‘Hoppers’ Brings Pixar Back to Its Glory Days
For a long time, I’ve asked myself the following question: Have I aged out of Pixar, or has Pixar lost its magic? With Daniel Chong’s Hoppers, we finally have an answer to this question. It was the latter.
In a post-Incredibles 2 era, only Turning Red felt like the masterpieces the animation studio consistently released and pushed the medium forward in unexpected territories. For a while, we’ve had to contend with facile, predictable, and uninspired stories that lacked imagination and thematic depth, despite the always-staggering animation on display.
The story in Hoppers
Naturally, Hoppers features vibrant, detailed animation that consistently blows us away, visualizing a world in perfect harmony. In the film’s opening section, after rebel student and environmental activist Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda) attempts to free animals from their classroom captivity, Chong lets us feel the nourishing, often poetic power of nature at its most potent.
Mabel visits her grandmother (Karen Huie), who teaches her how to contain her anger by taking deep breaths outdoors and soaking in the world around her. She states, “It’s hard to feel bad when you feel like you’re a part of something big.”
This quote becomes Chong’s engine for delivering a profoundly humanist tale within an incredibly playful conceit. But the heart of the animation work can’t be overstated, as it propels the movie’s visual storytelling into a multisensory experience.
The hum of the wind, which slowly moves the water and creates a gentle stream, is felt deep within us. Each movement in an undisturbed “preserved” environment is highlighted through precise sound mixing. It reverberates in our minds, helping us experience Mabel’s connection to nature. We begin to understand why she is fighting so hard to protect a stream threatened by Mayor Jerry’s (Jon Hamm) highway project, which would destroy an entire ecosystem.
Attempting to bring a beaver back to her late grandmother’s stream, which would prevent the project from moving forward, Mabel learns that her biology professor, Dr. Samantha Fairfax (Kathy Najimy), has been at the forefront of a “hopping” project, where a human brain is transmitted onto a robot beaver… just like Avatar.
Believing she can use this to her advantage to bring beavers back to the stream and prevent Jerry’s project from continuing construction, Mabel hops onto the beaver’s body. She travels to a pond, where no human will be able to comprehend what is ongoing—rival animals living together in harmony, after “pond rules” were conceived by beaver King George (Bobby Moynihan) to keep them out of harm’s way. Mabel starts to understand why George created these rules and why it’s imperative that the animals return to their original homes, which Jerry is currently destroying for his own greedy purposes.
This all could’ve been an incredibly formulaic, cookie-cutter story treated in the most conventional sense of the term, and Pixar might have taken that route if they didn’t get the brain behind We Bare Bears in the director’s chair. With Chong at the helm, he isn’t afraid to remind Pixar that animation shouldn’t just be about the “quest for realism” (which has mostly defined the studio since its inception), but also about creativity and formal innovation.
This Pixar film isn’t afraid to get freaky
Chong isn’t afraid to think outside the box, which is semi-required for the story he wants to tell. After all, he recognizes that this entire concept is eerily similar to the one found in James Cameron’s Avatar, but in the most reverential sense.
The story of Hoppers is very much Chong and co-screenwriter Jesse Andrews’ own. Their imagination seems boundless, particularly during its climax, as they effectively blend different types of science fiction and fantasy expressions to craft images so outlandish that an IMAX screen doesn’t seem big enough to project them on.
Spoiling anything in that regard would rob you of what Chong has in store in its incredible, jaw-dropping climax. However, it is undoubtedly the most fun Pixar has had with a film since Turning Red, which deserved better than to be unfairly dumped on a streaming service.
What’s most impressive about the movie, however, isn’t its perfectly timed (and often morbid) visual comedy or the imaginative power of Chong’s esoteric mind, but how intelligent the screenplay is. Hoppers could’ve easily fallen into the conventional traps that a story like this seems poised to highlight: a power-hungry mayor who will stop at nothing to destroy the environment until a population gets riled up and fights back. Where have I seen this before? Oh, wait, in most animated pictures that tackle this subject!
Chong doesn’t do that and instead smartly evolves the characters through their experiences. Mabel won’t be the same by the time Hoppers ends. She recognizes her mistakes and strives to accomplish more. Jerry also doesn’t fit the typical mold of the antagonist that Chong initially presents him as. It’s more than smart because it pushes animation studios to think differently and understand that audiences are tired of the same old stuff.
In Hoppers, the characters have texture. They feel human. They’re voiced by impeccable talents (Piper Curda should do more animation work). We believe in their respective journeys, without Chong necessarily sticking to “realism” in his animation. It’s always expressive and adapts itself to the unexpected turns his narrative takes.
He still manages to save room for an emotionally impactful conclusion that somehow brings the story back to where it all began, even after all the properly jubilant and downright wild stuff Chong dares to visualize on screen. Did I cry? That’s a question that only the audience in the room will know, but it certainly got me.
Final thoughts on Pixar’s Hoppers
It honestly feels like Pixar has reminded itself why it was at the forefront of the greatest animated pictures of the 21st century before their mediocre slump. There’s hope it could continue if they balance out their (never-ending) franchise fare with unique properties like this one.
Who knows if Hoppers will become a future Pixar classic, and who cares? The film will undoubtedly stand the test of time as one of their most vivid and dynamic works, at a time when they needed a reminder that innovation should always be at the forefront of every motion picture they make.
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