Put Rabbids Land in the first time and the Wii U did a software update. Once the update was finished we started the game. The Wii U gets stuck on the initial Rabbids Land startup screen with the music playing....the one showing a rabbis on a rollermcoaster. At this point everything is froze up. No buttons on gamepad work and on Wii U power button and disc eject do not work. The only option is to pull the power cord. I've tried this 4 times and each time I have to pull the power cord because everything locks up except for the music playing. Each time I've waited about 10 minutes thinking something is happening in the background but nothing ever happens.

I checked and the Rabbids Land disc is new and un scratched. I put Nintendo Land in the Wii U and it works just fine. I checked for more software updates but the Wii U says that it's up to date. All I can figure is that something got corrupted as the Wii U was doing the Rabbids Land game update.

Any ideas if there's a way to make the Wii U go through the game update process again to maybe fix it?

Normally when that happens it's just a one off thing but apparently not in your case.
Either a fault with your copy of the game or a problem with the update.

If you go into Data Management from the Settings and click on the game's icon, you should see the Update data there which you can then delete.
I'd say give that a go, then try playing without doing the update, and then if that works then do the update again.
If it still doesn't work, then take your game back or call Nintendo.

Another game with the freezing issue... This is the first time I've heard of it consistently recurring at the same point though so I'd suggest following BenAV's advice.

Interesting. I just started playing Rabbids LAND this past week, and everything has been going fine (just over 5 hours played). The update happened like your's did (or, maybe didn't?), but I haven't had it freeze any. I still don't understand why Nintendo hasn't patched the system so the power button functions when the console freezes.

I would suggest doing what BenAV said. Find the game's "Update" and delete it, and re-install it again.

The same thing used to happen to me sometimes with my Wii and I'm pretty sure I had to unplug it when it did... probably isn't something that'd just be easily patched I wouldn't think.

Yep, do as I suggested before.
Make sure to test if it works without the update installed before installing it again.
At the very least you'll be able to figure out whether the problem's being caused by the update or not.

Thanks for all the responses! I'll give this a try when I get home and report back. Thanks again!

I wouldn't know how the Wii acted when it froze, being a Wii owner since launch (basically) and never having this issue of having to unplug the system when it froze (maybe, if it froze), and having to do so with the Wii U so often is just bad. The Wii has a typical "turn off" and a "hard turn off" though. When you press the power button briefly on the Wii, it goes to the "stand-by" option (forget the name of it now, Wii Connect?). If you HOLD the power button on the Wii, the light goes red, meaning the system is "off".

Oh, and I did play most of the Rabbids Wii games as well, and never had issues with them. I'm just hoping there is ONE mini-game in this one, but I don't think it's going to be in it...which is disappointing, because it was my favorite mini-game in the first 2 Rabbids Wii games.

@CoffeeWithGames Yeah, generally when my Wii froze I could just hold down the power button and it'd turn off, but I'm pretty sure I recall having to unplug it a few times too.
Not as frequently as with the Wii U though.
I've probably already had to do it more times with my WIi U than I have with my Wii in its whole lifetime.

Deleted update from data management but game refuses to run without update. No option to play without update that I can see. When I select the game the update screen automatically pops up. Did another update and same thing happened....Wii U froze up on Rabbids start screen. Held power button on Wii U for 1 minute and still no shutdown or restart....forced to pull power cord to shut down. Maybe I'm just not supposed to play this game. Hoping now that theres not something wrong with my Wii U.

Return the game and buy a better one, or just a different copy.

I have the exact same problem with mario. It was all fine for 3 weeks then all of a sudden froze. As of yet unable to find a fix and I am waiting for a response from nintendo

I'm thinking of returning the Wii U. Just don't think it's ready for prime time. Did a Google search for games not loading and there are many reports of the optical drives going bad and Nintendo replacing them. Maybe a have an optical drive going bad slowly. Every so often I get an unreadable disk but if I eject and put it back in it works fine. Rabbids just don't want to work at all. Operating system seems sluggish also. Maybe I just have a dud.

Bad luck.

spoke to nintendo, they want me to send the game and the console in for testing/repair!!( the game being new super mario bros u )

Frustrating for you but at least they're trying to get to the route of the problem.