Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are solely those of writer Amanda Finn and do not reflect those of WDWNT or any other staff therein.

Pixar’s latest film, Hoppers, is still sitting at #1 at the box office. This heartwarming story brings audiences into the world of hopper technology that places human consciousness into a robotic animal while highlighting the importance of protecting the natural world.

Hoppers Review

Our worlds can change in the blink of an eye. Our loved ones pass away, places we have adored lose their luster, or disappear altogether. Sometimes, the world changes in ways we aren’t prepared for. And we can’t always stop these changes—we truly aren’t that different from the animals of the pond.

You see, young animal activist Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda) is trying to save the glade she visited with her grandmother. Meanwhile, Beaverton, Oregon, Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) has set his sights on building an elevated freeway over it, which will destroy the land and disrupt the ecosystems that call it home. As the place of respite she would run to in her childhood, Mabel cannot let the beautiful environment she’d grown to love be decimated for the sake of human progress.

In a last-ditch effort to stop the construction, Mabel approaches Dr. Sam Fairfax (Kathy Najimy) and her colleagues at Beaverton University, who, unbeknownst to her, have been developing technology that transfers human consciousness into a robotic animal. Using this new “Hoppers” tech, Mabel hops into a beaver robot and sets out to convince the animals to return to the glade, so the construction is forced to halt. It is only then that she realizes the societies of animals are just as complex, varied, and hierarchical as mankind’s. They even have their own royalty.

On the surface, this movie is un-beaver-lievably adorable. And if that word makes your teeth hurt, Hoppers might be too saccharine for your enjoyment. Wreck-It-Ralph would undoubtedly approve of this analysis.

In true Pixar fashion, this film asks us to get back to the basics. The screenplay by Jesse Andrews invites us to consider the meaning of community literally amongst the animals and the people, but also more broadly as it relates to the natural world. We, like the beaver, are critical to the balance of our own ecosystem. Only when we work together and obey our own “Pond Rules” can we really achieve a happy way of life. After all, “we’re all in this together,” as King George the beaver would say.

In the story concocted by Andrews and director Daniel Chong, Mabel is deeply conflicted. She wants to do right by the animals she adores without losing touch with her human self. When Mabel is confronted with the very real threats made by the Animal Council (comprising different animal classes like amphibians, insects, birds, etc.), she realizes that she may be in over her head. Anyone who has fought tooth and nail for a cause knows exactly what that feeling is like. Despite being a family film with a bar set for the enjoyment of the kiddos in the audience, these deeply human themes hit home.

Between every silly Tom Lizard moment, goofy King George quip, or spoken text emoji joke, there is a ton of heart. It is clear from the first scene, when Mabel is rescuing the elementary school classroom pets, that this film was made with love at its forefront. Mabel is a young, eager beaver college student who wants to make her mark on the world and leave it a little better than she found it—don’t we all?

Beyond Mabel’s story of self-discovery, Hoppers is a digestible tale of environmental morality. It doesn’t solve deforestation or halt climate change in its tracks. But what it does is enrich the conversation. It begs viewers, young and old, to think about how we treat the natural world. In its way, Pixar is asking us to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, er, paws for some perspective. And this heartwarming film did that dam well.

Overall, I’d give this movie “six and a half chopped wood logs”