conservation or the real animal world.”
Many other critics felt that the new show, despite being based on a movie about animals, felt “out of place” in Animal Kingdom. Tom Bricke from Disney Tourist Blog called the attraction “a suboptimal fit”, claiming the show could have easily fit into any other park.
“This show could go literally anywhere, Bricke said. “In fact, if you told me that this was originally slated for Animation Courtyard[at Disney’s Hollywood Studios] or literally any other theater on property, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Like Corless, Bricke insisted the show clashed with the overall theming of Animal Kingdom, a park created to celebrate biodiversity and champion environmentalism, elements clearly lacking in the new show.
“Diehard Walt Disney World fans know that Animal Kingdom revolves around the balance and harmony between the human world and the animal kingdom,” Bricke wrote. “On that basis, Zootopia actually isn’t perfect for the park.”
A staff writer for WDWMagic expressed a similar sentiment, explaining how Better Zoogether “feels disconnected from the setting” and “doesn’t contribute to Animal Kingdom’s broader message about wildlife and conservation.”
As for the actual show itself, the WDWMagicstaff writer criticized it for being too fast-paced “with constant cuts, overlapping dialogue, and a dense sound mix that can make it difficult to follow the story.” And unlike the show it replaced, the new show “a single comparable ‘wow’ moment.”
