Pixar’s new film Hoppers follows Mabel Tanaka, a young environmentalist who grew up exploring a forest glade with her grandmother. When the city of Beaverton’s mayor announces plans to demolish the glade for a new highway, Mabel’s attempts to stop him go nowhere. This is until she discovers a secret university lab.
Scientists in the lab have developed a technology that transfers human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, allowing people to experience the world from an animal’s perspective. Mabel (Piper Curda) hops into a robotic beaver to rally the creatures of the glade. What she discovers there – a world governed by its own complex rules of coexistence – is far more complicated than anything she expected.
The film’s central line is spoken by Grandma Tanaka (Karen Huie) as she and Mabel sit quietly in nature: “It’s hard to be mad when you feel like you’re part of something big.” It is a simple line that anchors the film’s entire moral values.
