Hoppers, a new Pixar film from directors Jesse Andrews and Daniel Chung, is being released worldwide. Its main character, student Mabel, decides to transfer her consciousness into a robotic beaver using new technology; This will allow her to join the animal world – and will encourage them to rebel against the construction of the highway. The plan works until the animals start planning to kill people. Film critic Anton Dolin explains why this film, which poses uncomfortable questions about humans’ relationships with animals and ourselves, turns out to be more nuanced than the similar concept of “Avatar.”
I have to admit: I’m partial to beavers; I have loved and respected them since childhood. This may have influenced my attitude towards the new full-length animated film “Jumpers” from Pixar – which is great, in my opinion. Most viewers agree with me so far. The film had a surprisingly cheerful start at the box office, with almost rave reviews. The contrast with the studio’s previous creativity is stark: The derivative and confusing “Elio” has become a symbol of the creative crisis plaguing Pixar, which once earned its reputation for original, always incongruous plots. Obviously, “Jumpers” will help restore your reputation.
I do not rule out that the reason is in the personalities of the co-creators, writer and screenwriter Jesse Andrews (“Luca” from the same company Pixar) and director Daniel Chung (thematically related series “We Bare Bears”), who found the exact intonation and balance between genres. But, of course, in choosing heroes as well. The original concept involved penguins, and studio head Pete Docter rightly pointed out that there were already enough cartoons about them. Whether it’s beavers.
In a fictional human city, the American Beaverton, populist Mayor Jerry Ginrazzo, like all politicians, is building a new highway just in time for the election. For this purpose, a small pond with a dam built by beavers is destroyed. No one cares about this: after all, the animals from the surrounding area have long since left. The only brave warrior standing in Ginrazo’s way is student environmental activist Mabel Tanaka.
The battle takes an unexpected turn when Mabel seizes experimental equipment from a university lab and transfers her consciousness into the body of a robotic beaver. So I was able to infiltrate the beaver community and try to convince them to join the active struggle for their rights. The nuance is that the animals, swept away by the confrontation, decide to unite and kill Mayor Genrazzo.
At first glance, it seems that “Prygunov” (the name refers to the transfer technology) has something in common with “Avatar”; There’s even a separate joke about this in the movie. They are also united by environmental compassion. However, while watching, I couldn’t help but think of another analogy – Paul Thomas Anderson’s Battle After Battle. After all, the central conflict of “Jumpers” is the same cartoonish war of opposing and incompatible ideologies resorting to extreme methods in an attempt to prove that they are right.
Bureaucratic politicians play a dirty role, recklessly abusing power, with money and bulldozers on their side. But this is all clear in advance. Andrews and Chung deal most deftly with the fiery activist Mabel, who inherited from her Japanese grandmother a desire for oneness with nature, but is unable to tame her violent temper. In her quest for justice, the heroine of “Jumpers” destroys everything in her path, upsetting the natural balance and leading the world into a disaster worse than the ill-fated highway promised.
Is it really possible to abandon your tribe and join the ranks of the animals if you are human to the core? Perhaps Pixar’s writers asked this question more seriously than the idealist James Cameron.
“Jumpers” captivates with its soft, sarcastic humor and animation that combines hyper-realistic detail with gentle, slightly cartoonish imitation. The transition from human optics to animal optics was especially successful – the image changes instantly: facial expressions, speech, and even the appearance of the characters. However, the main innovation of animation is its content.
Science fiction is a technical bridge to connect the two worlds of genre and subject matter. On the one hand, “Jumpers” is an environmental satire based on a very recognizable and relatable situation. On the other hand, an uncompromising fairy tale: Once in the animal world, Mabel is surprised to learn that she has not only her own laws, but even kings and queens (naturally with little crowns on the heads of a beaver, frog, snake or fish). Unexpectedly, it turns out that biological scientific truth does not contradict a fairy tale, they are harmoniously reflected in each other – contrary to the ideas of left-wing activists who demand the unattainable equality of people and animals.
Pixar has challenged traditional anthropocentrism from the beginning. Their films are set in the worlds of insects (The Adventures of Flick, in the original A Bug’s Life), fish (Finding Nemo, Finding Dory), and reptiles (The Good Dinosaur). The fantasy plot about the transformation of a person into an animal and the acquisition of the hero – by the way, in all cases the heroine – is developed in “Brave” and “I Blush” a radically different vision of the universe and his role in it. But, perhaps, never before have studio directors approached the question of what traits are unique to humans, what are our advantages and our curses. Simply put, how we are not different from animals and how very similar we are to them.
Without arrogance or simplification, by combining ancient traditions with the spirit of technological progress, Zhong and Andrews have formulated a complete philosophy of harmonious coexistence – a philosophy that is exquisitely virtuous, yet scientifically grounded and meaningful. This allows us to at least partially understand how people (even so-called “good people” with good intentions) succeeded in bringing the planet to its current sorry state.
Kira Muratova once joked that if every person on Earth read Tolstoy, they would become kind and smart. Today it seems like there’s no better way to teach crazy humanity wisdom and compassion than to show Pixar cartoons more often. Like patient beavers, California animators do not give up in the face of the threat of global flooding and continue to build their own dam based on common sense and goodness, stick by stick, record by record.