Pixar’s latest has a good environmental about cohabitating with animals. Of course, they do it with sci-fi and humor. Even though there’s a joke about how it’s totally not like Avatar, Beavertar would be a good name for it.
Mabel (Piper Curda) discovers a science problem where humans “hop” into animal bodies to interact with the animal kingdom. Mabel tries to rally the beavers to battle a beltway development.
Pixar always looks amazing in 4K but their attention to nature backgrounds is exquisite in Hoppers. All the little critters they designed for the characters are adorable.
There are plenty of surround sounds, too. The static of the hopper tech zips around the room. The developers’ explosions and falling trees echo. The spider even talks behind you.
20 minutes of deleted scenes (including intros) never made it past storyboards and you can see they’re not working, but there are some good jokes about animals driving and beaver King George’s past looks. Some deleted characters are not even explained because director Daniel Chong and editor Axel Geddes decided they’re not worth getting into.
Four featurettes show how Pixar artists studied the real wildlife at Yellowstone and the actors helped bring them to life. Two minutes of bloopers show flubs.