Jessica Rabbit From Roger Rabbit Getting Updated To Be More Suited For Modern Audiences
Jessica Rabbit is getting an update from Disney, though it isn't what you would expect from them pushing the character into the modern day
Jessica Rabbit looks like she is getting an update for a more modern-day version of the character. After bursting (literally and figuratively) onto the scene in the later 80s, Mrs. Rabbit has been known for a certain, well, style. But it looks like that some things will be changing for her, namely her story. According to The OC Register (via Bounding Into Comics), the Disneyland ride featuring the character is going to be getting some updates soon. Car Toon Spin will give Jessica Rabbit a different backstory and change some events around what happened to her. But it doesn’t look like her look will be changing all that much, if at all.
In the ride, Jessica Rabbit will have parts of her story changed from the original and will make her a more central piece of the narrative. For starters, a couple of scenes have been altered including one that had her being kidnapped and thrown into the trunk of a car. This had led her to escape her captors near the end of the ride. Instead, her story will alter to have her becoming a private eye detective in the story instead of a damsel in distress. This, according to Disney reps, was an effort to modernize the character.
What doesn’t look like it will get any change moving into the future are Jessica Rabbit’s dimensions which remain decidedly outside the bounds of a normal human physique. But no matter, the character is iconic in a number of different ways, strong and assured in the original movie and the ride as well. Updating her to take on a more assertive role does make sense all things considered.
Car Toon Spin is the Disneyland ride base on the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The 1988 film combined live-action actors with animated characters in a world that imagined the two living together. The story centers around the titular Roger Rabbit and his wife Jessica Rabbit after the former is accused of killing a studio exec. The implication had been that said exec, Marvin Acme, and Jessica Rabbit were involved with some hanky-panky. It sets off an investigation that pits the two types of characters against each other.
Released through Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, the movie was a massive success at the box office, earning almost $330 million on its $50 million budget. And it was a huge hit with critics as well, scoring 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, earning multiple Academy Awards, and becoming a definitive part of the zeitgeist at the time. The characterization of Jessica Rabbit, a play on the 1940s studio starlet of the time, was a major reason for turning people on to the film and it also introduced an all-new manner of characters for Disney. It was a bit of a darker film than what they had done before, definitely gearing toward an adult audience.
The ride Car Toon Spin was created in 1994, six years after the movie was released, and has been a popular attraction throughout the Disney theme parks. It is unclear if these latest changes, while maybe upsetting staunch Disney “purists” will have any real effect on the overall attraction. Frankly, the changes seem rather benign all things considered, simply changing some
