Pixar has unveiled the trailer for its forthcoming animated feature Hoppers, a premise that’s as delightfully absurd as it is familiar.
Hoppers centers on Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda), a 19-year-old nature enthusiast who suddenly finds she can understand animals after acquiring a brain-interface device developed by one of her university instructors.
“The traditional methods to understand animals just weren’t working,” says one of the scientists responsible for the brain-transfer technology.
The gadget — nicknamed the “Hopper” — operates on a neural-link principle reminiscent of James Cameron’s Avatar, but with a twist: instead of inhabiting an alien body, Mabel’s consciousness is uploaded into a robotic animal form — specifically, a mechanized beaver.
Much like Jake Sully in Avatar, Mabel becomes deeply enmeshed in the lives of the creatures she now inhabits, inadvertently sparking an uprising led by a stately butterfly (voiced by Meryl Streep) and the beaver king (Bobby Moynihan), both bent on “squish[ing] the humans.” One comic set piece shows villainous Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) trapped in his car by two beavers and a lizard, who proceed to menace him using his phone’s text-to-speech feature.
Hoppers is slated to arrive in theaters sometime in March 2026.
Source: Polygon
