DVDizzy Forum

PatchofBlue wrote: ↑Sun Dec 29, 2024 5:16 pm I was going to say "I guess these guys have never heard about Avatar ..." and then I remembered that part of their pitch was literally Avatar.

“Hoppers” is helmed by BAFTA Children’s Awards winner Daniel Chong (“We Bare Bears”) and appears to bring a refreshing humor to this strikingly beautiful girl-turns-beaver modern ecological adventure. With voice talents such as Primetime Emmy winner Jon Hamm and “Saturday Night Live” actor and writer Bobby Moynihan, “Hoppers” tells the story of Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda) who wants to protect her favorite local pond from a highway construction project. To do so, she steals “Hoppers” technology, which places her consciousness into a robotic beaver and allows her to uncover mysteries within the animal world beyond her imagination.

• In animal form, Mabel saves a beaver from a bear, only to be scolded by both animals for interrupting the natural order.
• Mabel tours beaver society under the guidance of King George (voiced by Bobby Moynihan), learning “pond rules" and struggling to fit in.
• Voiced by Jon Hamm, Mayor Jerry Generazzo gets into his car to prep for a press conference, only to find animals have snuck in. Mabel texts him a warning using his phone’s speech-to-text feature, which humorously reads out every emoji.

“I think it’s good for the teaser to actually call it out,” Chong added, “because I’m sure a lot of people were, in their minds, going ‘Come on, [you’re] making Avatar again?’ But I think the joke is that it’s nothing like that. The movie will go into different places; it becomes a bit of a spy thriller and there are a lot of Mission: Impossible things in it that we were inspired by. And,” he said, “there’s a really broad comedy aspect to it too. I think there’s going to be a lot of fun to be had.”
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“When I pitched it … I did not think this was going to be the movie I was going to make,” Chong said about what would eventually become Hoppers, “It was just a thing I threw out … but Pete [Doctor] and people in leadership saw the potential of this movie, and they encouraged me to keep developing it.” That support came with a bit of a condition, though: changing the animal at the heart of the film. “I wanted to make a penguin movie,” said Chong, adding, “I really love Adélie penguins.”

“I pitched it to Pete and Pete was like, ‘I don’t think the world needs another animated penguin movie.’ He was just not having it.”

Chong was tenacious, though, revealing he “kept pitching it over and over again, and [Pete] kept giving the same note.” Finally, “after the third time,” Chong agreed to change Hoppers’ central creature, eventually landing on a beaver after some revealing research.

“I was learning about when they rewilded Yellowstone [National Park],” Chong said, adding, “they put wolves back in–it was this famous story of the rewilding of wolves there–but I think a big part of [the success] was when beavers came back. When they create their ponds and dams and lodges,” Chong shared, “they kind of restore a whole ecosystem. The habitat kind of forms, and all these other animals can live there now. These animals can be these ecosystem engineers and help everyone else survive; I think that just made me go, ‘Oh man, beavers are crazy cool.’”

It doesn’t hurt, of course, that “they’re also super cute and chunky.”
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Otherwise, Chong highlighted the movie’s comedy, saying “the comic tone that we wanted to set up is going to hopefully help separate it from any other movie. I think the movie is willing to be a little chaotic [and] a little unhinged, and we’re not afraid to be a little crazy. I think that’s going to be some of the fun of experiencing the movie.”

On the animation side, Chong worked closely with Pixar animators to create a look that emphasizes not just a “broad, crazy, comedy,” and “a grounded emotional journey,” but also a natural world that invites audiences into the story. That’s where, Chong said, Hoppers and something like The Wild Robot most likely are “trying to accomplish the same things,” namely “trying to control the chaos of nature a little bit.”
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The trailer for Hoppers is being released at an interesting time for Pixar. The studio’s last movie, Elio, underperformed at the box office despite many stellar reviews, and a long piece by The Hollywood Reporter featured testimony from Pixar employees who spoke of behind-the-scenes turmoil on the film, including what the publication called “erasure of queer themes.” Hoppers was even name-checked in the piece, with an unnamed Pixar artist stating that the film had to “tone down themes of environmentalism.”

When asked about pressures he faced on his film, Chong replied by saying “I did not experience having been censored or being told not to do things. If anything, I felt a lot of alignment. I think there was a lot of desire for the themes that we were saying in our movie.”

That said, and speaking only of Hoppers, Chong added that “The honest truth about the process, though, is that every movie here goes through so much iteration and changes a lot, and I can see, maybe, to some other people’s eyes within the studio, [how] they might see [that] it looks like things are being censored. But, really, [the movie is] just going through its natural course of iteration and stuff–at least for our movie.”

But the director admitted that taking any movie from start to finish at Pixar is no easy task. “We’re asked to do a lot, as directors, in terms of malleability and being open to changes,” Chong said. “You can get lost in the process very easily,” he added, “the movie will morph with or without you.”

Surviving that process takes a lot, the director said. “The best thing you can do is just keep grounding yourself every time you change it to make sure, ‘Is this still the movie I want to make? Is this still saying what I want to say?’ and ‘Do I still see myself in it?’” Chong shared. In addition, he continued, “Part of it is also having a good team around you who can support it, fight for it, and protect it.”

In Chong’s experience, he did have that kind of team around him, and the director especially praised the leadership of Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer Pete Doctor. “Pete Doctor does a great thing,” Chong relayed, “After notes sessions, or even after he gives a lot of notes, he’ll ask me, ‘Are you okay with all these changes? Is there anything here that’s bumping for you?’ … [He] has been amazing in making sure I'm still on the ride and I didn't fall off, and I am very grateful for that.”

“The things that I wanted this movie to say and to feel are still in the movie, so that's the best I can say for our process.”
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Daniel Chong really wants you to watch Hoppers in the movie theater. “We got to test our movie with audiences a bit for test screenings,” he said, “[and] the thing that we experienced watching our movie with an audience [is that] it’s a rollercoaster ride. People scream during the movie, they freak out, they laugh, they are shocked, they cry, and they cheer. It runs the gamut. Even in its unfinished form, we got to experience a crazy fun adventure watching it with an audience.”

“There’s a theater experience here that is so much fun.”

“That’s what I’m most excited about,” Chong finished. “I’m excited for you to see it, and I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”

PatchofBlue wrote: ↑Wed Jul 23, 2025 1:04 pm I kinda wonder whether anyone is actually seeing it as so proximate to Avatar. The specific plotpoint of jumping into a manufactured body--to infiltrate an environment that looks nothing like Pandora--isn't really enough to lead me there naturally.

PatchofBlue wrote: ↑Wed Jul 23, 2025 1:04 pm Anyways, glad we got the forum up and running again! I really enjoy posting here and reading everyone's reactions.